The last guy in the White House quit blogging last week after just 29 days. I could have told you that the former dictator’s “From the Desk of…” blog wouldn’t succeed: good blogging requires curiosity, consistently good writing, extensive and clever hyperlinking, a comment section, and a commitment to something other than SEO-charged eyeball counts.
But as veteran blogger Ana Marie Cox notes, the former Ignoramus-in-Chief “did a lot right in his post-presidency social media campaign!”
He was consistent in his signature style: terrified racism. And he stayed topical, finding ways to bend seemingly irrelevant news items (the winner of the Kentucky Derby failing a drug test) into fodder for more terrified racism — Medina Spirit’s positive test was, after all, just another example of how “the whole world is laughing at us as we go to hell on our Borders, our fake Presidential Election, and everywhere else!” [Ana Marie Cox, “T**** Ended His Blog Because There’s More to Being an Influencer Than Just Wanting Attention,” NBC News, 2021.06.03]
But now that he has abused his power to affirm the worst impulses of the Redneck, White, and Blue-Lives Matter American psyche, his terrified racists no longer need him:
He was no innovator or canny operator; he was an extremely lucky sociopath who discovered that white people really liked it when he was as racist as they wanted to be.
And now they are.
That’s why T****’s eager volleys today radiate the same pathetic loneliness I’ve heard in the voices of former boyfriends reminding me of how they introduced me to chess or Sam Peckinpah movies or Thai food. It’s not that they didn’t; it’s that I’ve played chess, watched Peckinpah and eaten Thai food so much without them that I like those things all by myself now [Cox, 2021.06.03].
The Mar-a-Lago Mirage has done us the favor of scrubbing his futile “From the Desk of…” ratings from the Internet. But we’ll still have to spend decades scrubbing the stain he put on our politics, our public discourse, and our e pluribus unum.
Might be a good time to resurrect e platypus onion. drumpf did what drumpf invariably always does…. fails. Not his fault, of course.
It’d help if the former guy knew how to put his pants on right!
The troubling point is that although Trump has AGAIN failed, that has not and will not diminish his supporters’ absolute allegiance.
Go figure, the MAGA crowd are not readers. They are more of a slogan/rally crowd.
As said before here it is all primarily racism.
One of the points Thomas Frank raised in “The Wrecking Crew” wash that a lot of the movement conservatives currently afflicting us got their start during the Reagan years defending and sometimes promoting the South African apartheid regime.
Cory notes despite : “the worst impulses of the Redneck, White, and Blue-Lives Matter American psyche, [Trump’s] terrified racists no longer need him….”
This twitter thread may be valid:
@BreeNewsome
“FUND & ABOLISH POLICE, REFUND OUR COMMUNITIES
1h
We’re facing a massive, coordinated effort to lay the foundation for USA to be an apartheid state, with a majority nonwhite population that’s still dominated by a white minority. The effort to restrict voting, education about racism, protest & free assembly are all part of it.
They used the pandemic to further increase wealth inequality & set the lower classes back. Now they’re following it up by restricting our ability to organize against it. This is an extremely critical time in the fight against the oppression of the ruling class.
The situation in Palestine and the way the world responded deeply shook the ruling elite because they know that the only way to maintain the status quo is by abandoning democracy in favor of genocide & apartheid. They also know that path is increasingly untenable.”
And 28 minutes ago: “We need to brace ourselves and prepare accordingly because the era of white settler colonialism will go down like a wounded beast, thrashing around violently at everything in its path.”
2045 – the year MAGA’s become members of the white majority, no longer.
America’s caste system upheaval, begins.
To O’s point: true, the terrified racists are not readers. Nor are they writers or thinkers. They know their worldview is not built on and cannot withstand thoughtful, extended argument. Their worldview is simply, “We want power. We don’t want to give up power, especially not to [fill in racial/ethnic/religious epithets here].” Their selfish desire for apartheid will not survive rational argument, so they shun such argument. They just want shouting and slogans. They want a bully leader who helps them insult and bully their targets.
A blog is the wrong channel for those impulses. The more effective milieux for the terrified racists are quick-hit social media for one-liners and angry memes and long-winded for their collective, orgasmic Two Hours Hate.
Never forget, it’s a personality cult. That’s why it doesn’t matter how often he fails, how many times he’s gone bankrupt, how many times he’s cheated / lied / stolen / etc. – he gives his followers permission to be their worst selves, without consequences, and for that they will always worship him as the True Leader they always wanted.