The Trumpite base make me think of King Herod. He knew that a child was being born who was “to rule my people Israel.” (He had to learn this from the chief priests and scribes, since he did not himself read.) From the priests he learned where the future ruler was to be born; from the Magi he learned when; and after being frustrated by the Magi’s treason, sent his own goons to find and “fix” the problem.

Statisticians tell us that soon the U.S. is to be a white minority country and thus at some foreseeable point white hegemony must end. The state religion, a debased Christianity, sees the ongoing crumbling of its own hegemony and swells up like a frog against it. America no longer a white country! America no longer a Christian (variously defined) country! Too much! We are the best armed country on earth, so …. Well, if we can’t just kill them, as we did the native Americans, let’s at least have an enforced shift of populations and drive them out.

Now in this scheme of things, Trump takes the place of Caesar. Caesar rules by exploiting fears, the fears of the televangelists, of religious fanatics, the fears of the decent but woefully undereducated people, the fears of unrepentant racists, even the fears of over-age hippies. Thus he divides and re-divides the people, to make them serve his ends.

I hope my little allegory does not amount to trivialization, for we are in desperate times. The inhumanity of some, the cowardice of many, the indifference of most are turning us into what we used to go to war to prevent. This cruelty, this selfishness, this willful ignorance will soon be punished by what we become.