Frank's Musings

Trump’s vaunted base has supported him for the same reason that NRA members and gun enthusiasts defend their mistaken 2nd Amendment right to own and wield deadly weapons. Both of them resent the appearance that they have been forced out of control of their political and personal destinies by smug “elites” who have outsmarted them by dominating information media. In fact, they depend on those same communication channels for passing time in our society, which is historically worry-free owing to its wealth.

Nevertheless, they feel powerless to participate in the definition of the norms of success and behavior in our community. Therefore, they resort to the simple and violent remedy of gunfire to express their frustration. Likewise, they have flocked to support the iconoclastic presidency and reelection candidacy of Donald Trump as the ultimate way to clean-sweep the bureaucratic morass that, in their eyes, government has become.

Acting in a paroxysm of violence, whether or not with gunfire, is one way that a few otherwise civil members of society have expressed frustration with their loss of control of their destinies. Unfortunately for them, it is only with some restriction of personal freedom that a complex society can function. Ceding that freedom to public institutions has made us dependent on them for maintaining order, including the prevention of physical assaults.

Dependence often leads to abdication of personal responsibility. That means not only failing to intervene to help resolve someone else’s crisis, but also not going beyond society’s regulations that are meant to reduce the possibility of harm to life or civic order.

This is the contradiction between enjoying the advantages of living in a liberal democratic society and needing to sacrifice many personal freedoms in order to do so. Apparently, there will always be a segment of society that cannot handle that conundrum, and demagogues like Trump whom they will loyally follow. A liberal democracy can survive only if a majority aware of tyranny’s consequences is continually energized to assert its dominion.  There is a natural affinity between an iconoclast like Trump and the gun lobby.