Donald Trump set up one of his initial campaign headquarters, fittingly, in the city where the American Industrial Revolution began, Lowell, Massachusetts. Though he had mentioned running for president from time to time (some would say, threatened to run) he was never taken seriously, until it cropped up seemingly out of nowhere in the summer of ‘15. His national campaign manager, though living in New Hampshire had political roots in Lowell. Lowell is a small city and an historically corrupt place with a large economic history of working class people.The working class city where this writer attended college as a political science major; a place of noted political and police corruption, of racial and religious bigotry, a place not unlike many American cities, a place of street violence with a history of being run by sanctimonious and prejudice politicians.

Twenty-seven days before the Iowa caucus and thirty-seven days before the first primary in New Hampshire Trump appeared before a huge cheering crowd in the storied city of Lowell, Massachusetts. Not a likely place, one might think, for Donald Trump the New York city financial magnate and genius, to set up shop for a run at the presidency of the United States (A.K.A. The Raiser of Taxes), as the Bible has dubbed the US some 2600 years ago. But then again, Trump setting up in and around Lowell for his blitzkrieg run for the presidency, is not only telltale, but historically most fitting.Let me tell you what I mean by that.

Growing up, my family and I attended church in Lowell at the towering granite Episcopal Church in the middle of downtown. Since being built in the early 1800’s it was the main landmark of Lowell, not withstanding the canals and the textile mills where the army of young girls slaved twelve and thirteen hours a day without breaks. The women of the mills worked for peanuts, were housed in the company owned dormitories and tiny flats connected to and operated by the church clergy which were supported by the largesse of the mill creator and owner. The girls lives were strictly monitored and secured by curfews day and night. They were effectively prisoners of the mill owner who had made them more like serfs of industry rather than free-born American citizens.

To my knowledge the mill owner and entrepreneur of the first first enterprise of the industrial revolution in America was also the world’s first industrial thief, a master-mind genius of technological espionage, one that Trump would likely give the highest praise, unless stealing from him. The creator of the mills had not invented any of the textile innovations that had changed the world and textiles, but had smuggled out piece by piece, over a number of spurious visits to the mills in England, the highly proprietary textile technology, all in his amazing photographic memory and had set up his legendary textile factory along the winding Merrimac River a few miles from New Hampshire in North Central Massachusetts.

When the story is told by one of the National Park rangers in Lowell there is not one syllable uttered by an official that gives any impression other than pride for the genius of the industrial spy. Trump had already denounced China for its multiple acts of technological espionage against the US, but nary a mention of it despite being in the very place where such five fingered discounts of technology had been virtually invented.

This international theft produced a national business for the competing empire in America it created the notorious exploitation of our own young girls. Of course the business was set up so the girls of the mill had to buy provisions and food from the company store. The song made famous back in the 1950’s by Tennessee Ernie Ford’s “I Sold My Soul To The Company Store” could thank its popularity in its pathos of truth from the plight of the girls of the Lowell textile mills.  The girls, some as young as eight years-old, even had to pay rent to their employer for the little rooms they slept in. The system of worker exploitation left a girl a few pennies, maybe a buck on occasion, to send back to their father on the farm.

Historically speaking, Lowell, with backdrop of the worn out mills, is a most fitting place for Trump to sing the praises of the American entrepreneurial spirit. A fitting place to present a case for the virtues of exploiting the weak and the defenseless and the uneducated. A fitting place, since Trump has always beat his chest and sang the song of how wrong it is for a worthy genius, a clever man, or astute powerful nation, to not exploit the system  and its capabilities to oppress any and all sorry dupes that are meant to be used by those who love freedom and democracy. The freedom is to make hay while the sunshines and the door of opportunity lay wide open.

This is where Trump opened up the year of his election bid for the presidency of the United States of America. While his national campaign manager, appropriately with roots in Lowell, was turning out posters and placards with the slogan “Let’s Make America Great Again”, people cheered. I see the fulfillment of prophecy in the prospect of the Lowell textile mills, the first business of its kind in America, born out of fraud and thievery is symbolic and telltale, a harbinger of things to come from the man who is one of the most recognizable Americans in the world, who ironically has come out of nowhere and is now in the front lines of being the leader of the cause of exploitation. Donald Trump the enigma. The man America hates to love has now turned irresistible suitor in the place where the innocent ones in search of money were charmed into being exploited. Ironic.

Trump has come as a suitor with roses and candy in hand, wooing with promises of making America great again. He uses the truth for we have fallen from power, he uses swagger to let us know he will give us back our mojo. Sounds like the pied piper leading America to an Antichrist Spirit of oppression. How many of his suitors will be wooed by his lusty overtures and bombastic promises? Probably enough. But what if the end leads to exploitation of our little ones? It seems that the heart of America is now beating fast, falling for Donald Trump. Friends and acquaintances appear to me to be batting their eyelashes at him.

Trump has made no bones about it, he exploits any person whom he thinks is weak, naive or stupid. He  suggests that this is the way to restore America’s greatness. As individuals can we have anything to do with his courtship of America? It looks as if many are ready to be wooed, to supply their love to a system of progress in the name of making America great again. But if that means exploiting the weak and defenseless again, as the mill girls of old, should we have anything to do with it, even if it makes us wealthy again?

The girls of the mills are historically indicative, The spirit of oppression kisses up to us. The EOE suggests; Beware. Antichrist lies are always deceptive, but have an irresistible allure. God has told us that there will be antichrists all over the place, even until the real guy gets here. Yet God is faithful. He will show anyone who cares about the truth, what is actually going on.

“Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.” 1John 2:22