Frank's Musings

It isn’t Trump who mobilized his supporters. An upset minority of voters, frustrated by their inability to do as they please without regard for the common good, has recognized its own brotherhood, with the encouragement of rabble rousers. They latched onto Donald Trump as a convenient flag carrier for their newly self-identified resentful faction,

Trump had made a career of hoodwinking financial backers who were enticed by the prospect of profiting from investments in unlikely wildcat schemes. Many of those schemes went bankrupt; but their failures have imposed little deterrence on Trump’s continued conning. He believes, as someone once said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.”

Finally, the Donald may have bit off more than he can chew. Instead of financial swindling, he has tried to hoodwink the defenders of the Constitution. Ironically, it is those rules of government that make it possible for some swindlers to operate because of the naivety of many people who believe in their automatic protection as a result of “the rule of law.” Unfortunately, “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.” Perhaps four years of the Trump presidency has retaught us that lesson.

Moreover, those years have awakened us to our vulnerability to a major menace that has been created by the unedited, instantaneous, personal, and yet widespread nature of internet communications. There will always be another destructive avatar of disruptive impulses in the national psyche. It is the vigilance displayed by Kansan voters towards their constitution’s protection of a woman’s right to choose that will be our only guardian against authoritarianism.