Blinded By The Right

 

Calling elected Republicans cowards gives them undeserved credit. It implies that, seeing what Trump and his brutality-loving private army known as ICE are doing, plus his lawlessness and egotistical imperialism, they know it’s wrong but are afraid to say so.

No.

By now, their silence and that of the misinformed people who elected them shows they love what they’re seeing. They’re not cowards. They’re collaborators. They’re participating in the undoing of America, furthering a totalitarian, white supremacist theocracy, a blitzkrieg against democracy begun well before Trump descended upon us. And, as Europe no longer trusts the US, the ceding of world economic and political power to China.

The votes are there. We shouldn’t have to wait till the November election. By voting to defund it, Congress could stop the excesses of ICE in a minute. It could reclaim its war powers and redirect its investigative ones. It could recall its Constitutional role in levying tariffs. All it would take is a handful of Republicans to rediscover their humanity and duty to the law, assuming they once existed. Except for chameleons like J.D. Vance and Lindsey Graham, people don’t change so completely, so fast. Amorality and disregard for the Constitution must have defined them from the beginning.

Surely they’ve seen what President de facto Stephen Miller told ICE agents after the murder in Minneapolis: “You have immunity to perform your duties, and no one – no city official, no state official, no illegal alien, no leftist agitator or domestic insurrectionist – can prevent you from fulfilling your legal obligations and duties... [I]f officials cross that line into obstruction, into criminal conspiracy against the United States or against ICE officers, then they will face justice.” Translation: “Ignore local laws and officials. You won’t be prosecuted. The prosecuted will be anyone who tries to make you follow American law. I am the law. Trump (to a lesser extent) is the law. Not the courts, not a moldering piece of parchment.”

Unable to imagine the breadth and depth of the corruption and cravenness of Trumpism, the Founders failed us. A system that allows a single, psychically broken, self-deluding man-child to have his way, punishing those who don’t submit, including long-standing allies; a toddler having a tantrum over refused candy – that system is inadequate to the times.

So confident are they in unfailing support that Trump and his mobsters aren’t hiding their White Nationalist agenda. Trump’s Department of inJustice just rehired James Rodden, previously removed when his online posts were earthed, saying such thing as “America is a White nation,” “Migrants are all criminals,” and “All blacks are foreign to my people.” Welcome back, Jim.

The Department of Homeland inSecurity posted an ad seeking ICE applicants, featuring a cowboy under a stealth bomber in the sky. Its text reads, “We’ll have our home again,” from a WWII Nazi anthem loved by American white supremacists. 

Ubermenschette Kristi Noem gave a speech from a podium bearing the motto, “One of ours, all of yours.” Meaning: Kill one of us, we’ll kill all of you. In various forms, it’s been used by the world’s worst authoritarians. Nor is it accidental that Greg Bovino, Trump’s preening border security chief, dresses like an Obergruppenführer. At one time, they didn’t like being called neo-Nazis or white supremacists. Now, they’re broadcasting it, while MAGA and their Congressional representatives celebrate.

The story of America’s collapse, written by non-American journalists and historians, as ours will have been eliminated, will be one of willing acquiescence; of how, while there was still a chance to have prevented it, so-called conservatives, universities, bar associations, and not-yet sold-out media cowered, while elected Republicans and their MAGA horde welcomed it like the Second Coming. Preferring democracy, Congressional Democrats resisted, but weren’t in charge. The opportunity to protect it slipped away.

Meanwhile, Trump continues to ignore courts, refusing to release most of the Epstein files. But we don’t need to see them to know how damning they are to Trump. No criminal tries that hard to hide information that exonerates him. It’s a truism not even MAGA can deny.

Also, only a power-crazed, malignant narcissist would want to invade another country because he didn’t get a Nobel Prize. And ADMIT it! Trying to sound less insane at the World Economic Council, Trump, who lies, minimized the invasion part.

Finally, this: To many readers, the sarcasm of my previous column, which I assumed would be recognized three sentences in and in every succeeding paragraph, wasn’t. I heard from several, livid that I’d gone to the dark side. Even after reading, with reference to my blog, “keep these words in mind as your eyes deceive you,” or “’I’m not mad at you’ is classic professional agitation,” or “shame on anyone who reprints [Michele Goldberg’s comment]” after I’d reprinted it.

I meant to demonstrate, by parody, the gaslit, shameless lies issued daily by Trump and his coven. Evidently it was too cute. Apologies. It won’t happen again.

But, seriously, who doesn’t love Trump?