Donald Trump at The New York Times

Apparently the United States has shifted into a new reality wherein someone like Donald Trump, proven beyond question to be incompetent, criminal, irresponsible, ignorant, petulant, childish, narcissistic, vindictive, prejudiced, bigoted, racist, Islamophobic, misogynistic, fascistic, authoritarian, insensitive, erratic, disturbed and irrational can be elected President of the United States by a significant minority of the voters.

Even more astounding, in this new, magical United States of Make Believe, once someone like Trump, clearly unqualified and unacceptable by any previously held reasonable standard, is elected (by the minority of the voters), many seem to believe that all of those same appallingly disqualifying characteristics and actions are magically absolved and forgotten. He’s now considered legitimate, serious and normal.

While his election may be legitimate, Donald Trump the presidential candidate was an abomination, and President-Elect Trump is still an abomination. Even if we were to accept that everything he did and said during the campaign was a fabrication designed to win, he still would be an disgrace for having perpetrated such a grand fraud.

And so, in this magical new denial reality, all the hypocrites come out in droves. One of the most notable being Mitt Romney, who had this to say just months ago:

“Here’s what I know: Donald Trump is a phony, a fraud. His promises are as worthless as a degree from Trump University. He’s playing members of the American public for suckers: He gets a free ride to the White House, and all we get is a lousy hat.”

“Dishonesty is Donald Trump’s hallmark”

“Hitting on married women? Condoning assault? Such vile degradations demean our wives and daughters and corrupt America’s face to the world.”

Yet in the new United States of Make Believe, all the vile, stinking truth about Donald Trump is conveniently forgiven and/or forgotten when it stands in the way of the self-interested hypocrites like Romney, who’s now courting Trump for a possible appointment. Romney is just one of a long list of Republicans who once condemned Trump, some even calling for him to withdraw from the race, but are now clamoring for a piece of the action for their own self-interested purposes.

Most of the major news reporters and commentators also slipped effortlessly into the new realm of denial and amnesia within hours of the projected election results. Without even blinking they switched into political sportscaster mode, relishing the mysteries, the intrigue, the power plays and strategies as if it were all just a fascinating game, all the while missing the huge story: that the United States and the world face potentially perilous and uncertain risk from a man who conducted his entire campaign like a reality TV show; a man who has not the slightest qualification to be President, but who likes to play one on TV. As Bill Maher once said,

“He doesn’t want to be president, he just wants to be called The President.”

So what if he actually does or says something good? That still doesn’t change the appalling truths of who he is and what he’s done, and continues to do. In his November 23 column, The New York Times’ Charles Blow stated it well:

“You don’t get a pat on the back for ratcheting down from rabid after exploiting that very radicalism to your advantage. Unrepentant opportunism belies a staggering lack of character and caring that can’t simply be vanquished from memory. You did real harm to this country and many of its citizens, and I will never — never — forget that.”

Referring to Trump’s meeting with the paper’s Editorial Board, Blow said:

“I will say proudly and happily that I was not present at this meeting. The very idea of sitting across the table from a demagogue who preyed on racial, ethnic and religious hostilities and treating him with decorum and social grace fills me with disgust, to the point of overflowing. Let me tell you here where I stand on your “I hope we can all get along” plea: Never.

You are an aberration and abomination who is willing to do and say anything — no matter whom it aligns you with and whom it hurts — to satisfy your ambitions.

I don’t believe you care much at all about this country or your party or the American people. I believe that the only thing you care about is self-aggrandizement and self-enrichment. Your strongest allegiance is to your own cupidity.

I also believe that much of your campaign was an act of psychological projection, as we are now learning that many of the things you slammed Clinton for are things of which you may actually be guilty.

You slammed Clinton for destroying emails, then Newsweek reported last month that your companies “destroyed emails in defiance of court orders.” You slammed Clinton and the Clinton Foundation for paid speeches and conflicts of interest, then it turned out that, as BuzzFeed reported, the Trump Foundation received a $150,000 donation in exchange for your giving a 2015 speech made by video to a conference in Ukraine. You slammed Clinton about conflicts of interest while she was secretary of state, and now your possible conflicts of interest are popping up like mushrooms in a marsh.

You are a fraud and a charlatan. Yes, you will be president, but you will not get any breaks just because one branch of your forked tongue is silver.

I am not easily duped by dopes.

I have not only an ethical and professional duty to call out how obscene your very existence is at the top of American government; I have a moral obligation to do so.

I’m not trying to convince anyone of anything, but rather to speak up for truth and honor and inclusion. This isn’t just about you, but also about the moral compass of those who see you for who and what you are, and know the darkness you herald is only held at bay by the lights of truth.

It’s not that I don’t believe that people can change and grow. They can. But real growth comes from the accepting of responsibility and repenting of culpability. Expedient reversal isn’t growth; it’s gross.

So let me say this on Thanksgiving: I’m thankful to have this platform because as long as there are ink and pixels, you will be the focus of my withering gaze.

I’m thankful that I have the endurance and can assume a posture that will never allow what you represent to ever be seen as everyday and ordinary.

No, Mr. Trump, we will not all just get along. For as long as a threat to the state is the head of state, all citizens of good faith and national fidelity — and certainly this columnist — have an absolute obligation to meet you and your agenda with resistance at every turn.

I know this in my bones, and for that I am thankful.”

Can I get an Amen?! Thank you Mr. Blow, and thank you to every person with a good heart and a good mind and the courage to stand up and state the truth: That the Emperor is a disgrace, that he’s missing those things that are much more important than clothes, like integrity, honesty, competence, intelligence, knowledge, discernment, wisdom, and above all, a genuine concern and compassion for the people of our country and the world.