How Trump Destroyed Christmas

No Christmas mood at my house this year. I've tried but I'm not feeling it. Trump and his enforcers have made it impossible, spreading their evil about as fast as they can. Good for you if you can do it but I just can't. Their evil has overwhelmed all the goodness for me. 

DEI at the NYT

Ross Douthat is the face of DEI. At the New York Times. And Bret Stephens. The Times feels it has to have 'conservatives' in the mix. Because they believe in inclusion. DEI, in other words. So they have Douthat and Stephens. Who are radical bigots and authoritarians. That's what it means to be conservative in America, a culture warrior. Douthat just wrote another piece outlining how 'woke' is a real thing that did damage. Meanwhile our 'conservative' government is on a killing spree like the last batch of Republicans. They don't give a shit about anything. Except themselves. And winning. 

Is there any Republican in Washington that isn't a piece of shit?

Any integrity out there? 

Feckless Endangerment

How are we to understand the interplay of Donald Trump's malice and his incompetence? I think the malice is a function of the incompetence operating through insecurity, assuming his defining trait is fecklessness in relation to worthlessness. He's so scared. In his bones he knows he's an idiot. He knows he's a piece of shit. He knows there's nothing there. 

The aggression and the need to constantly belittle, degrade and dominate everyone is meant to disempower them and reduce the threat because he knows he's inferior. He can't feel powerful. If he could he would. But he's trying. By belittling others because power is relative.  Being below Trump means being utterly degraded and inhuman, the complete loss of freedom a self-determination. 

The Pyongyang Playhouse

The Kennedy Center is all praise for the Trump regime and dedicated to portraying of the world as fearless leader sees it. Above all fearless leader must not be criticized. Fearless leader embodies all that is good and beautiful and just. All hail fearless leader.

Your Attention Please

I hereby proclaim that anyone who continues to support the piece of shit Donald Trump is at this point also a piece of shit. They share in his shithood, which is vast and unrelenting. 

Cyclops the Second

Rod Dreher has tracked back to his roots. He's a racist, a bigot, a eugenicist, an imperialist and a fascist. He thinks he should be paid and supported for being Rod Dreher, the thing that defines conservatives, an attachment to privilege. They think some people are mysteriously, irreducibly, existentially better than others -- them. And God is on his side, for good measure. 

Well I'm Glad That's Over

I've had a reckoning late in life, involving a mass of shame and regret. I never hit my stride, to put it mildly, and have misrepresented myself, or not been true to myself, for virtually all my adult existence. 

The truth of that was apparent and unmistakable to me once seen. There's comfort in the certainty. The comfort presents as compassion, firstly for myself and then it sorta spreads. Who am I to judge anybody?

Given the way I view my own life, I mean. With the world going to shit all around compassion helps, but it's still a struggle. Sadness on both fronts. But it's honest and there's truth in it. Shame is hard, though.

It's a Jungle in There

I mean the conservative mind. Look at America, probably the most fortunate people in the history of the world. Good candidates, anyway. And conservatives rise up and destroy it. Out of nowhere. No reason. 

They can't help themselves. There was nothing wrong. Or, to the extent there was, it was the fault of conservatives. Take the Great Depression, the exact result of laissez-faire, attack economics and ideology. But they never gave up on those ideas because they made them rich. And a lot of people poor.

Fuck the country. Fuck the poor. Fuck everybody but them. 

They tried to pull off another depression in 2008. Obama had to drag us out of it and clean up their mess, the usual pattern. They obstructed that, except the part where he bailed out the rich people. Bailed out conservatives, which some Wall Street guys argued was necessary or the world economy would implode. 

Blackmail. And they're back at it under Trump. In spades. Unprecedented stuff. There was a time they might have believed their own bullshit. Maybe that makes it not bullshit, I don't know. Supply side. Rising tide. Boats. 

Whatever. Hard to make a case for that now. Incomprehensible inequality. Literally incomprehensible. Try to comprehend it, I dare you. Double dare and stand behind Trump when the Big Mac farts blast out of his ass dare you. Instead of doing illegal shit they're making corruption legal. 

Kidnapping, rape, murder, you name it, no problem. If you're a conservative. White collar crime? See under corruption. They were always all-in on that, rolling the dice on the legality. That Bush recession, the '08 thing, taught them something. They were basically immune. We were insuring their depredations. 

So, here we are. Conservatives are on the attack like never before. 

Never before in American history, anyway. Because of intolerance. They have to attack. Attack something. Someone. Anyone. Hispanics will work. Democrats. Children. Old people. Targets of opportunity. Boat people and fishermen, they don't know. They don't care. 

They attack without real cause, but because it's a jungle in there, in the conservative mind. 

Follow the Money

Follow the money. Find the money. Take the money. Documenting the plundering and crimes of the rich isn't enough. We must shut their asses down. 

What Did We Expect to Have Happen?

People are getting paid for subverting our government. They're getting rich subverting our government. What did we expect to have happen? 

The World Exists to Kiss Trump's Ass

I'm not kidding. Republicans are mapping godhood onto Trump. Not that they think he's Jesus, consciously, but the effect is that. It's the unconscious that's running the show. Ever been to a Baptist church? The experience lacks, let's say, artistic immediacy. Comes up short on beauty. Fails like fuck, really. And extreme Calvinists crave closeness to Jesus more than anything. 

It's their entire purpose. 

But there's that annoying wait, called 'life,' the prison sentence which we serve and to which we are sentenced by God. Life is not supposed to be nice. Suffering brings people closer to Jesus, especially Democrats, those fucking apostates, so let them suffer. If they die that's fine. They get to see Jesus, not having been saved. Catholics used art to feed that need for immediacy. 

Music, images, statues, incense, all that. Calvinists called them idolators. Said Catholics were superstitious and such. But Baptists blew a fuse. Their craving for a less abstract (you as your immortal soul) and experiential form of religious rite has taken them to Trump (and snake handling, a close parallel) as the human embodiment of holiness and a personal connection to perfection. 

Something more emotionally satisfying. We can debate the appropriateness of Trump. But I will point out that strict Calvinists have a big problem with 'good works' as part of the straw-man stereotyping of Catholics. Fear is part of the Protestant package at the extreme end because they're dualists. Good and Evil they're sure of, not much in between. Good works are a bad sign. 

Trump has never done a good work in his life, a higher, more uncompromised form of holiness, so there's that to chew on. Add in Calvinist fatalism which, in one of its manifestations, means being rich is a sign of God's favor, the result of having lived a disciplined and godly life. Then add in authoritarianism and the arbitrary nature of salvation and so the arbitrary nature of authority. 

Voilà, the cult of Trump. 

So much is said, and so much is true, of that shitbag. Democrats are beating their heads against a wall trying to understand it within their model of reason and belief (not to rule it out) that they thought characterized both Christianity and Americanism. They were right but that's not where we are. We're in another world, of the idolatry and superstition Calvinists sought to avoid. 

They're seeking beauty in Trump, through its opposite because they blew a fuse craving an immediate experience of Jesus. And there's another avenue, seeing Jesus through the coming of the end times, the apocalypse. I don't deny Trump is the man if you want to see the world go up in flames. So there's that. And go in peace now to love and serve the Lord, as religious people like to say. 

Active Shitter Alert

An active shitter alert has been released for the White House. Trump is shitting on everything. It's completely out of control.