Sometimes it's the littler things, like Tom DeLay going on Dancing With the Stars and George Bush painting portraits of young men whose lives he destroyed, that get to you. Normalization has been going on all along. It really kicked in when our baggage began busting out of the closets and floating up from the storm drains. Shit that wasn't meant to be seen forcing us to look at it. See me ...
The usual methods of denial and compartmentalization weren't enough. Rationalizations were still of some use. And normalization complements rationalization. You see it but you don't, finding a way to accept it or detoxify it. You become numb to it. It feels okay. The proper responses of outrage and indignation are kept down. Distraction also helps, so shit can be normalized in a distracting way.
Outrages get relocated into the realm of entertainment where loser Uncle Heinrich competes with Captain Kangaroo and Mister Green Jeans. Uncle Adolf with Mister Rogers. And, because they're nuts, they win. The edgier shit wins. It's a scary day in the neighborhood with Democrats beating off in the bushes so be careful. Democrats sacrifice babies, you know, in the basement of the pizza place.
Suddenly Uncle Heinrich isn't a loser anymore he's running concentration camps for Democrats. People are ostracized. Innocence is quarantined so the corruption isn't corrupted. So that lies aren't assaulted by the truth. Diseases are cunning. Read about rabies. Try to get your head around it. While you were distracted the world flipped upside down, and nobody signed off on it. It just happened.
Incrementally. And we're left with Tom DeLay, who should be universally loathed and liked like vomit, still living on in good circumstances. Unpunished. And there are legions of these people, who are incredibly invested in ensuring accountability never comes knocking at the door. And the legions are growing. Hordes of Trumpers. Genghis and Attila hordes. They were already among us.
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