Why I'm not laughing at Donald Trump (anymore)

Yes, I know, trump is a buffoon. He's an egomaniacal blowhard who routinely says bizarrely ridiculous things. And he talks like a 10-year-old playground bully. I know, his idea of highlighting the differences between himself and rival candidates is to say "he's a total loser" and "I'm very smart!" And of course, it's hard not to laugh every time this self-parody of a conceited dolt opens his weird fish-lipped mouth and spouts utter nonsense. And it's all the easier to laugh knowing that he has absolutely no chance of winning this election.

But I'm not laughing anymore, and I'll tell you why.

Recently, while flipping through the channels, I saw a couple minutes of an All in the Family episode from the 1970's. And someone asked Archie Bunker whether he had voted for Ford. Archie replies, "no, I wrote in Ronald Reagan." This gets a huge laugh. Huge. Because in the 1970's, Reagan was considered such a loony right-wing know-nothing figure that the idea of voting for him to be President seemed absurd.

 Well, fast-forward a few years, and there's Reagan in the Oval Office.

The limits of what is considered reasonable in American politics, what some call the "Overton Window," a phrase I enjoy because it sounds like a lost Robert Ludlum novel, is constantly, relentlessly, being dragged to the right.


 Remember Pat Buchannan in 1992 shouting "lock and Load!" and "Take back your culture?" Remember how the Republicans were so embarrassed by him that they banned him from the '96 convention? And the best line, as expected, came from Molly Ivins who said that the speech "probably sounded better in the original German." Remember how everyone thought Buchannan was a dangerous lunatic demagogue?

 

Then remember how just a few years ago, the "liberal" MSNBC started inviting Buchannan onto its airwaves as if he was going to provide a reasoned counterpoint to it's left-leaning hosts? Remember Rachel Maddow calling him "Uncle Pat?" Like, sure he's eccentric and says outrageous things, but deep down, he's just a lovable old curmudgeon. Remember that? Remember how racist he had to get to finally be dismissed from their network?

Remember how up until just a few years ago, it wasn't a common sight to see prominent politicians waving around dangerous weaponry like a bunch of goddamm Ted Nugents?

 

 For that matter, speaking of Nugent, remember when it was considered beyond the pale to threaten the life of the President? Remember when that would get you a visit from some pissed-off Secret Service guys, not an invite to the State of the Union Address?

 

Or a jam-session with a Presidential candidate?

So, no. I don't think Trump is funny anymore. Not that he shouldn't be mocked and ridiculed, of course he should. But 4 or 8 years from now, we're going to look back at him and think "that was when the Republican Party was still a little bit sane."
Buchannan was an outlier in 1992. Trump is basically doing Pat's schtick with a little "hey. look how awesome I am" thrown in for good measure and he's leading the Republican field. And the window is moving rightward a hell of a lot faster than it was back then.

Back in the 1990's, Social Security was still considered the "3rd rail of politics," no one would dare touch it. Now the discussion has moved to how much should we cut it, or should we get rid of it altogether?  And if it wasn't for Republicans' absolute petulant, infantile refusal to compromise a single inch, it would have been cut as part of the "Grand Bargain" that the supposedly lefty-liberal Barack Obama had proposed.

Also, in the 1990's, we had an assault weapons ban. Conservative hero Ronald Reagan gave us that, along with the Brady Bill.  Anyone suggesting that maybe we might want to re-instate Ronald Reagan's gun legislation these days is tarred as a "left-wing radical" or something. The idea that basic, sensible gun control would ever be considered an extremist left position would have been laughable a generation ago. As laughable as the idea of a President Trump is today. But I'm not laughing. Not anymore.

Disgusting people say disgusting things

Somehow, we've gotten to the point where public figures seem to be engaged in a competition to see who can say the most disgusting thing. In a sane society, the only two possible responses to people like Ted Nugent or Micheal Savage would be a) "Oh, that poor man has clearly lost his mind. He should be institutionalized." or b) "Let us all shun this vile bag of ass and drive him from our society. Let him spend his days wandering from town to town being pelted with scorn and contempt."
But of course, this is no longer a sane society so these people are given a forum to spew their filth and then treated with respect by prominent political figures.




So a couple truly disgusting things said by disgusting people caught my eye the last few days.

Thing #1:

Nugent: Obama is responsible for veteran suicide

 “Twenty to 25 of those guys kill themselves every day, and they haven’t told you why and they haven’t told anybody else why but they told me why: because the commander in chief is the enemy.”

How dare you?
Have you really no shame?
Not the tiniest shred of human decency?
You're going to use the tragedy of veteran suicides as an opportunity to score some cheap political, um, I was going to say "point," but there really isn't even any point being made. It's just a cheap shabby insult made using the suicides of men whose service to their nation left them damaged to the point of despair as the set-up for your shameful punchline.

There are any number of reasons that people commit suicide. And for returning veterans, there are all the reasons the rest of the population has compounded with PTSD, serious brain injuries, having seen unspeakable horrors, survivor's guilt, etc etc etc. But no one has ever committed suicide because of who is the President. That's just fucking stupid. And it's disgraceful, indecent and beneath contempt.

Also, it's a fucking lie. No veterans are coming to you, washed-up 70's musician Ted Nugent, and explaining to you the reasons why they are planning on committing suicide. If they were, and you weren't preventing it, you would be an even worse scumbag than you already are. And that hardly seems possible.

Thing #2:

Micheal Savage said this on the public airwaves recently:

“The white man is a quiet man and a peaceful man,” Savage said, “and right now the white man is very, very quiet, and very, very peaceful, and like many dictators before him, Barack Obama thinks the white man will remain quiet and subdued forever. Hitler made that mistake; Hitler boasted that his supermen, his Hitler Youth, would easily wipe the floor with the GI Joes that were being sent over…. But it was the white man who defeated Superman in World War II. Let me tell you something else, you push the white man only so far, you’re going to have a reaction like you’ve never seen.”

Jeezus, didn't these people used to at least try to veil their racism? Also, if you're going to assume the mantle of white supremacy, which you clearly are, it doesn't make a lot of sense to compare the other guy to Adolph Fucking Hitler.

And you're really going to pretend that Hitler's Ubermenschen weren't  also white men? White men get the credit for defeating the Nazis, but somehow don't get the blame for BEING the Nazis?

And when has the white man ever been quiet and peaceful?
When he was colonizing Asia and Africa?
When he was forging a new nation built on the twin evils of slavery and genocide?
Maybe when he was shooting up a college town because girls didn't want to date him?

Maybe when the continent of Europe was soaked in blood for a couple centuries because various groups of whire men couldn't agree on which version of Jesus to follow?

Or maybe it was when he murdered several million Jews, Roma, and anyone else who didn't fit his image of what a perfect white man should be?

Pictured: quiet men of peace.

Yes, white men are currently very very quiet and subdued. Unless their favorite team loses a basketball game.

Or they encounter an unarmed black teenager.