Dymitri Harszewski, Blog 1660

[Photograph of Dymitri Haraszewski]

Dreading the Donald

Originally written Dec. 2024
Sent Sept. 2025
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(*Note. I wrote the following post wayyy back around Dec. 2024. In between brutal bouts of Covid and Norovirus. I strongly regret not sending it in back then. I'd wanted to get a copy of my old 2016 post about Trump's first election, just for comparison, and that took longer than I expected. By the time a copy was sent to me, I was sick and sick again, then by the time all that was over, around February/March 2025, this just seemed old, and I had no momentum here any longer. I should've followed through. Please do tell me what you think.)

The first time Donald Trump was elected, like Melania, I really didn't care. (You all remember her infamous coat, right?) To me, Hillary Clinton had represented the very worst of government evils - she was the stereotypical status-quo-strengthening power monger, so I definitely did not want her to be president. At the same time, I had no real desire to see Trump as president either, other than that I thought his buffoonery might just provide a catalyst for genuine revolutionary resistance and change. Bear in mind, I'm talking about 2016, and in 2016, that was Trump's only value in my eyes. More fundamentally, I just never cared much, not in 2016 nor in any of the elections during my lifetime, which of two essentially carbon-copy candidates got elected: Republicrat, Democlan... none of that has ever mattered to me. I've never believed it would make any meaningful difference for my life one way or the other who was warming the chair on the Oval Office; and so far, it never has. Even Trump 2016 seemed that way to me at the time, that he was just another president, and they're always essentially the same - all just statistics, plain and simple. But now, Trump 2.0, 2024-style... this time it really feels like something different. Much different. This time, I'm genuinely scared.

When Trump was first elected in 2016, I had two main thoughts about it. First, I thought, "Wow, this is really pretty funny! 'President Donald Trump'... Lol!" And "L" I did, often and "O.I.". What I'd wished most was that my parents could've lived to see what we'd done to ourselves. Especially my dad. He'd have appreciated the joke, I'm sure. But either way, the idea of a real life "President Trump" made me smile; it made me chuckle. It was clear we'd elected an actual clown, and I was ready to be entertained. I felt a sense of absurdity from it all, but never any fear. My primary reaction was, "Hmmm... maybe this is a real opportunity?" What I see now is that I wasn't the only one thinking those exact words, though others were perceiving the opportunity very differently.

It's no secret that I'm anarchist, and that I want to see the government fail, fall, and disintegrate completely. What's often misunderstood is that I don't pine for governmental collapse because I want or enjoy chaos, though. Not at all. I want government to crumble because I sincerely believe that ending the governance of people is the only way to end the real chaos and calamity in our lives, or at least a good part of it. Anarchy - that is, society without state - is the only way we will ever stop the horrors of militarized corporate consumerism, at least if we hope to stop short of the decimation of our species to effect the extinction of our addiction to governance. A radical reboot of one kind or another, voluntary or otherwise, is necessary, because all States exist primarily to protect the dominant form of power, which in this country is synonymous with the tradition of accumulated wealth built on exploitation. I want anarchy because I want a happier, safer, and friendlier world for everyone, and I'm convinced that the only way to get to true peace, a peace that isn't just the routinization of violence on the government's terms, is to abandon statism entirely. That's why the original 2016 Trump presidency gave me some hope, small but real, that maybe my overtly anti-statist brethren would finally be sufficiently motivated to create the new realities we dream of, new worlds for people who are tired of this ceaseless cycle of meaningless death and suffering that we all live in now (though some are more sheltered from it than other). But as we know, nothing of the sort ever happened, putting aside the short-lived spirit of 2020, and so I felt we squandered our chance. However, I had also believed that the consequence of such squandering was merely the continuation of life as we'd known it for the previous 60 years or so - the post-civil-rights era and the rise of reactionary neo-liberalism. Not a good outcome, but also not the greatest imaginable tragedy, either. It was always the most likely outcome, obviously; this continuation of our historical collective obedience to our often abusive rulers was the only thing anyone ever should've expected to see. Thus, the outcome of the 2016-2024 period seemed to me to be really just the same thing that's followed every "new" presidency in my lifetime: more of the same.

This time, however, in 2024 and beyond, I don't think we're in for more of the same anymore. I think something much more ominous is in the air, and I'm genuinely afraid that these newly strengthened winds will blow considerably more repression and terror in with them.

Many people don't like when 2024 Donald Trump is analogized with 1934 Adolph Hitler, and I don't blame them. Comparisons to Hitler are almost always hyperbole, but it's not impossible that they might sometimes be valid, too. This appears to be one of those times. The examples of similarity between Donald and Adolph seem endless: The vitriolic dehumanizing language toward our groups; the calls for censure and censorship of individuals or media that threaten his image or aims; that universal hallmark of fascism - condescending control; the stoking of and pandering to fears of "crime" and unrest; the cultivation of grievance to be relieved by both governmental and (tactically endorsed) personal aggression; the implication or blatant insistence that all these (manufactured) problems can be solved by one strong leader, in this case Mr Trump. It seems to me we're at the start of a Golden Age of Authoritarianism, with out own Donald Trump as the open and unabashed vanguard demagogue, transparently power seeking for the sake of power alone. That makes him especially dangerous because, in addition to his wallowing in the standard, shallow, Big-Daddy-Will-Protect-You (And-You-Shall-Obey) mentality that's inculcated by virtually all schooling and most other social institutions, Trump will almost certainly serve the interests of anyone he perceives as keeping him in power. He seems to have no original thoughts in his head at all, nor nay qualms about the consequences of his actions - all of which are based on the goals of others who manipulate him - so long as they don't obviously weaken his personal position. His ideological vacancy makes him ripe for exploitation by deeper agenda, something like a teenager embracing the latest corporate-orchestrated fad, a purely self-serving and one-dimensional creature with no concern for, or even awareness of, the suffering he will inevitably create for people of no material or political value to him. I truly believe is one of the very stupidest human beings I've ever seen rise to his level of fame, and now we've elevated this man-baby and ex-entertainer to the position of Most Powerful Man in the World. Again.

Wait - remind me. Who's the idiot in this situation?

This whole bizarre scenario is so obviously Donald Trump's golden-hued wet dream, and we'll all be left wiping his sticky mess off our faces for decades to come... unless in the near future some brave folks decide to build new ways, now, while the old ways are weak with rot. It's a goal, an effort, that we need to talk about, frequently, loudly, and seriously, because, as it was put in the novel Ender's Game: "There are times when the world is rearranging itself, and at times like that, the right words can change the world."

Clearly, now is a time of such rearrangement, a unique opportunity to make new worlds, and it seems we'd better not squander this shot again, because once this particular plaster sets, it may be a lifetime before any re-arranging will occur again.