Met Donald J. Cyclops – throw-back primitive who ghoulishly inflicts pain, still vulnerable to non-stop exposure as a defeatable lout – starring ICE, medical and food cut-offs, belligerence, plus destruction of both human life and the planet
Rereading one of my favorite narratives, Homer’s The Odyssey, I discovered to my amazement how fully the Cyclops episode frames the Destroyer-in-chief. That augments a MAGA legacy that already merged the Pandora story (releasing worldwide evils) with governing like rogue Three Stooges (making mayhem the greatest MAGA export). Like Odysseus, we confront Polyphemus the Cyclops – a primal, sadistic strongman (literally a “man-mountain”) who makes Goliath look good. Against Herculean power, physical prowess falls short. So like the Biblical David, conquest depends on finesse, the perfect slingshot by which smarts find ways to overcome fierce yet dim-witted behemoths. Viewing MAGA Trump as Cyclopean kin not only enlightens but shows how to take down arrogant giants with larger britches than brains.
Early on, just after fleeing the narcotic Lotus Eaters, Odysseus faces his first non-human, non-civilized, overbearing wild man. The Cyclops, the ultimate territorial, self-centered loner, without family, community, or moral ties to anyone, is strong enough to seize what he wants when he wants it. He honors nothing beyond cannibal appetites, certainly not Odysseus’ (and Zeus’) paramount Greek virtue of caring for guests. No stranger to overconfidence, Odysseus gets trapped inside the cave of a creature who so trusts his gut instinct he underestimates seeming weaklings with greater nobility, strategic savvy and knowledge of the world. So, do any bull-headed, impulsive, self-serving predators come to mind, forever leaping before assessing how wide the abyss or how formidable the foe?
Polyphemus’ lone eye signals tunnel vision (unable to see depth, fixated on surfaces), thus his black and white “blindness” lacks the nuance, psychological insight and worldliness that end up his nemesis. So thickheaded, the Cyclops misses the joke when the wary, brilliant Odysseus protectively calls himself “Nobody.” That gag turns farcical after the monster’s eye is destroyed and loud bellowing goes for naught when forced to blame “nobody.” Who says Homer can’t do knee-slapping comedy, ridiculing folly?
Set against this cave-dweller’s literal tunnel vision is a disciplined, heroic, sometimes shifty hero skilled at deception, in fact the shrewdest classical warrior Greek (deciding the Trojan War after ten years with his wooden horse “gift” that hides invaders). Though the billionaire president lives in fancier gold-veneered digs, Trump the close-minded, appetite-driven, insatiable WH lout is a latter-day cousin to Homer’s Cyclops.
Donald J. Cyclops, the same ogre after all these years
What stands out today is not just the personality kinship (Trump kills thousands of innocents rather than eats them), but how Odysseus uses aikido (leveraging an opponent’s strength to serve your side’s agenda) to defang Polyphemus and escape with his crew. Likewise, against Trump’s own army of all-powerful, lawless thugs, direct citizen force won’t succeed – so civic aikido is necessary for mere mortals. Odysseus gets the Cyclops drunk (with concentrated wine) and drives a stake in his eye, confirming symbolic and real blindness. He can’t kill the brute because moving the huge stone closing off the cave is beyond human power. So Odysseus blinds the Cyclops so he won’t see the kidnapped escaping by clinging underneath livestock let out to feed. Strategic brainpower defeats insular brawn which grievously underestimates the superior cunning of his “trifling” prisoners. The “weaker” nobody uses aikido (via the ogre’s strength), leaving the man-mountain branded forever, pathetically begging his father, Poseidon, to take revenge on Odysseus.
See any stunning analogies to Trump, another impulsive primitive overestimating his strengths? Living in his own alternative, ego-fed, appetite-driving reality, Trump acts like a law under himself yet wounds himself by dismissing rights and justice, let alone widespread moral standards. Behold the overbearing, anti-social bulldozer whose first move is to browbeat foes, with bluster and inexhaustible lies, then use force, even violence to save his ass. Does not Trump, like Polyphemus, presume invulnerability, the self-declared “stable genius” incapable of error, certainly not threatened by piddly, “crazy” Democrats or now aggrieved ordinary folk. As the mad king, willfully blind to limitations only he can’t see (real-world complexity, unintended consequences), he worships gut instinct (like Cyclops), deluded he can out-smart, out-scheme and out-run everyone else.
What truly links arrogant Trump with the equally self-absorbed Polyphemus – both never doubt only they matter (or deserve respect), reinforcing willful blinders. When brute strength and bullying intimidate enemies, they revel in domination. But unenlightened, crude prowess, then or now, won’t survive catastrophic, tin-ear misjudgments and rights-driven, community-centered protestors. As Polyphemus scorns weaklings, Trump underestimates top experts, of late sword-swinging Democrats, defiant, anti-oligarchy citizens who demand promised freedoms and compassionate activists promoting prosperity for the many, even (yikes!) sharing the wealth.
Aikido works against control freaks
So the first aikido leverage against a criminal president inviting electoral suicide is to overcome epically dumb, lying propaganda with non-stop exposure of every monumental blunder, especially showing how they are all connected to a single, predatory mindset. That means broadcasting, as done for months by noisy, scoffing Dem governors, how a self-made ass (or unabashed a-hole) keeps making an ass of himself, thus undercutting his dwindling threat power, magnified since every major issue (Epstein, ICE brutality, deadly war-making, health care denials, inflation, job stagnation) is grist for unending put-downs. Ditto, stressing guilt by association for equally asinine Rethug officials adds to the humiliating merriment. All those new progressive Dem faces are a potent contrast to the entrenched, rightwing walking dead.
Let’s shout from the rooftops what Morgan Freeman asked last week: what convicted felon/sex abuser running a “shit-show” is qualified to rule? Does Donald Cyclops think threatening 250 years of low fraud, state-run elections win over independents ravaged by the tariff king dispensing obscene tax breaks to the rich? Bad press – absent any visible, real-world positives – sustains looming midterm wreckage.
Daily, large-scale protests, amplified after Iran, deliver the most dramatic form of citizen aikido. Humiliating ICE thuggery 24/7 is the best way to repel a lawless, unjustified invasion. More than ever, the majority knows what MAGA Trump is and has always been about: fear-mongering, chicanery, destruction, terror and control. Epstein revelations will never end, and the drip, drip, drip horror continues to expose Trump’s private sins (now including a permanent cover-up).
Finally, here’s stunning political aikido – mortify the corrupt WH by dramatizing Trump’s own cabinet’s record-breaking corruption, lying, pettiness, bad faith and malice, just like the boss. Not only does this prove the worst president picked the worst cabinet, but each degenerate clown dramatizes the stunning defectiveness of all the others. Won’t just publicizing how many tens of billions have been wasted by MAGA Trump flummery not stagger centrist voters?
Even MAGA types are fleeing the cult, fed up with onslaughts of Cyclopean nastiness, the gall now visible: “we Trumpers can get away with murder, we’re invulnerable geniuses, gullible peasants can’t hurt us.” Even corporate mass media cannot hide the big, beautiful bill of outrage: here’s the most hypocritical, most calamitous, most reckless administration in 250 years. Failure compounds on failure, and growing majority defiance will punish cave-dwelling Rethugs who bow down to Trump when erasing the Constitution, let alone legitimate, well-tested systems. Those lackeys who haven’t yet run for the exit are like the drunken Cyclops, readily picked off by centrist and progressive Dems who speak for a growing majority in red and blue states (Trump now lags in Texas by four points – wow!).
I offer no pollyanna optimism that MAGA Trump (and bad judges and media cohorts) have not permanently scarred America. No one election can reverse the deluded one-third who buys into the perverse MAGA agenda of might make right, that any end justifies any means. But the comeuppance and political shifts must match the massive systemic damage. A task of a decade or more, comprehensive reforms to repair this wave (or the next) of unimaginably abusive misrule demands a generation of the right people in the right job. The reparation will take as long as the MAGA Trump trainwreck took to reach enough speed for full-fledged depravity.
P.S. Many thanks to a great book, Travels with Odysseus by Michael J. Goldberg, stimulating ideas and offering key terms.
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