Why Toxic Vapours?

 

[Ironically, I wrote this introduction before I had half a week of migranes hit me. I guess I jinxed myself! Hopefully, I can get back at it.]

The activity on my blog is not only unusual due to its (so far) steady pace of entries - yay for me! - but also because of my contemptuous language when describing Team Trump and MAGA.  This is not like me. There is a reason why, pre-Trump, I had friends that spanned the political spectrum from far left to far right. It was because I treated both sides respectfully, as was only appropriate. But, as the saying goes, that was then, and this is now. 

My tone has changed because Donald Trump is a uniquely toxic individual. He is a man who has mocked the handicapped. He is a man who has disparaged both POWs as well as the heroic dead (as "suckers" and "losers"). Donald Trump has been accused by multiple women of sexual assault and has even been caught on tape bragging about doing so. Donald Trump is a man who is so corrupt that he has lost his license to practice business in NYC.  He is, of course, a convicted felon, who paid a pornstar hush money.  Donald Trump is a serial adulterer and, again, has bragged about it in various interviews. Donald Trump is a coward who avoided the draft by claiming "bone spurs" despite subsequently spending countless hours on his feet playing golf. Donald Trump is profoundly stupid yet mocks those far more intelligent than himself. And, like bullies everywhere, Donald Trump is tremendously thin-skinned, which is why I enjoy inventing new pejoratives to describe his loathsome nature. And those are just a few indictments off the top of my head.

Birds of a feather flock together, so it is no surprise that Trump has surrounded himself with a freak show that reflects his nature.  Never has a rogue's gallery of freaks, incels, snowflakes, lunatics, predators, and grifters been assembled in one place outside of Mos Eisley.  If this White House is a portrait of America, I have no choice but to declare it is one of Dorian Gray. 

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Which brings me to my second point. As I often point out to fellow members of the resistance, Trump is merely a symptom of a serious illness. The American people, particularly those on the right, have gone insane.  As someone who once was of the conservative movement, I was uniquely positioned to see this transformation occur with breathtaking rapidity. I recall my erstwhile conservative friends espousing such principles (in no specific order) as:

• Bill Clinton was unfit for high office because of his shady background of corrupt business dealings in Arkansas
• Bill Clinton's bilious life that included multiple sexual assault allegations
• Hillary Clinton being made an unconstitutional "co-president"
• Barack Obama was an imperial president because he relied on excessive executive orders
• Barack Obama is a secret idiot who refused to release his college transcripts because of poor grades
• Barack Obama never held a "real job" in his life
• Barack Obama was leading an assault on the constitution
• Barack Obama was socializing America
• Barack Obama was not a Christian but a secret Muslim
• The growth of the national debt under Obama was a national crisis
• Barack Obama associated with Bill Ayers, a convicted domestic terrorist

I am sorry to pound away at Obama like that, but he was a catalyst for why we got where we are now. This is to say that, putting aside the attacks on Obama's faith, the conservative attacks on his policy positions, as well as Clinton's licentiousness, remain valid to me. Even though the left likes to pretend that they have clean hands when it comes to the rise of Trump, it must be acknowledged that it was the high-handed tactics of the Obama administration (e..g, "I have a pen and a phone..."), including the deliberate trolling of the right (such as putting a Maoist ball on the White House Christmas tree), that led to the backlash that gave rise to the MAGA movement.  Only a few progressive pundits have had the honesty to acknowledge this.

Be that as it may, the right has now displayed its own moral rot as, without so much as a 'by your leave', they have become astounding hypocrites on each issue.  (Some of these will be repeated from above, but it is worth the repetition when dealing with such a loathesome individual.)

• MAGA has embraced a man so corrupt that he has lost his license to practice business in NYC, as well as exposed operation grifting schemes such as "Trump University" and the "Donald J. Trump Foundation" (he shut down both when confronted with criminal prosecution). Then there are the multiple bankruptcies that stiffed various subcontractors for their services. Also, there is that, you know, thirty-four felony convictions for paying hush money to a porn star.
• Trump has been accused by multiple women of sexual assault. Furthermore, unlike Clinton, he was caught laughing about getting away with it on tape. Trump has been found guilty of sexual assault in a civil court and had TWO judgments rendered against him for defaming his victim.
• Donald Trump has appointed Elon Musk, a chaotic billionaire with extreme right-wing (neo-nazi?) opinions, as an unelected co-president who is dismantling large parts of the federal government without any oversight and while committing many damaging mistakes. 
• Donald Trump has governed by executive orders, signing more than ninety in just the first few months of his second term, many of them being unconstitutional.
• Donald Trump is a profoundly stupid man, as evidenced by incidents too numerous to list here (my personal favorite: when he berated Baltic ambassadors because he thought they were from the Balkans). Also see the recent incoherence surrounding his tariff policy, something even he doesn't seem to understand. 
• Donald Trump never held a "real job". Rather, he inherited a successful business and used the proceeds to fail multiple times at side projects, such as Trump Casino.  He is now up to six bankruptcies, albeit some put it as high as eleven.
• Donald Trump is leading an unprecedented assault on the US Constitution, including deporting legal immigrants for exercising their free speech rights, as well as denying habeas corpus to other immigrants. Trump is now even speaking about doing the same to "homegrown" Americans. Trump has also begun to defy court decisions, including those of SCOTUS. 
• Donald Trump has become a hero of the evangelical right despite never attending church, nor being able to speak about Christianity coherently, not to mention leading a scandalous life. 
• Donald Trump has begun down a path of fascism, including creating a dirigiste economy that is directed by the government and is executed by mega-corporations. Again, see the recent chaos surrounding his tariff policy and his cabinet of crony capitalists.
• Donald Trump doubled the national debt in half the time of Obama. 
• Donald Trump fomented an insurrection in an attempt to steal a presidential election. He would later give a blanket pardon to all the insurrectionists, including those who put 130 capital police officers in the hospital.

I could go on and on. But none of this bothers his MAGA base, the same people outraged by the depredations of Clinton and Obama. In short, they have become everything they once held in contempt. They are loathsome hypocrites who proved the left correct: most of the conservative movement were just bigots and/or fascists waiting for it to be safe to come out of the closet. Hence, why I now, unapologetically, emit toxic vapours. 😋

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Here, I also need to take time to lambast the left. We of the conservative right have been proven correct the last few months. When we warned that Obama was flirting with an imperial presidency via unconstitutional executive orders, such as DACA, the left blew us off as being unreasonable. When the conservative right began advocating for a divestment from government in education, such as refusing to take government grants (as Hillsdale College does) because that money comes with potentially dangerous strings attached, the right was laughed at. When the conservative right warned about the threat to free speech that "safe spaces" and similar schemes posed, we were again dismissed as being unreasonable. When the conservative right warned that taking extreme positions on cultural issues, such as the left's slow drift from combating homophobia to embracing homophilia, we were labelled as out of touch bigots. 

When we warned that a lax immigration enforcement policy, one that resulted in such outrages as the murder of Laken Riley, was leading to a massive blowback on all immigration, we were again dismissed out of hand. Lastly, we were mocked when we warned that a bloated national government with nearly limitless scope and power was an existential threat. But now look at where we are. All the dangers that the old conservative movement fretted about are coming true. Frankly, the left's highhanded dismissal of the concerns of the right helped build Trump's victory brick by brick. 

(I also add here the right's warning that Chuck Schumer was a feckless senator, and Bill Maher was nothing more than a false B-list entertainer pretending to be a left-wing William F. Buckley for ratings. Again, you were warned! 😄) 

As someone formerly of the hard right, I can tell you that the right learned from the left's tactics and read their playbooks. In some cases, this is literally true as when Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals became a best seller amongst conservatives because we learned that some in the Obama administration considered it required reading. It is also why, during the COVID pandemic, that the anti-vax right began shouting, "My body, my choice",  something that both confounded and infuriated the left (this old school pro-life conservative did find this bit of cultural appropriation to be delicious if misguided! 😁). Like the martian invaders in H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds, we of the former conservative right studied and scrutinized the left, and learned its weaknesses and strengths. And now MAGA has converted all of that into a win at all costs playbook for a decisive defeat of the left, something that now includes a willing slide into fascism.  

At this point in the MAGA right's advanced corruption, Buckminster Fuller's warning that "Those who play with the Devil’s toys will be brought by degrees to wield his sword” would be apropos, but I fear such a warning will now fall ineffectively on the deaf ears of the MAGA  right.

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