I’ve been disillusioned about a bunch of things (and people) over the years. That is, I had an illusion, in some cases even a delusion about something or someone that eventually proved to be illusory, fake, a sham. Spam as meat comes to mind. Professional wrestling also. Products that claim to rid me of baggy skin or to induce new hair follicles. All lies! Leaving me without hope in the world full of illusions.
Now let me get down to the biggest illusion of them all, the illusion that Donald Trump will make America great again! For those of you who, after all we’ve seen and heard since 2015 are still supporting and defending him in his run for another term, in my opinion need to be “disillusioned.”
You probably know that lots of words that begin with “dis.” Discourage, disappoint, discredit, disagree, disapprove… But when put in front of “illusion” means to be disappointed in someone or something that you discover to be less good than you thought. In other words, it means to be freed of an “illusion,” which to my mind is what Trumpism is––an illusion. A big time illusion.
By the way, of course, you know what an “illusionist” is––a conjurer or magician who creates illusions by sleight of hand. By such definition, this must be what Donald Trump is, as there are millions of otherwise intelligent (even Christian) human beings who still carry his water even though he spills it every time he makes a speech or writes on Truth Social or wherever he spews his hate and lies these days.
Getting back to this concept of “illusion,” it has to do with a false appearance or deceptive impression of reality. I can’t unhear Trump’s famous line: “What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.” It goes quite well with Kellyanne Conway’s defense of Trump’s first lie in office about the size of the crowd at his inauguration speech. She claimed there are such things as “alternative facts.” Best I can tell, such facts must exist in an alternate universe, but not in the one I inhabit. “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion,” said Daniel Patrick Moynihan, “but not his own facts.”
Wrapping this up, the idea that Donald Trump is good for America and a viable candidate for leader of the free world is as false and deceptive an impression of reality as there is. And Americans, Christian Americans in particular, must admit this before it’s too late. They need, in my opinion, to be “dis-illusioned.” And if you’re in that number, I can and do recommend the Great Disillusioner and His best-selling-largely-unopened Book.
barney wiget 