Trump's threat to democracy
Polite society warns against the drawing of certain historical parallels. But as another tumultuous year of Donald Trump’s presidency draws to a close, it seems like a good time to ask: Where does one look for a political equivalent in a year when the president’s supporters chanted “send her back” about a nonwhite member of Congress?
Should we attach a bland label like “illiberalism” to such a wretched public display when “fascism” fits so much better? And what term best describes a 2019 political rally where a U.S. president, who had previously suggested the shooting of migrants, laughed as a supporter shouted that they should be gunned down at the border?
Do we bite our tongues as Trump apologists dismiss this rhetoric as harmless? Do we stay silent as left-wing commentators claim this to be the natural progression of Reagan conservatism? How do we define Trump’s slandering of Hispanics as breeders? How should newspaper editors and political leaders label a presidency that inspired white supremacists such as David Duke to celebrate Trump’s moral equivocation after Charlottesville? Terms such as “illiberalism” and “conservatism” seem both inaccurate and inadequate.
It is difficult to remember a time when Trump was seen as little more than a bumptious reality star who plastered his name on steaks, water bottles and apartment buildings around the world. Manhattan society long viewed the reality host’s career as the vulgar elevation of a trashy aesthetic, but millions of Americans always saw something more. Even during his political ascent, Republican and Democratic leaders alike shared Sen. Lindsey O. Graham’s view that the future president was a clown who had neither the character nor intelligence to be America’s next commander in chief. But elites’ failure to grasp Trump’s appeal, then and now, made him a greater threat to the natural checks and balances of Madisonian democracy.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-threat-to-democracy/2019/12/30/c8531bc8-2b2f-11ea-bcd4-24597950008f_story.html
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All these purported “reformed” or “recovering” ex-republi-CONS. All so seriously and solemnly editorializing about the awful trump monster. Tsk-tsking their way through all these high-minded condemnations of what a threat to the future of our democracy he is.
You were all on your knees worshipping ronald reagan as some new Messiah bringing about their long-cherished wet dreams of unfettered anarchy capitalism. The “nobody tells ME what to do” crowd.
I say fuck them all with a dirty barbecue stick. They brought this on. Back then when it began, when the Ronnie seeds were planted and all the CONservatives were there shouting hosannas about the giant unregulated free-for-all of their most earnest dreams...
Well THIS is what that leads to. THIS, NOW, is what you get if you let this deadly weed take over the garden while nursing secret yearnings of unrestricted taping and pillaging - that you hunger for even while you know it’s absolutely fucking-fro-dead wrong.
Go back and find the backdrop for what I think was the McCain/Palin nominating convention: “YOU BUILT IT.” Yes, republi-CONS. Indeed you did. All that shitty karma you built up following the path of greed, heartlessness, cruelty, and intolerance for anybody who doesn’t look like you is now coming to full flower. That path St. Ronnie built that you couldn’t wait to follow and build upon led directly, and inevitably, HERE.
To THIS.
NOW.
So, Joe Scarborough, you and all your short-sighted, mercenary little pals and co-conspirators can take your hand-wringing and “woe is us/how did we possibly get here?” crap and kindly go fuck yourselves.
