‘Jumping off a cliff to feel the breeze’

I’m too out of touch to know if Facebook is truly defunct, or just feels that way. An enormous virtual senior facility where aging Boomers show off our lunches and post wildly unflattering pictures of themselves in hospital beds. Not life, but a pallid imitation, a faint echo of the real thing, that red hot dynamo humming somewhere else, far, far away.

Yet I toss my column up on Facebook every morning, and check the “Memories” section, which sometimes reminds me of things I’d rather forget.

”So let’s review, shall we?” I posted on Oct. 16, 2016. “Donald Trump refuses to accept the basic mechanism of our democracy, the orderly transition of power after an election, citing imaginary voter fraud. ... Yet millions are voting for him. I just don’t get it.”

A plea, obviously. Facebook must have had more pep six years ago: 172 comments followed, many eerily current.

“Q: Which is more important to Donald Trump: the stability and legitimacy of our electoral process and the orderly operation of our government, or his own oversized, yet fragile, ego?” asked Dave Magdziarz. “A: It’s his very own damn “TRUMP” ® brand ego.”

In case you forgot: anticipating defeat, Trump was doubting the validity of voting.

“This election is a sham and a travesty. We are not a democracy” Trump tweeted after Barack Obama defeated Mitt Romney in the 2012 election.. “We can’t let this happen. We should march on Washington and stop this travesty.”

Now, with the 2022 midterms approaching, and the baldly hypocritical formula (Legit if I win, bogus if I lose) is back. As is his man-the-ramparts rhetoric.

”We should have a revolution in this country,” Trump tweeted, a decade ago. And now we are having one. First with the Jan. 6 insurrection, the Act 1 prelude, followed by Act 2: literally hundreds of Republican office seekers and millions of committed followers all embracing the same Big Lie. Loyal serfs, they parrot Trump for ... I’m not sure why. The simple joy of serving their master, I suppose.

Of course Democrats are disillusioned and exhausted, despite holding Congress, barely, and the presidency. We aren’t out of the woods; we’ve barely entered them.

In 2016, Republican Facebook friends still bothered to try to explain themselves. They knew who to blame: anyone but themselves.

“The fact that you and millions of Democrats don’t ‘get it’ is the problem,” wrote David Haynes. “The media gave Trump hundreds of millions of dollars in free coverage during the primary and turned the primary process on its ear, to the detriment of 16 other candidates. And we got Trump. Democrats have consistently dismissed any Republican ideas, instead calling us names, i.e. deplorable, stupid, evil, or worse.“

Associated Press

If only Republicans cared half as much about embracing rank stupidity as they do about being called stupid.

Now, Democrats fall over ourselves struggling to understand the GOP betrayal of core American values and basic human dignity. Six years ago, they had no trouble saying exactly what is going on.

“It is easy to explain his support. Some folks hate brown and black people more than they love their country,” one friend wrote. “Some folks hate liberals more than they love their country.”

“Many (most?) Trump supporters are voting because of racial prejudice: a black man became president and good Lord Almighty! What next?” wrote Noel Brusman.

Six years ago, there was still conversation. A reader — actually a high school friend — carefully explained the assorted reasons Trump supporters believe what they do.

I replied:

“I think you are mistaking motivation with justification. A man who loses his job, is plunged into despair, etc., might have a number of valid REASONS to murder his family in a fit of insanity. That doesn’t justify doing it. I understand all the various beliefs and situations that might prompt a person to back Trump. I just can’t imagine actually doing it. The phrase I coined in his honor is, ‘It’s like jumping off a cliff to feel the breeze.’ Don’t assume because I don’t agree means I don’t get it. I do. You think people who support Hillary Clinton don’t have woes?”

It’s hard to summarize 172 comments. One reader quoted “The Dark Knight,” struggling to explain Trumpism, to the extent it can be explained, then or now:

“Some people just want to watch the world burn, Neil.”