Writing for Godot

Since even before his election, Donald Trump’s behavior and that of his advisors and supporters has given rise to an immense, and still growing body of concerned and responsible commentary in America and world-wide. Newspaper and magazine articles, scientific journals, books, and all of the new internet media are filled with critical accounts, much of it extremely well-written, rational, reasonable, well-researched. His utterances and other productions, his mercurial sympathies and all else known about him has been laid out, dissected, appraised, and its basis speculated about by journalists, political and other scientists, jurists, historians, sociologists, psychiatrists, and many others.

After a very short time, this became like the duck test: if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck. According to all of the evidence available about him, Donald Trump has always been what he is and like he is – he is the duck he is, and that was pretty fully described early on. Whatever his latest productions are, they are no more tha variations of what is already known, and none of it is a surprise. There might be new items discovered, but there are no new traits.

Although much that continues to be written about him is well-written and good to read, all of it is also totally predictable, and has thus become somewhat boring. It has acquired a “so, what else is new?” aspect; it is no longer news. Of course, if only of informational interest, this writing and commentary needs to continue, Trump has to be countered and exposed for what he is every time he utters a sound. But, finally, one of the most dismaying results of all this writing is that it seems to be having no result, no effect. Trump remains Trump, and his supporters continue to cheer his every move unabated. This all amounts to Writing for Godot – and Godot may never come.