“A foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great was its fall!”
Jesus - Matthew 7:26-27
I do not intend to take anything away from Joe Biden and the Democrats, nor to criticize them. However, regardless of what you think of Donald Trump and the movement identified with him, they are on center stage in the US right now. Nor am I interested in any sort of political advocacy. Rather, I want to explore my ponderings about human propensities and vulnerabilities. Historical dynamics are certainly in play. Insights from literature, such as in MacBeth and Richard III, highlight the human universality of our present day that extend well beyond politics.
Since the 2020 election, Donald Trump has certainly consolidated his power and control in the Republican Party. The people in the Trump movement are unswervingly loyal and vocal in their support. Recent changes in electoral policies and practices in several states clearly favor those who will receive Trump support in the 2022 midterm elections and make a successful run for the Presidency by Donald Trump in 2024 seem plausible.
On the other side of this is the gathering storm of impending crises for Donald Trump and the people and organizations surrounding him. The legal and political efforts to get his tax returns made public still continue. Several legal actions pending against a variety of Trump enterprises and organizations. The rejection of the results of the 2020 election is not relenting. The January 6 storming of the US Capital has brought both criminal and civil proceedings against those who participated. The conflict between Trump and his people with the Congressional committee investigating January 6 keeps these tensions in public view.
I sense we are witnessing something of a collision of the irresistible force and the immovable object. I tend to see Trump et al as the immovable object and the gathering storm as the irresistible force. Others may find reversing that to be more meaningful. Or perhaps it is like a cyclotron accelerating particles to crash them into a target of very heavy atoms splitting their nuclei and releasing a tremendous burst of energy. Or maybe two gargantuan black holes colliding in the deep reaches of space soaking up everything in proximity to their gravity.
I am neither making a prediction nor preferring an outcome for what seems it could define the course of our society for generations to come. Will the Trump movement collapse on itself like colliding cultural black holes? Will it release a burst of energy that reinvents the US and sends it in unanticipated directions? Will there be long term immobility and division as the forces in play strive against each other with neither making any headway? I am not looking for definitive answers to resolve these and a myriad of related questions. Rather I am inviting other thoughtful people to enter into serious discernment of our times.
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