Among Disney's lesser known works was "Fantasia," a piece featuring cartoon renditions of several classical music masterpieces. Among the arrangements featured was "Night On Bald Mountain," based on the symphonic poem of the same name by Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky, with an arrangement created by his friend Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov.
The simple background to the episode is what takes place one night in a country village surrounded by mountains. The highest peak of those mountains turns out to be the giant body of a massive black winged demon who uses evil powers to summon all the dead spirits, witches and other lesser demons to perform for its pleasure. After wreaking havoc all night long, just as the demon is eat its last supper, the tolling of distant church bells in the village douse his hunger and rage and drive him back into his mountain lair. When dawn arrives, the beast retreats.
What appears to be happening in America today is a political version of this episode. The emergence of another long night of demons running amuck started two years ago when a minority of voters installed New York City reality TV star, phony businessman and inveterate liar and misogynist Donald J. Trump into the Oval Office in Washington D.C.
The witches and spirits dancing on Trump mountain now are white nationalists, xenophobism, and a full cast of characters who comprise the core and sympathetic outer layers of the alt-right movement, whose plan to make America First will turnout to make America Last, and alone.
Two years of Night on Trump Mountain has degraded our once great democracy into a scary turn to the hard right, that's unfortunately gaining popularity in countries other than the US. The kind of representative democracy our founding fathers crafted when their revulsion was to turn away from the monarchical powers exercised by the then King of England is now endangered
Night on Trump Mountain is producing stories about pipe bombs being sent to political figures like George Soros, Bill and Hillary Clinton and Barack and Michelle Obama. CNN, Trump's leading contender for so-called fake news, also got one at the media company's New York City office.
Demons supporting Trump had a field day last year in Charlottesville, Virginia, where torch-carrying white nationalists proudly marched in the city, creating an atmosphere that incentivised one young man from Ohio to drive his car into a crowd, killing one woman and injuring many more.
One of Trump's first efforts to make America worse again, centered around banning Muslims, especially from selected countries, from entering the country. Called "Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States," Trump's executive order, while losing in lower courts, won a 5-4 opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts ruling the president's travel restrictions “squarely” within the president’s authority.
Trump's most recent lies about terrible immigrants come in advance of elections on Nov. 6. Trump accuses Democrats of being behind the movement of thousands of migrants desperately hoping to reach the Southwest border, where they will turn themselves over to U.S. immigration authorities in order to seek asylum. With about 20 tweets from the president on the flow of central Americans northward, making undocumented claims that many among them are criminals and Middle Eastern terrorists, all funded by Democrats who he's labeled a "mob," the sheer volume of mendacious claims is both overwhelming and historic.
Trump's most recent lies about terrible immigrants come in advance of elections on Nov. 6. Trump accuses Democrats of being behind the movement of thousands of migrants desperately hoping to reach the Southwest border, where they will turn themselves over to U.S. immigration authorities in order to seek asylum. With about 20 tweets from the president on the flow of central Americans northward, making undocumented claims that many among them are criminals and Middle Eastern terrorists, all funded by Democrats who he's labeled a "mob," the sheer volume of mendacious claims is both overwhelming and historic.
New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman weighed in on Night on Trump mountain in his latest opinion piece, "How to Make America America Again." Friedman offers a simple recipe and directive to force Trump and his dark minions to retreat from his mountainous momentum.
It's centered around one ingredient: voting. Specifically, voting for any Democrat no matter who the candidate may be.
"So, this year: No third party, no Green Party, no throwing up our hands and saying, 'They’re all bad,'” Friedman writes. "All of that’s for another day. For today, in these midterm elections, vote for a Democrat, canvass for a Democrat, raise money for a Democrat, drive someone else to a voting station to vote for a Democrat. It’s the only hope to make America America again."
For Friedman and others like him, the church bells tolling that forced the black demon in Fantasia
back into its hidden lair are the mid-term elections on Nov. 6. Only through voting can Trump and his demons and witches be defeated.
But voting in America, the single greatest political franchise in world history, is as uncertain today as millennials, hispanics, African Americans and women of color showing up in numbers to turn the ballot box into tolling church bells.
If Trump and his band of 21st century white nationalists retain their hold on both branches of congress, Night on Trump Mountain will turn into four, eight, or more years of evil spirits dancing on the grave of American-style democracy, as we know it.
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