Alan Zendell, August 8, 2023

My writer friends would be appalled: two clichés in one title! But clichés play a important role in our communication. They represent extreme, yet all too common examples of human nature and often illuminate situations we’d rather ignore. In this case, the two clichés fit together hand in glove (oops, there’s another one.)

Rats will gnaw their own legs off to escape a trap. When cornered, they will attack almost anything and fight to their last gasps. They display mindless frenzy driven entirely by survival instinct. Implicit in the phrase “cornered rat” is a creature acting without restraint that is incapable of rational thought, reason, or any sense of retreat or compromise.

Humans behave that way either when they are terrified beyond reason or completely lacking in moral or ethical principles. We behave like feral animals for two reasons. In a single event it’s a response to either panic or hopelessness, like a lone soldier who charges a machine-gun nest lobbing grenades. If the behavior is chronic, we’re dealing with a sociopath.

A rational person facing hopeless odds either concedes defeat or resorts to a Hail Mary – a 99-yard pass with one second left on the clock, a half-court shot at the buzzer. As fierce as competition and the drive to win are, when that last-second shot bounces harmlessly off the rim, the game is over. Opponents shake hands, ready to play another day. That’s what reasonable people do, but nothing short of death or restraint by overwhelming force can stop a sociopath. We applaud the competitor who fights to the end, but we applaud loudest the competitor who knows when the game is over and knows the difference between opponents and enemies.

Sociopaths obsessed with power appear in every generation. When they sense vulnerability, they strike. They succeed because most of us are unprepared for no-holds-barred aggression and a take-no-prisoners approach to people who disagree with them. (Yep, two more clichés.) If they try a Hail Mary that fails, they cry foul to extend the game, resorting to every conceivable underhanded trick and tactic until they are forcefully defeated. Negotiation and compromise are not in their vocabulary. Because all they understand is force, the results of their actions are often war, chaos, and destruction.

Americans are about to endure the most horrifying year of our lives, worse than nine-eleven and Vietnam. A man with neither scruples nor compassion for anyone but himself has taken over and redefined one of our major political parties, turning a principled movement based on moral integrity and conservative values into a platform for hate and extremism that respects neither the rule of law nor the Constitution. And somehow, his lies and sickly distorted view of reality have convinced more than a third of the country that he is a martyr acting on their behalf.

Donald Trump will stop at nothing until he is crushed or he destroys everything around him. He is the most serious existential threat our democracy and Constitution have ever faced. Even the Civil War didn’t pose that kind of threat. It was a symptom, not a cause. The Civil War didn’t split our nation in two – we were badly broken before the South seceded.

Trump is an inciter who won’t stop until he achieves his goals or destroys 250 years of progress. He will never quit voluntarily. He will lie and bluster and convince those he dupes into contributing their hard-earned dollars to pay his unprecedented legal fees and fund his divisive campaign to retake the presidency. If the courts or the voters don’t stop him, he will push the United States to the breaking point, and we will all have ringside seats over the next fifteen months. But if we treat this as the crisis it is, we can end it once and for all.

Georgia is about to indict Trump for attempting to defraud the people of that state in the 2020 election. We saw it happen on live television, and now, people like former Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan, a staunch Republican, are lined up to testify against him. If Georgia includes racketeering in its indictment, Trump could face a minimum five-year prison sentence. Even the self-serving cowards competing with Trump for the 2024 nomination are beginning to speak out. Trump supporters emulate Trump: blind loyalty until he throws them under bus, after which they stab him in the back (two more.)

Remember Mo Brooks, the Alabama House member who stood with Trump in front of the White House helping him spread his lies? Trump refused to support Brooks in the 2022 Alabama Senate race, and Brooks told interviewers, yesterday, that he can’t wait for Jack Smith to call so he can testify against him. For now, we must view every enemy of our enemy as our friend (last one, I promise!) Anyone who helps take Trump down will be forgiven all past sins.