Trump’s Ascension to Power Means Luigi Must be Free
(We have no semblance of moral sanity when we exalt murderous thieves such as Trump and persecute vibrant and good fighters such as Luigi Mangione)
By
David Gottfried
Pushing a pen across a page seems harder than putting a boulder atop a mountain when no matter what one writes or does or feels, the same deadly drama persists.
And this inaugural eve the drama seems like the eve before some astral, asphyxiating coronation, in which the air will be snuffed out for most of us so a few elect and evil braggarts will reign over us exuding cosmic contempt and sadistic glee.
And tonight and tomorrow many Americans seem to be in a Church of sorts – something like the austere Christian chapel in which Charlemagne was crowned the first Holy Roman Emperor of a religion that had betrayed Jesus by forging a rapport with the very Empire, the Roman empire, which had put Jesus to death. And just as the Holy Roman Empire crucified Jesus anew by ripping the mercy of Mary out of the Christian faith, the New Trumpian empire will curse and corrupt America by telling her how great America is and forgetting that Americans once longed to be more than great: We prided ourselves on being good and kind. Yes, Americans once believed in G-d, but it was a G-d that wasn’t the god of money, or marketing the bible in the tawdry manner in which Trump sells his very own brand of bible; it was a god that said no to slavery, to genocide, to sadism.
But now we are at an inauguration in which so much of America has become so cowed, so submissive, and so desirous of kowtowing to the new regime that we reek of the medieval. And just as the Dark and Middle Ages ended the intellectual expansiveness advanced by Greece and Rome, perhaps Trump is inaugurating his own Middle Ages as he proceeds to nullify and negate the liberal and intelligent innovations of the post war era.
A few weeks ago, radicals and revolutionaries were filled with glee at the grand, liberating and blood-thirsty act of Luigi Mangione. Like a gallant and grand visage from the most romantic Italian opera, Luigi strode upon the stage and shot down a corporate whore who peddled death while purporting to offer life through policies of insurance which often were quite illusory.
And now, as Trump is on the precipice of the presidency -- a presidency which, for reasons that should not have to be reiterated again, threatens to make his first presidency seem to be innocuous play-acting -- the ten commandments seem to me to be more relevant than to any bible-belting southerner, as those tablets scream that if Trump is allowed to be President, then Luigi must be set free, that to convict Luigi while we lionize Trump is to adulate Pharaohs and Fuhrers wherever they may lurk. We are a nation of laws, just as the Hebrew people were a people of laws, but the laws must be read in conjunction with other laws and with other crimes which the state, in its wisdom or withering contempt for the poor, blithely and bestially overlooks.
Trump’s reelection and inauguration are the Obscene Celebration of a Crime
Fundamentally, Trump’s inauguration is simply the celebration of Trump’s second biggest crime of 2020: (His biggest crime were his failures regarding Covid which led directly to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans.) He is thumbing his nose at us, rejoicing at his ability to enfeeble and mock the Law (The law can be quite masochistic when a rich man is doing the punching). His knowledge of the issues is so general (I want America to be strong – as if I really thought you were going to say that you want America to be weak) and he spends so much time discussing the pleasure of winning in 2016 and 2024, and the imagined criminal calumny of 2020, that I really doubt that he has anything more than the most general and easily distracted and flagging interest in governing the nation (ruling cruelly, however, probably inflames his sadistic passions).
What makes Trump unique in that very vast class of hideous leaders.
There have been plenty of hideous heads of state in the West. Many of them were villainous, vile, murderers. However, almost all of them purported to want to do good and to see the rights of the hardworking, common man prevail over rapacious, wanton elites. The celebration of the common man is as plain as day, and we can start by examining the old and new testaments: Moses, who comes from that which is good, was put on a raft by his virtuous and poor sister, Miriam; but he enters the house of Pharoah where all is wicked, and the wicked are plainly rich. Jesus is depicted as goodness incarnate and because of his poverty he is born in a manger. Likewise, the command for goodness is not merely advocated or discussed; it rolls down to us from Mount Sinai and makes for MLK’s purple prose praising “waterfalls of justice.” This strain in Western history and culture, this yearning for goodness and a healing salve to soothe the poor, resonates through Spartacus, the Maccabees, Runnymede, 1789, 1848, 1870 and so spectacularly and selflessly in Sobibor (Concentration camp inmates rebelled, killed numerous guards and fled into the forest), Spain (The anti-Fascist creed: It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees) and Selma, Alabama.
Even the most malignant henchmen in Western Civilization at least pretended to be fighting for that which they thought was good and just.
Trump, however, is different.
He plainly says that he is into it for himself and nobody else, save his favorite relatives and slavish “friends.”
Initially be opposed to Tit Tok. Now he likes Tik Tok. And he brazenly admits that he changed his views on Tik Tok because Tik Tok has helped him. Of course, Tik Tok may also constitute a risk to American National Security. But we know that a little thing like American National Security is wholly insignificant and unimportant next to the importance of Trump’s investment portfolios.
And the American people. Where do they stand. Where do you think they stand, those moral mice, those cowardly castratos whose voices “gargle in the rat race choir” (Bob Dylan, “It’s alright Ma, I’m only bleeding”). They have been taught, by domesticated, “mainstream” philosophers (the sort of “wise” old farts who spew forgetful, meaningless generalities on “Nightline” and other allegedly intelligent programs) that because we have a private enterprise system, Americans are gutsier, more apt to speak-up and stand by their views.
I never understood that. It seems to be the other way around and that private enterprise is conducive to creating lily-livered, ass-kissing creatures who always say pleasing things because all they care about is making a sale. Adhering to the precept that the customer is always right, they will never criticize. They will pronounce shit as sweet smelling as chocolate mousse. They are the last cowards who will have the gumption to speak truth to power.
Napolean famously criticized British heroism and military valor, claiming that England was merely a nation of shopkeepers. In Tobruk, Libya, in World War Two, the British certainly stained the reputation of shop keepers as 35,000 Brits surrendered to 20 thousand Germans.
And so what do you expect to happen to timid burghers when an ogre like Donald Trump comes into their life. They go from timid and obsequious to being as humiliatingly submissive as a German Frau acceding to Hitler’s admonition that good German women concern themselves with only “kinder, kuche und kirche,” or children, kitchen and church. Then again, that analogy doesn’t accurately portray the extent of their submission. Lindsay Graham never bowed to Trump. He put on a tutu and curtsied for Trump.
Trump’s ascension compels us to free Luigi or beckon riots and mayhem.
Trump’s victory flatly proclaims that rich people, to become even richer, are allowed to break the law to stop the peaceful transmission of power. Equality commands that poor people also be allowed to break the law, e.g., be permitted to kill insurance company executives who rob the severely ill of life-saving care so their asset valuations will top one billion dollars. (I remember when people got excited at the prospect of making one million dollars)
It might seem savage for me to come right out and say that Luigi Mangione has a right to kill just as much as an insurance company executive, but he had the right to kill whereas the executive had no right at all. Every time an insurance company executive is withholding medical care so he can trade in his 40-room mansion for an 80-room mansion, he is committing a murder infinitely crueler than Mangione’s killing. Mangione killed because of his rage toward garish inequality. He did not kill to better himself. Indeed, his crime might mean that he will never see sunlight again. But the insurance company executive kills for money. Anyone who is rich, who has, perhaps, one million dollars in assets, who kills so he can perhaps be worth 10 million dollars in assets, merits an execution floridly and flamboyantly aflame with all the noxious and terrifying features of great medieval torture chambers.
The Rich think they are entitled to break the law, to seize power, because they want to use their power to give succor to the powerful and heartache to the miserable. Luigi only breaks the law to make the cheated and forsaken a little bit less miserable.
If we don’t let Mangione free, the Govt is conceding that America has degenerated into a war zone, and the war is class war.
The poorest stanine (Ninth) of American men dies, on average, 17 years younger than the richest stanine of American Men.
The rich are murdering the poor.
They are murdering the poor every time the poor are relegated to dialysis centers which have deficient cleansing equipment and patients are infected with the infected blood of other patients.
They are murdering the poor every time the poor are consigned to the ubiquitous junk food cuisine of poverty: Too much fat, not enough proteins, minerals and vitamins and a vast array of carcinogens and toxins, many of which are illegal for sale in Europe.
They are murdering the poor every time a doctor punishes a patient, for having Medicaid or Medicaid, by not giving the patient time to tell him that his feet have become swollen (this can signal heart failure), that his stool is malodorous and lighter in color (this is consistent with giardiasis), that he is terribly thirty (this suggests hyperglycemia), etc.
They are murdering the poor in the way in which they prosecute minor, non-violent crime (In NYC, the prosecution will request adjournments as often as 50 times because the arresting office was not available to testify; meanwhile the defendant, who may have merely parked in the wrong spot, missed 50 days of work to show up in Court and consequently lost his job – and then he has the goddamn right to blow up the police precinct.
They are murdering the poor because in this increasingly sordid country one’s worth is positively correlated with one’s income or wealth. Virtue means nothing. Talent means nothing. And what once were characterized as Charity or philanthropy are deemed wimpish concerns for the impotent and inoffensive human detritus who will soon be slaughtered and trod underground to grow cabbages.