Clowns can be so much fun. They can also be scary. Don’t let that smile, silliness, and joie de vivre fool you. Think “Joker,” aka, “the Clown Prince of Crime.”
It’s easy to make fun of The Don as a dithering clown. Indeed he has earned that for all the incompetence and absurdity he demonstrates daily. However, we must keep our eyes on the fact that, in some ways, he is “The Joker,” incarnate. After all, like the Joker, The Don is committed to chaos, the destruction of institutions, and creating misery.
For many, the Don’s (and Joker’s) appeal is the channeling of what Carl Jung termed the shadow, the dark side of the psyche. It is precisely because the Joker bombs and murders and corrupts that so many viewers get a kick out of watching him. His actions cause panic and a breakdown of order. He is an anti-hero and an anarchist. He acts in ways that we sometimes wish we could, deep down, and we get a vicarious rush out of seeing him indulge in such behavior, without us actually engaging in any of these immoral acts. Who hasn’t thought: God, I would love to kill my asshole boss; strangle my mother-in-law?
The Don’s capacity to give voice to grievance, to let it rip, to say and do things that titillate, make him America’s anti-hero. His supporters love that he has the nerve to tear it all down. They revel in his comments like “punch him in the face,” or shoot them in the legs,” referring to protestors after the murder of George Floyd.
There is one significant difference. The Joker isn’t in the chaos business for profit, nor is he in it to seek revenge against specific people: He is in it for the chaos itself. He wants to bring down Batman because he is the protector of the good. The Joker’s actions are not personal: He wants neither traditional power nor mere blind destruction; instead, he seeks to prove a philosophical point about the fragility of human order and morality.
The Don is all about profit and power. He uses chaos to undo our belief in institutions in order to control us. But unlike the Joker, he is not an anarchist (though he does sow chaos) but an aspiring autocrat.
His goal is to achieve absolute power by sowing division, chaos and tearing it all down. His objective is to exhaust us through his shenanigans, induce helplessness and just give up. And importantly, despite what his followers believe, he has no interest in building anything back up to make their lives better. Evil clown stuff.
Though there is some erosion of support for his antics, it still boggles the mind that so many Republican lawmakers remain silent or even support his attempt to dismantle our country.
Let’s take the CDC as a poignant example. Respected around the world as the north star of research, RFK Jr. has cut 30% of its staff, leaving it in shambles. The fact is more people will die and we are less prepared for an epidemic than we were during Covid. In addition, millions of people are losing their healthcare because of rising costs and the undoing of the subsidies that enable people to afford Obamacare. What could be the rationale for making people sicker and increasing the mortality rate?
We can say without equivocation that cruelty is not a bug, but a feature, of those in charge. But far more than that, it is part of the overall 2025 playbook to uproot lives and bring the entire country to its knees so the White Christian Right can take over the country. You might be thinking that I’m being a conspiracy theorist or gone a bit crazy, but I feel pretty cleared-eyed about this. The Don’s (and his evil clown masterminds) don’t want to Make America Great; they want to remake America in their image. In order to do that they have to destroy everything, which allows them to assume power.
It’s old news that The Don loves cozying up to dictators. He admires their strength and control of the people they rule. He wants President Xi of China to admire him. Please love me Mr. Xi. I admire you sooooo much. I wish I could have your power. Xi laughs at him like the clown he is. He watches The Don diminish himself and all of us when he shows off his new helipad or the construction of his ballroom. It is pathetic. Does The Don believe that these things impress Xi? Clown, clown, clown.
The recent banning of CNN, MS Now and Politico from the White House was straight out of the authoritarian playbook. He sees Putin and Xi controlling what can be said and suppressing any dissent. He wants that, desperately. He knows without that control he can’t achieve the power he wants.
The good news is that most news organizations stood in solidarity with the three banned media outlets and the court ruled against The Don. The White House reluctantly gave back the press passes and started covering him again. Unfortunately, CNN is still banned from Air Force One. Frankly, I wish the networks would have boycotted coverage until CNN had its Air One privileges restored.
The Don’s attack on the press is not over; this time the courts saw straight through their bogus defense of national security concerns. To be sure, he will go back to the drawing board and look for new ways to suppress rigorous and fact based reporting. This will play out intensely during the midterm elections as The Don will use his bully pulpit and bull horn to continue to sow chaos and doubt into people’s belief that the results are fair. The Don knows his party will take a shellacking, but does it really matter if he convinces people the election wasn’t valid and takes actions like seizing voting machines and declaring a national emergency so he can consolidate his power and claim to need to seize full control?
The Don decided to launch Trump TV, hoping he could compete with state controlled RT (Russia TV). So far it has generated little interest in the U.S. and rumor has it that he called Putin and Xi to get their advice and opinions of America’s greatest new channel. They laughed and said, “It’s great. It’s so funny, particularly the lead clown. The people of our countries love it. It has become the number one show”.
