We keep calling Trumpland the new Bizzaro world, but it’s more literally true than we admit. It doesn’t just appear that Trump does the opposite of everything sensible.
Trump attacks the American democracy, complaining about how unfair it is that its… um, fair, and might target him or people he likes. (Donald would prefer the law, like the IRS, be his attack dog.) As head of the largest democracy in the world, Donald lauds fascism, sucking up to despots worldwide. Trump officially attacks our allies for actions they didn’t do and barriers they don’t use. Trump unilaterally rewards our enemies, deferring to Russia as they continue attacking our elections while attacking China for currency manipulation they stopped years ago and rescuing their companies that betray us. Trump, the leader of the free-market party, believes in a tightly controlled economy, hand-picking winners and losers, even among our competitors, while allowing essential work to languish.
And on, and on, and on. Yadda, yadda, yadda. We’ve heard this noise so often we’re numb.
We’ve come to expect an inhuman combination of incompetence and distraction. Trump has a numbing level of bone-deep stupidity only surpassed by his appointees. His administration is inept on an industrial-strength level. On top of that, Trump has so many horrific scandals swirling around him that he needs more distraction than any other unindicted coconspirator before him.
Don’t argue that Trump spins nonsense as shiny distractions. That works for a month, maybe two, but after a year, Trump’s opposing ‘reason’ every single month is his policy. Trump wraps himself in chaos because he likes it, and presumably, it serves him. I will admit it’s easy to lower our expectations and skip past huge scandals to focus on Trump’s next outrage.
It has no downside for Trump because none of the negative affect him personally. Sure, he cripples America’s influence and standing, he damages our economy, he encourages dictators and harms the innocent. He doesn’t care, of course. It’s just everyone else who pays those costs, not Trump.
So today, Trump tweeted…. Um, no. I don’t care. We already know that Trump is a compulsive liar and a fabulist for years now. Why pretend he might have changed overnight? I mean, I’d be shitting myself in joy if Trump did magically change, but at this point, that’s on Trump. It’s his job to prove he’s reformed; I don’t owe him anything.
Republicans responded to the latest new by… uh. Ah, nope: too many liars there, too. They’ve already betrayed every principle they used to profess, letting one ‘fundemental belief’ after another peel off for decades. None of this is news.
Evangelical leaders, when faced with evidence that the President lied about another core moral betrayal, officially stated that…. No, not them, either. There are many good people of deep faith, but the Evangelical leaders are just more of the same problem. We already know what they’ll do.
Why are we still pretending to be surprised?
Listening to the President or most Republicans leaves you knowing slightly less than when you started. If you do listen to today’s Trumpland, you have to fact-check all those silly assertions. If you don’t – if you miss one of their many ‘falsehoods’ – it’ll sit in the back of your head as if it were true, silently corrupting what you know. The truth is important, and it’s already terribly hard to keep whole.
I’m done pretending. I’m not giving anything Trump says any weight. Where I can, I’m not going to listen or read anything that he spews out. I’ll look at his actions to the minimum extent I must. Same with his Republican apologist. We already know they have no principles they wouldn’t betray. Is there a point in pretending they won’t? And the Evangelical leadership is just another branch of the GOP.
I will, with vigor and determination, work to remove Trump and every Republican I can out of office as quickly as I can. I’m hoping a new conservative movement will bloom from the carcass.
Even if it doesn’t, this Grand Old Party has decayed into a criminal enterprise. They all have to go.
