One thing should be clear after Trump’s spate of executive orders yesterday: He is going to do things however which way his childish mind wanders, and the rest of country—and the world—be damned. Nobody is going to tell him what to do or how to do it. That is how he has operated his entire life, raised by a father who was a Nazi sympathizer whose racism even Woody Guthrie felt compelled to write a song about (“Old Man Trump”), and along with son Donald the Nixon Justice Department filed a lawsuit against for discriminating against black tenants applying to their housing developments. With the help of Roy Cohn, the former “red-baiter” who was Joe McCarthy’s right-hand man and helped him destroy many an innocent person’s life and livelihood, the son most closely aligned with his father’s bigoted beliefs learned to deny all accountability for his actions, and how to “legalize” the illegal.
Trump was the self-promoter whose biggest “fan” was himself. With the possible exception of Ivanka, who Trump treated in an almost incestuous manner, and “Baron” who carries himself in a quietly arrogant manner, his children are laughable no-talent grovelers begging for attention and a bigger pot in his will. Of course this says more about Trump’s view of what he regards as “possessions” rather than their own human needs, and so how can anyone outside his personal orbit have any belief in him having their “best interests” in mind, save all those suddenly “un-woke” billionaires racing to genuflect before him to make sure they don’t miss out on the piece of the pie that Trump is offering to those “loyal” to their “class”?
Working people in swing states who voted for Trump still believe somebody who puts forward a “tough guy” façade with nothing behind it but a cowardly bully deploying his army of brown-shirt thugs with a Himmler as head of DHS and an Eichmann as the “border czar” taking notes from Stephen Miller, who is all his own man and doesn’t need an “example” to make clear he is a Nazi. And of course the main man is Der Fuehrer himself, who is nothing but a whining pervert who commands his underlings to do his dirty work even if illegal, because he expects them to take the “fall” if the law catches up to them (well, then again, he is “immune” anyways). But let’s be honest at least: Bill Clinton getting away with his own sexual shenanigans and his and Hillary’s associates taking the sword (or a bullet, in the case of Foster) for Whitewater set the example that Trump thought he could get away with.
The price the country paid for Trump’s personal and character deficits were less clear through most of his last presidency because there were “adults” in the room who tried to tell him that there were “rules” that must be followed. It was only in the latter part of that administration when he was able to replace key positions with incompetent and unfit people (with rare exceptions, like William Barr, for whom too much was too much) who themselves had immense personal and character deficits and did whatever they were told against all logic and law.
Now, I am one of those who has had the “good fortune” of “surviving” the Biden administration with no real notice that anything was “wrong”—in fact in the run-up to retirement age I’ve made more money in the past four years than I made in the first 12 years of regular employment when I first moved here; my principle “problem” is that I’ve spent a lot of it building-up my video collection and obliged to rent a storage unit to keep it all in. That’s not Biden’s fault, it’s my own, and that is a “lesson” a lot of people haven’t learned; there “problems” are often the result of the decisions they make. I purchase sale items whenever possible, and avoid overspending on items I don’t really need, and I either take public transportation or walk, the latter which has the “benefit” of keeping at least my legs looking as “fit” as they were when I was 25.
It is very likely history will eventually look kindly on the Biden administration, and point out that people suffered from a memory deficit about Trump’s previous administration—particularly the last two years of it, when he was in “control” like he is now. Just how much he can control his underlings is another matter; I doubt Trump really understands the policy beliefs of his new Project 2025 fanatics like OMB candidate Vought, but if they do as much damage to whatever the “status quo” is, that is all that is important to him. He is the proverbial bull in a china shop, but he only gives the orders. If his underlings do more damage than people find acceptable, Trump will simply blame them and take no personal responsibility for it, as he has done so often in his life.
I have this theory about why people gave Trump another “chance.” Well, maybe not so much a “theory” but the probable truth. I don’t know why some historically screwed-upon minorities voted for Trump, unless they are “tough guys” themselves attracted to a “tough guy,” or falsely believe that if they “smile” at him he will “smile” back at them, until they realize that this “tough guy” has no humanity behind that “smile”—after all, what other president’s “official portrait” makes you think he hates America and the people in it--except himself of course:
I think that white people, regardless of ideology, don’t really believe that Trump means them any real harm regardless of what he does. Let’s be honest about this: Trump’s most vociferous complaints are about the brown-skinned Hispanic immigrants, and DEI and other programs that continue that annoying habit of addressing what the "others" think is "wrong" with this country, and throwing in those “weird” trans people who just need to get with the “program” of "normalcy." What’s wrong with any of that? Why not go back to that imaginary world of yesteryear when everyone knew their “place” and were “happy” to be in it? White people at least had the “comfort” of knowing that if life was shit for them, at least they knew that life was “shittier” for the blacks and those “Mexicans.”
Today there is some “confusion” about who is to blame for white folks “problems.” If Bernie Sanders was the Democratic nominee, he would tell them that corporations and billionaires are the source of their problems, and I’m sure many would believe that (seeing how billionaires have flocked around Trump, he is probably right). But Kamala Harris wasn’t going to touch that, so what was left was Trump waving the flag and call on “patriots” and white nationalists to help him swat away all these gnats that keep pestering him about his personal failings—and they will aid him in this (i.e. voting) because when they hear someone talking about bigotry and prejudice in this country, they “suspect” that they are the ones being "pestered" about that too.
In Trump they see someone who will shut those people up so they can express their “freedom of speech” in a way they won’t be made to feel “guilty” about. After all, this is “their” country and they should be free to say and act as they wish. If they can’t “lawfully” do it themselves, Trump and his brown-shirts will do it for them.
Of course, these people “comfort” themselves that Trump is not targeting them (Biden took care of all the white people who were in danger with his preemptive pardons), and that everything evil that he is doing is really “at heart” about protecting those “magnificent, law-abiding American citizens” from those who “provide sanctuary and protection for dangerous criminals, many from prisons and mental institutions that have illegally entered our country from all over the world.”
Both those claims about American citizens being “magnificent” and “law-abiding” doesn’t actually even define Trump or those January 6 insurrectionists he pardoned, and most of those people who voted for him may pretend to be “law-abiding” but certainly are not “magnificent”—you can find that out by viewing any of Jordan Klepper’s “discussions” with Trump supporters—but labeling migrants including children as “dangerous criminals” and escapees from mental institutions and prisons? I mean if you really believe that, or believe that enough of them are to “justify” the pogrom that Trump and his Nazi underlings are planning, then what does that make you?
Since the ending of the Bracero program in 1965 that resulted in the increase of illegal immigration--because the "natives" didn't come running to take the place of previously legal migrant labor--instead of "fixing" the problem, politicians played partisan politics with the lives of migrants. And for the past 20 years, anti-immigrant fever started ramping-up to the point it even shows up in “liberal” cities like Seattle, where you see these luxury coaches lined-up on Sixth Avenue...
...for the pleasure of Amazon office workers so they don't have to "mingle" with the lower classes on Metro buses. Speaking of "lower class," Hispanic males are demonized when they are at all given a thought, and the women selling whatever they have to sell to “elevate” their social position at the expense of their identity and self-respect. Having seen and felt this “opening” for people to reveal their inner Nazi they had fought to remain hidden but no longer feel any inhibitions against it is as “amusing” to me as much as it demonstrates the level of ignorance of out there.
I admit that most people I encounter seem to mind their own lives if they don’t perceive an immediate “threat,” but then again, how do you explain Trump’s election when the “number one” issue was “the border”? I mean, why the “border”? All reputable studies have shown that there has been a “stable” number of illegal immigrants in this country of about 11-12 million for the past 20 years. Whatever the “record number” of border crossings there are, an equal number have forcibly or voluntarily left the country. If there is work, they stay; if there isn’t, they leave.
Yet people walk around in “fear” of people most of them probably have no “close” contact with at all unless they go to a fast food restaurant, one business that hasn’t yet been taken over by South Asians. The places they work at are typically for jobs most “natives” don’t like to do (I’ve seen this most frequently during my time doing the temp job circuit), and thus have no “clue” of their contributions to economic. If you remain purposefully ignorant of this, then what do you care about mass deportations? It’s not about you, even though it is.
I have this “fantasy” that some racist where I work feels “empowered” by Trump and calls ICE to report that there is someone here who he/she suspects is an illegal immigrant, and they arrive to detain me. I don’t live with anyone and have no family save on the other side of the country, so no one can retrieve records showing proof of citizenship. So while I am being detained for deportation proceedings, some legal organizations takes my case, and a lawsuit is filed against the ICE, DHS, Stephen Miller, Kristi Noem, Tom Holman and finally Trump himself as evidence shows that their deportation scheme is out of control and the new Laken Riley law is being used ensnare even native-born U.S. citizens who have committed the “crime” of looking like an “illegal” without due process protections. There I am, helping to take down the whole rotten edifice that is Trump’s racist vision of a "great" America.
No comments:
Post a Comment