“I know you are, but what am I?”

Donald Trump’s Mount Rushmore manifesto was the ultimate display of his greatest hits. He called out “far-left fascists,” projecting on this oxymoronic invention all the traits of his own mean-spirited attempts at despotism.

“In our schools, newsrooms, even our corporate boardrooms, there is a new far-left fascism that demands absolute allegiance. If you do not speak its language performed rituals recite its mantras and follow its commandments, then you will be censored, banished, blacklisted, persecuted, and punished.”

Who is it that demands “absolute allegiance,” and “banished, blacklisted, persecuted and punished” every single person he can reach who has contradicted him? Who is it who wishes out loud that he could jail journalists? And who has attempted to quash transparency and access to the media throughout his administration? That’s right: it’s Donald J. Trump, himself.

With a record number of new Covid-10 cases concentrated mainly in the neighborhoods of his own political base, he could only manage a whine in sympathy with his own imaginary victimization. Arrogant and self-important, he couldn’t leave aside his own selfish vanity or simple childish perversity to model for the thousands seated, cheek-to-jowel, at his feet, the simple mask-wearing behavior that could save tens of thousands of lives.

Having essentially removed himself from the field of combat against the virus, he seeks to do battle, instead, in defense of statues. Nevermind that the only statues that are currently under threat of removal are those of Civil War traitors, he has chosen to defend a bunch of lifeless junk over the lives of his fellow countrymen.

If he imagines this to be the saving message of his feckless reelection campaign, he must be beyond delusional. As the whole Republican party will learn to late to save it, white grievance is a platform of diminishing returns. They have apparently forgotten their own come-to-Jesus moment following the Obama win in 2016, when they pragmatically vowed to shape a more inclusive Republican party.

A majority of Americans recognize the legitimacy of the Black Lives Matter movement, yet he stands in front of that monument to white imperialism, in defiance of treaty-bound Sioux rights and has the nerve to blame Democrats, journalists and unpersuadable independents for disloyalty to HIS warped version of our shared American heritage.

And continuing his patten of appropriating the music of the accursed left, he has the nerve to blast Neil Young from the loud speakers: Neil Young, for godssake!

If there is a devil, Donald Trump must be his right-hand man.