The Return Of The Trumpian Dumpster Fire

Some thoughts on the emerging brave new world of American fascism.

Photo by Mohamed Nohassi on Unsplash

Trump is beginning his second term just like his critics thought he would: with chaos, infighting, and an alarming number of sex offenders…

Matt Gaetz has given up trying to become Attorney General

He resigned his House seat, but he did recently win reelection, so he could start being a Florida representative again in January. It remains to be seen if House Republicans will successfully bury the ethics report against him, but it’s pretty obvious the report is damning considering how many Republicans are against its release. It’s still possible Ron DeSantis could appoint Gaetz to Marco Rubio’s vacant seat so he can both wriggle out of the House’s oversight and continue his one-man crusade to vote against anti-sex-trafficking bills. He’s also reportedly considering running for governor of Florida.

A Republican Senate Majority Of Pushovers

Senator Rick Scott tried to win Donald Trump’s endorsement to replace Mitch McConnell as Senate Majority Leader by promising to do whatever it takes to get through Trump’s cabinet appointments, even if it meant letting Trump use recess appointments. This would let Trump bypass the Senate’s Constitutional responsibility and power to vote on presidents’ nominees. Scott ended up losing to John Thune, if only because the Senate leadership vote is secret and Republicans can vote their conscience against Trump’s meddling desires with the safety of plausible deniability, but it’s one more reminder that contemporary Republicans are lazy and submissive legislators.

The Founding Fathers designed the Senate’s advise-and-consent power of Congress over presidential cabinet appointees to ensure that the chief executive can’t appoint a cabinet full of incompetent criminals (possibly never imagining an elected president would be so particularly interested in appointing sex offenders like Trump has shown). They assumed legislators would perennially be intrinsically self-motivated to protect, use, and expand their power and authority against the executive, but of course that doesn’t happen if Republican Congressional majorities have joined into a cult of personality.

“Orange Man Bad”

I think it’s funny how Republicans use the phrase “orange man bad” as a pedantic, yadda-yadda-yadda response to Democrats’ criticisms of Trump because it concedes his distracting use of copious orange foundation makeup. Is the makeup not an omnipresent elephant in any room Trump walks into? It’s so bright orange. And so badly blended. Do serious people who talk to him face-to-face not make him self-conscious when their eyes wander to his neck, ears, and hairline where the makeup abruptly stops?

“OrAnGe MaN bAd…” Hey, Republicans, why is the man you’re defending orange? It’s true I have Trump Derangement Syndrome, but it’s because Trump himself is literally deranged. He’s not normal at all, starting with his daily minstrel makeup.

Liberals, don’t end your relationships with conservatives.

I know a lot of liberal people are mad Trump won, and that so many Trump voters have belligerently voted against their personal interests as well as the obvious national security interests of the US out of cultural grievance and spite, but convincing fellow citizens to vote for Democrats next time is impossible if you block them all entirely from both your real and digital lives.

We cannot seal ourselves off in an echo chamber and only talk to people who agree with us 100% of the time because those people do not exist. It is liberal team-killing when we overly police our own as well as everyone around us according to an ever-shifting litmus test of acceptable opinions at the bottom of deep rabbit holes of unelectably identitarian radicalism that non-college educated voters (a majority of the country) know nothing about and instinctively dislike, and the proof is that Democrats lost two out of three elections against the biggest fascist demagogue in US history because independent and low-information voters find Democrats overly annoying, preachy, and sanctimonious.

Kamala Harris unfortunately ran the most moderate, bipartisan presidential campaign in decades, but she was not rewarded for it because the Democratic Party’s brand has been unfairly though convincingly associated with overindulgence on superfluous Wokeness bordering on eggheaded self-parody. Convincing voters that Democrats are not the absurd exaggerations Republicans pretend is impossible if Democrats exit the proverbial arena and don’t forcefully advocate for the Democratic Party and liberalism in general.

I want Democrats to win elections, but that can’t be done shunning our MAGA friends, exiling ourselves from our Trump-sympathetic family members, and quitting the political discourse by never participating in a debate, discussion, or any other opportunity of political persuasion ever again because every opponent or hosting institution is an irredeemable villain you can’t acknowledge exists.

Seriously, don’t leave Twitter, don’t tune out, and don’t hide yourself in a liberal bubble that will isolate you from the conservative and independent elements of society so that you’re surprised with greater and more shocked alarm each election when they get their guy in the White House.

Did your grandfather give up when Nazis started shooting at him off the coast of France in June 1944? No! I think you can handle the occasional slur and poorly proofread insult that will come your way when you stand up for liberal ideals on Twitter and other mainstream but conservative-shifting media platforms.

We’re getting a sneak peak at 2028’s future best-selling books!

I like finding out all these Trump appointments for his next administration because these are the future authors of memoirs that’ll be full of anecdotes about how he wouldn’t stop mentioning Hitler’s generals, and how he’s an amalgam of all the very worst personality traits, and how he had the attention span of a 3rd grader, and how his intellectual curiosity centered mostly on how to go about making the military shoot citizens, and now they suspected Putin was blackmailing him because his foreign policy ideas and choices otherwise made no sense for America’s national security. Trump’s last administration was historic in staff turnover and humiliating resignations, so I’d suggest his staffers keep their resumés updated.

Don’t let Trump’s chaos distract you, that is his strategy:

Secretary of State Marco Rubio

This will be the first time a Secretary of State will have implied the president he was working for had a micro penis since Frank B. Kellogg said Calvin Coolidge had less junk in his pants than Zelda Fitzgerald. 🥃

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