The Pied Piper of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

The challenge for America is that President Trump has become the Pied Piper of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and the people he has separated from their common sense, are not showing any signs of turning around.

It’s not exactly that he got rid of rats and retaliated against the town for not being paid by mesmerizing their children and taking them away that the fable talked about.

Rather, it’s that he gave masses of very frustrated people an outlet for their pent up feelings by fanning the flames of their discontent and enabling those people to turn frustration into anger and then to vent it.

What is he retaliating against you might ask?

Trump has always coveted and felt entitled to respect from the truly wealthy and powerful never realizing that such respect is something you need to earn. No doubt, Trump would probably assert that people who believe you have to earn respect without resorting to cutting corners, throwing ethics to the wind and staying a hair’s breadth this side of going to prison are just suckers and losers.

One of the problems now is that the angry genie is out of the bottle and the masses of people that he has given the gift of an outlet for their anger are not likely to go back into the bottle and go back to feeling pent up and frustrated.

What needs to happen is for people who are now venting their anger and pushed to do so by Trump and then feeling immense relief from that to pause. That in itself will not be easy because the immediate relief that comes from letting anger out is not something that people will want to stop.

And then if and when they pause, these people need to ask themselves if and how their lives are actually materially better with regard to their financial and job situation, their heath problems and the healthcare they receive, the peace inside their communities vs. tumult and social disturbances, the real threat of Covid-19 that doesn’t seem to be following Trump’s continued pronouncement of having turned a corner, and finally their actual futures.

This will be a real challenge because the children of Hamelin, who the Pied Piper bewitched, never returned.