In the Trump Dictatorship, Please tell me the Pleasures of Sanity. Only Sane People Cooperate with a Dictator

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “We must learn that passively to accept an unjust system is to cooperate with that system, and thereby to become a participant in its evil.”

In Trump’s dictator era, sometimes called his second term I frequently tell readers and friends to practice self care to try to retain their sanity. However, self care is one thing, but sanity is probably another. Self care is something most of us can understand and appreciate. I for one take time outs from the deluge of bad news to clear my head space and timing. If you have never operated an M-2 .50 caliber machine gun, you might not understand the term, but you don’t need to, just understand that it has to do with the proper function of the weapon. I wasn’t always a chaplain so I know certain things.

In the film Conspiracy (2001) which is about the Wannsee Conference, Keneth Branagh playing its head, SS Lieutenant General Reinhard Heydrich makes an offhand comment the SS Colonel Karl Schöngarth. The latter asked Heydrich if he flew his aircraft to the conference and said that he preferred to stay on the ground.

Heydrich remarked: “Nietzsche advises the secret to enjoying life is to live dangerously.”

To which Schöngath replied: “He enjoyed it so much he went mad.”

Then, before moving away to talk with another participant, Heydrich said: “Look at the world, and tell me the pleasures of sanity.”

I am certainly not saying that Reinhard Heydrich, one of the must evil and ruthless mass murderers in history should ever be an example to any of us, but I would suggest that in the dictatorial era of Trump, that sanity might not be possible for anyone with a shred of decency, ethics, compassion, empathy, or respect for the law and the Constitution. We are in an existential fight of the soul of our nation and perhaps the world and the attacks of Trump, Vance, Musk and their collection of malevolent reprobates intent on destroying everything good and decent about America and our people. Yes, even the very people who supported them but stand to gain nothing for their membership in the cult, other than cheap red MAGA hats and overpriced Trump merchandise. Tell me if I’m wrong.

So is what is the pleasure to what we used to refer to as sanity?

Trump supporters might say that we have Trump Derangement Syndrome but name someone with any sense right now who doesn’t suffer from that? The fact is that none of us accused of having it are not deranged.

The truth is that we must do everything that we can to resist, especially in the courts, how we use our media platforms like Substack, and and reaching out to supportive legislators to resist and stall Trump’s agenda. Likewise, it means doing our best to influence the 2026 elections which could well be our last and best chance to stop Trump before he can destroy everything before he himself is destroyed, which he will be.

So as Heydrich said, “tell me the pleasures of sanity” right now. I can clear my head to not get overwhelmed in order to function and resist, but that is different than sanity. Being a veteran of near forty years of military service including combat service in Iraq which I came back horribly fucked up from and planned out how I would kill myself for years until an admired superior, a senior Navy EOD officer took his life in early 2014. He was one of the few Navy officers, including Chaplains who showed an iota of care for me after my return from Iraq in 2008. His suicide devastated me. He was a true hero who cared about the officers and sailors who served under him, so unlike Trump, Hegseth or any of their criminal minions.

This fight is personal for me. George W. Bush launched wars that hilled thousands of American and Allied military personnel, hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi and Afghan civilians, and nearly bankrupted the country while leaving many of us physically, emotionally and spiritually damaged, and countless families grieving the deaths or incapacities of their husbands, wives, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, or children. However, for all of his mistakes and errors Bush never once showed the contempt that Donald Trump shows veterans on a daily basis. We are “suckers and losers” who he has now sent Elon Musk’s teenage turds to screw out of everything that we sacrificed for our country and freedom, our lives, health and sanity. Now Trump pisses on our lives and freedoms while surrendering our country to Vladimir Putin, destroying our alliances, and sacrificing our future with his tariffs and economic policies.

In 1941, before he helped lead the plot to kill Hitler, Henning von Tresckow warned other German officers in 1941 of what would happen if they did not stop the implementation of Hitler’s “Commissar Order”:

“Remember this moment. If we don't convince the field marshal (Fedor von Bock) to fly to Hitler at once and have these orders (Commissar Order) canceled, the German people will be burdened with a guilt the world will not forget in a hundred years. This guilt will fall not only on Hitler, Himmler, Göring, and their comrades but on you and me, your wife and mine, your children and mine, that woman crossing the street, and those children over there playing ball.”

If we do not stop Trump soon it will be too late.

So I have said my peace for tonight.

Until next time.