The poet W.H. Auden wrote in a New York Times review of the final book in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, “Evil, that is, has every advantage but one – it is inferior in imagination. Good can imagine the possibility of becoming evil – hence the refusal of Gandalf and Aragorn to use the Ring – but Evil, defiantly chosen, can no longer imagine anything but itself. Sauron cannot imagine any motives except lust for domination and fear so that, when he has learned that his enemies have the Ring, the thought that they might try to destroy it never enters his head, and his eye is kept toward Gondor and away from Mordor and the Mount of Doom.”

You can see the attempt to consolidate power in the president, as supported by the conservative six on the Supreme Court, and by the surrender of Congress’s powers by the Republican majority, as an attempt to create a one-ring level of power in radical opposition to the checks and balances and ideals of democracy and accountability that have been central to this nation’s official ideology, however imperfectly realized.

“This is one of the American opposition’s strategic advantages: they routinely fail to comprehend motives that are not selfish, so the idealism, the altruism, the commitment to ideals and principles, that motivates the resistance is seen as a cover-up for the real motives, which helps them cast progressives as criminal or delusional. Empathy is itself an act of imagination, that begins with attention and care: what is it like to be this other being, what are they feeling, what do they need. It arises from and reinforces a sense of non-separation, a sense that we’re all in this together, that everyone is your neighbor and no one is a stranger.”

Trump and his hideous orc followers will eventually be defeated by the American people who still cling to democratic ideals and empathy for our neighbors.

Down with Big Brother !