On Easter Morning the residents of New York city found a headstone engraved with the name of the presidential candidate Donald Trump in Central Park.
Originally appeared at KP, translated by Caspersky exclusively for SouthFront
When scandal is beneficial
In the evening, the object of ‘citizenry creation’ was removed by officials of the park, but not before photos of it spread across social media amassing millions of reposts.
Apparently, the liberal public has crossed all ethical boundaries. But ‘burials’ in Central Park are not the first dirty provocation against Trump. For what name have they not called him, and to whom have they not compared him!
However, engraving a headstone is a completely legal action. Political agitations of all kind are allowed by the FA right in the US. Therefore, calling a person Hitler, Mussolini, or even (shame on them) the devil himself, is not prohibited.
And nor did Trump, apparently, deliver a retaliatory punch below the belt.
Firstly, he has enough work without it. On that very day, he was celebrating an addition to his already large family. His eldest daughter, Ivanka, gave birth to a son, Theodore, Trump’s eighth grandchild. Alas, the race for the White House is unrelenting.
Secondly, Donald has proven himself to be a stubborn person, almost impregnable. He manages to turn any criticism or scandal to his benefit. For the voter, furious with the establishment in Washington, these scandals and criticism are unnecessary distractions, which only further benefit the Trump ballot. Anyone curses, Donald benefits.
I believe, that if the headstone in New York would stand for a few more days, the presidential candidate would allocate a few hours to fly to the Big Apple and take a picture in front of the headstone, smiling from ear to ear, and flipping his middle finger. On Twitter, he would write something like this: “They want to bury me. But we’re actually going to bury them.” Nevertheless, his ratings would immediately increase.
He spoke, when everyone was silent
Donald Trump – an election phenomenon. Decades of methods, honed to oppose any unfavorable candidate, including negative publicity, are completely powerless against him. Even the best trained candidate would succumb from just a tenth of the insults and sneers that Trump has been a subject to in the last half a year. But Donald, he just shrugs it off. “They talk like this because they are losing,” Trump would say on stage at a rally or on your Television screen, and the voters would believe it.
They believe it for one simple reason: there is no one else. All faith has been lost in the liberal press and professional politics in Washington. Trump even dared to step out in opposition, and says things which, beforehand, were unspeakable in a proper American society: NATO is obsolete, America doesn’t ally itself with whom is needed to fight world terrorism, and the numerous lobby groups in Washington act against the national interests of the United States and its citizens…
Who would stand for this?! The main slogan of political strategists and mediacrats became “Stop Trump.” When it became apparent that their slogan wouldn’t be realized after the first half of the primaries, they tacitly added, “at all costs.”
There were many provocations along the way. Well organized groups of youngsters of various radical movements – from Occupy Wall Street to Black Lives Matter – began to appear at pre-election Trump events to provoke violence. The first serious raucous happened in Chicago. The wail of the press rose indescribably. The logic in numerous publications was ‘iron’: since this is the only candidate whose rallies are a place for violence, then…this candidate himself is to blame.
The only fact that lends a silver lining to the clashes in Chicago was that the provocateurs, who were predominantly black, were chased away by men who were predominantly white. The conclusion was almost ideal: the American voter must now see that all Trump supporters are rabid racists!
But even that didn’t work. A Washington Post survey showed that at Trump rallies the provacateurs were first to blame for the riots, then Trump’s supporters, and only then Trump himself.
Is the ‘voters will’ given due consideration?
This turn of events wasn’t fully unexpected. The disruption of a political opponent’s event, followed by accusations of deadly sins is a dirty recourse, but not at all new. The elections of Kennedy, Nixon, and even Ronald Reagan were fraught with threats and riots. Frankly, the last few decades of American politics have been boring, and everything has been forgotten…
And so the reasoning goes, for whatever there may have been in American history, for the sake of preventing the ‘wrong’ politician obtaining power, democracy and free speech can be forgone. To what extent, depends on the degree of danger.
While reading the American press, we suddenly begin to realize surprising things. That the founding fathers of the United States “actually disliked authentic democracy,” that the will of the voter is certainly not essential in choosing a suitable leader of the country, that any manipulations at the party convention, and even the electoral college, are justified, if ‘the country is in danger.’
Even the MSM was threatened with punishment. Since Trump became the classical example of how any publicity is good publicity, the media ‘proved’ to be largely guilty for the non-establishment candidate’s growth in popularity. So much so, that now the press shouldn’t only forget about ratings, but also about its calling as ‘the press,” and it better begin ignoring the leader of the race. Journalists’ duty? Ah, they’re full of it! The first duty of a journalist is to ‘stop Trump,’ what’s left is trifles.
This, all, is never discussed in the lobbies, nor in the cigarette clubs, nor in symposiums of secret societies. It’s openly spoken about on the pages of leading magazines and on air on the main television networks.
Lets fast forward to the funeral of democracy
I’ll admit, the establishment is substantially concerned. But the question: how will they persuade the world to accept their model of democracy in the future, if they themselves have publicly betrayed it? What American soft power can anyone speak about at all after this, if the United States can no longer appeal to its own ideal?
And not a sound is heard from our own liberal camps? Why don’t they vocalize their resentment for the doom of democracy in America? That they never believed in genuine democracy, I understand. And I also understand the a president-pragmatist in the White House who speaks kindly of Putin, is a nightmare for them. After all, there is something larger at stake. It’s one thing when your idol is an archetype for democracy, and heaven for the free press, but quite another when he suppresses freedom and democracy ‘for the good of the cause.’
How then, does one curse the regime? And, how best to position yourself? If they stop Trump by non-democratic means, who will our liberals hail as the vanquisher of totalitarianism? I’m convinced that they’re already preparing their explanation, that democracy must be ‘properly’ understood, that not every kind of democracy is beneficial, that some are quite the opposite.
The headstone in the New York City park is not worth throwing into a landfill. It needs to be taken to a granite workshop. To be reworked. It shouldn’t have the name Donald Trump, but the words ‘American democracy.’
Just in case Washington actually decided to realize its plans.
