Fire Everybody: Trump, Russia, Liberals, Conservatives, and Disgust
For liberals, who sip latte, wear man buns, and live in blue bubbles, Donald Trump has become the fount of all evil, the consummate barbarian, contemptuous, bullying, misogynistic and inarticulate. His enemies abhor Trump mostly for his crassness, his lack of style. How could this scary clown ever become President? Larger forces must be at work.
And yet anything Trump has done so far pales by comparison to George Bush, who ravaged the Middle-East, legitimated torture, annulled personal liberty through The Patriot Act, and dangerously expanded unconstitutional executive power. Still, Curious George, who at least pretended to act presidential, is now an object of fond nostalgia. Curious indeed.
Loathing makes strange bedfellows. Liberals, who have never trusted the intelligence community (FBI, CIA, NSA), now hang on its every undocumented assertion, and completely, unequivocally embrace the unproven allegations of the Masters of Surveillance, implacable liars whose record of fake news and media manipulation stretches back at least to the Guatemala coup of 1954.
Liberals accept as gospel that the always evil Russians interfered in the 2016 election, though so far there is no proof whatsoever that they did. Robert Mueller, a good and honest man, has only been able to prove that some of Trump’s people had inappropriate contacts with the Russians prior to the election, but nothing to indicate outright election interference. Every so called bombshell about the subject in the liberal media has turned out to be a dud.
Hatred and fear of Russia was ingrained in Americans during the Cold War. Casting the Russians as accomplices in Trump’s victory is an easy sell. What is surprising is how quickly the narrative of Russian interference has become liberal orthodoxy, beyond doubt or question, even though it is based on unproven allegations. This allows liberals to ignore that they and Hillary Clinton were responsible for their own demise.
In fact, if Democrats had not been so blinded by political correctness and identity politics, had not been so out of touch with the “deplorable” mood of the country, and had presented a viable candidate instead of tainted, grasping, unlikable, establishment Hillary Clinton, they might well have won.
But that truth is anathema to liberals. It would require self-examination. Instead, convinced of their own virtue, it is necessary to pin their debacle on a foreign bogeyman. The unimaginable loss couldn’t possibly have been their own fault.
And what has this most reviled president accomplished so far, other than provoking outrage? Nothing. The Tax Bill is not Donald Trump’s. It is the fruition of a dream mainstream Republicans have been dreaming since 1980. His dismantling of regulatory infrastructure via presidential orders will simply be undone the next time Democrats take control of government, part of the mindless game of ping pong into which American government has devolved. His only real success has been in becoming the currently public face of the bad taste, philistinism, and boorishness that have characterized American culture for decades, if not centuries.
His detested persona allows Democrats to bury the fact that Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer, and Nancy Pelosi represent the same privileged class they claim to oppose. It also allows Democrats to evade the fact that the 2016 DNC was the most cynical, corrupt election organization since Nixon’s CREEP.
This focus on Trump hatred gives both liberals and conservatives cover to ignore the many real threats the US faces. Everything from income inequality, endless foreign military intervention, crumbling infrastructure, inaccessible health care, rampant opioid addiction, to the growing possibility of nuclear war. None of these matter as much as parsing moronic tweets.
The “resistance” believes they are manning the barricades of change. The “reactionary” believe they are defending a worthy culture. The word compromise has disappeared from discourse. Neither will give an inch. The concept of Commonwealth, once meant to be a blessing for all, has been hijacked by self-proclaimed Elects. Their Shining Cities on the Hill are now exclusive only to true believers. Both sides will murder with words or bullets to keep the heretics at bay.
Today’s political conversation is built upon attacking or defending the inflammatory antics of one obnoxious man, who only exists as a nebulous touchstone. All else is ignored, swept beneath Trump’s golden rug. That is the true tragedy of where we are now, whiffled by nonsense, experiencing the death of meaningful discourse, and its relegation to an absurd cultural reality show.
Fire everybody…
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