"And the people bowed and prayed"
The Problem with Neon Gods

ELIZABETH GEORGE
Mar 19, 2026

I recently saw a photo of a large group of GOP members of Congress. They were huddled together. They were grinning. They were all giving a thumbs-up to the camera. I wanted to believe that this photo wasn’t taken recently, that the GOP Congressional Reps have done some soul-searching since they signaled their approbation of…what, exactly? Since there was no accompanying date and no caption (e.g. “GOP Reps in Happier Times”), I had to wonder if this photo is a recent indication of their support of their official party leader—Donald Trump—and his accomplishments during the first 14 months of his tenure as the 47th President of the United States.

Admittedly, his accomplishments are many, both great and small: in 14 months, he has reversed prior policies on environmental and labor regulations; he has shifted energy policy away from solar and wind and toward fossil fuels and nuclear; he has expanded drilling leases; he has removed protected status from federal lands; he has reduced or eliminated engagement with international organizations; he has demanded corporations end any and all efforts to implement or encourage diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace; he has eliminated or threatened to eliminate federal funds to universities and colleges that consider ethnic diversity when accepting students to study on their campuses; he has threatened tariffs, employed tariffs, backed away from tariffs; he has denied, delayed, or eliminated visas for foreign students; he has gained control over corporate media; he has torn down a historic Federal building without gaining permission to do so; he has placed his name or his visage on cultural institutions like the Kennedy Center for the Arts; he has expanded executive power over the Federal workforce; he has withheld money for infrastructure unless or until both Dulles Airport and Penn Station are renamed for him; he has handed over the health of Americans to a man whose personal beliefs have made measles great again and are on track to do the same to polio; he has given Elon Musk the power to eliminate positions in dozens upon dozens of federal agencies (such eliminations conducted by a group of boys under the age of 25 with no knowledge of the import of these various agencies); he has put restrictions upon an individual’s right to asylum; he has allowed the deportation and imprisonment of suspected illegal immigrants to the country; he has given a blanket pardon to everyone convicted of a crime related to the January 6th uprising. He has, in short, been a busy man.

He has also apparently ended 8 wars although I’ve not been able to locate information on which conflicts he has terminated. Reducing the presence of U.S. troops in a country’s ongoing war (civil or international) is not the same as ending a war. But I suppose that could be called splitting hairs.

What he has done with remarkable inefficiency is to create a new war. But anyone who is conscious and who tries to stay at least moderately informed about what’s happening in the world already knows that.

And now he has decided that the elections due to be held in November are going to be fixed or unreliable or fraudulent or whatever else they might be called should Democrat candidates sweep into the various public offices for which they are running. To be certain that this doesn’t happen a bill has been created that will make voting difficult for some people and impossible for many people.

I find myself reflecting on the question of how we got here, to this moment, in the United States. I ask myself why people voted into the office of the Presidency someone so clearly unfit: a man who wore his racism, his misogyny, his xenophobia, his rage, his hate, his envy, his lack of moral fiber so openly, unapologetically, and proudly. I ask myself why so many people were able to tell themselves that none of that mattered when they voted for him, and for some people none of it matters now.

There are not enough billionaires in the country to put Donald Trump into office or to vote to keep him there. They can certainly buy mountains of television advertising; they can purchase entire television networks; they can pour millions into his campaign coffers; they can buy up newspapers, fire political journalists, and insure that all editorials favor or support him. But voters have to do the rest.

I read recently that many people voted for Donald Trump in the first place because they had come to know him through his television program, and as a result they believed that the character he played on The Apprentice was a real person: a genius businessman who’d made billions building high rise hotels showcasing his name, international golf courses and country clubs where membership was prized, and flashy casinos flooded by gamblers. Seeing evidence in the form of his putative financial successes, people perceived him not only as someone who was familiar to them but also the perfect solution to whatever their personal beliefs and biases told them was ailing the country. He said that only he could fix what was wrong; he said that only he could make America great again. The fact that he never explained exactly what “great again” meant was a detail overlooked by people for whom he had become a neon god, not the neon god of Paul Simon’s unforgettable song—in which artificial manmade things replace human connection—but the neon god of an object made shiny not because of its own properties but because it is filled with a gas that glows.

Because people had the character in The Apprentice to cling to, they could ignore or excuse what was in front of them in the person of the man who merely played the part of a billionaire businessman: lack of honesty, courage, and integrity; absence of empathy and compassion; lack of perception and intelligence; scorn for the disabled, the poor, and the unfortunate. They could say things like “Oh, that’s just Trump being Trump,” if he insulted a world leader, if he called someone “a low-IQ person”, if he created rude nicknames for individuals he didn’t like, if he called women “piggy” when they questioned him.

Some voters have had the courage to step forward and say, “I was wrong,” as part of their admission that they once or twice voted for Donald Trump. Other voters still cling to him with a devotion that might otherwise be given to a prophet associated with a particular religion.

But Donald Trump is not nor has he ever been a prophet. He is, instead, Jim Jones in possession of cyanide, handing out Kool-Aid to his followers. He is Jim Jones telling them they must drink it because if they don’t, they will be shot. He is Jim Jones earnestly believing that nothing really matters when it comes to the little people because, one way or another, they’re going to die.

[These essays are expressions of my own thoughts and opinions. Please forward them to anyone who might find them thought-provoking or interesting. Although Substack asks readers if they wish to pay for a subscription, I myself neither ask it nor need it. I’m a writer, and most of my time is spent working on my novels.

© 2026 Elizabeth George
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