PERRY: Nonsense and sensibilities in a national political seance that keeps channeling our inner Trump 

Sorry, but I can’t get past this nightmare we’re living through with Donald Trump.

It’s not my fault.

Every few hours, something in the news cycle pushes back to what I honestly — no, really, I mean this — thought was a lame joke when “The Donald,” as I’d only ever known of him, said he would run for president. When he took his infamous ride down the escalator at what I thought was probably some sad NYC department store, I kept waiting for the punch line.

Still waiting, folks.

At least Italians had some sense of what was coming with “Il Duce,” since Bennito Mussolini had been sneaking into political headlines for years ahead of his ascension to that nation’s generational nightmare.

Trump had always been a caricature of a person for those outside of New York, drawn by his ex-wife Ivana Trump, pretty much only on late-night TV.

In the blur of youth and trying to make a real life, I would often confuse Ivana with Eva Gabor and Trump as Uncle Joe.

I had long before quit watching pop TV when Trump had something to do with firing people for money.

Suddenly, years later, it wasn’t a comedy sketch. Trump was actually pushing back against Republican candidates in 2015 while pretending to be a candidate for president.

Then he was the GOP nominee. Then there were jokes about “small hands” and taped interviews where he talked about “grabbing” with his small-handed and small-minded buds, and that “women let you do that when you’re famous.”

He lied all the time and could prove only that he was wholly unqualified and unsuited to run for any public office, especially “the” public office.

And he won.

And for four years, he lied more than any public official ever recorded. He made racism and misogyny popular among a huge chunk of the population. He made fun of war heroes. He banned Muslims from coming to the United States. He prompted a huge wave of racial attacks against Asian Americans by calling COVID the “China Flu.”

He was impeached — twice.

And as he prepares to come back for an encore performance as “The Worst President Ever,” all of the painful and exhausting memories come flooding back.

Just four years ago, Americans watched in horror as Trump sent his creepy gang of tyrants to the Capitol to overtake Congress and stop the vice-president from making Trump’s welcomed electoral loss official.

A panel of Republican and Democrat members of congress heard evidence for months after the Jan. 6 insurrection attack and agreed that Trump was responsible for promoting and then allowing the deadly insurrection attack on the Capitol to occur.

Colorado courts, including the state’s Supreme Court, ruled that Trump was ineligible to be placed on the state ballot as a presidential candidate because was an insurrectionist.

So this week, I watched as Vice-President Kamala Harris pushed through the clerical job of counting the Electoral College votes, making Trump the winner, and the next president.

At the same time, I watched as members of Congress relived running for their lives four years ago.

“I will never forget being trapped in the House gallery as the mob of President Trump supporters stormed the Capitol to try and stop the certification of a free and fair presidential election,” Crow said after the Electoral College votes were counted this week.

Trump said the terrorists he sent to destroy U.S. democracy were “patriots,” and that the judgments made in courts against them for assault, murder, destruction and insurrection were “politically motivated,” and unfair.

This is a man who this week confused “windmills” with “windfalls.” He tried valiantly to make a man repeatedly accused of sexually assaulting a 17-year-old girl the next U.S. attorney general. He wants to make another man accused by police of sexual assault the top military official.

He wants to annex Canada and thinks there’s something to be gained by forcing the world to call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America.

Trump wants the nation’s healthcare efforts to be run by a man who believes your 5G phone controls you.

And, as the Sentinel relayed this week, he still has to show up Friday for his sentencing on felony corruption charges, which he was convicted of last year.

None of this makes any sense in a nation that brought us up on Leave it to Beaver, All in the Family and Saturday Night Live. 

I’ve listened to Trump lie for more than eight years. I watched him when he lied about Black immigrants from Haiti eating people’s pets in Ohio. I watched him when he lied about Venezuelan immigrants taking over Aurora.

I can only imagine this is what a deadly disease diagnosis must feel like. Helpless to stop something ghastly and inexplicable, I feel like I can only stand aside and shake my head.

As a reporter, I’ve listened to thousands of people over more than four decades of listening for a living. I’ve listened to people like Ingrid Lindemann, a former Aurora councilmember who frequently talked about the fight for freedom, in her case against East German brutes. I’ve listened to Aurora Poet Laureate Jovan Mays, who’s talked about how generations-old Black lynchings in Colorado still have toxic roots in Colorado. I’ve talked with scores of Holocaust survivors and their families, who do not say “never again” lightly.

And almost all of these people have told me the same thing. The worst things that have happened to them and people they know and love just don’t make sense.

And the only answer? Don’t let up until something changes, and things start to make sense again. 

 Follow @EditorDavePerry on BlueSky, Threads, Mastodon, Twitter and Facebook or reach him at 303-750-7555 or dperry@SentinelColorado.com