Marks of the Fascist, Tacky, Insatiable Beast
As we approach the 100-day milestone (yes it's only been that long) a sadistic, repressive regime increasingly reviled by its own people defiantly hurtles on - arresting judges, crushing dissent, abducting migrants, citizens, pregnant mothers, sick toddlers - while grotesquely cashing in on its atrocities with tawdry meme coins, black-tie dinners, loyalty pins and OMFG 2028 hats. We are become government by chaos, cruelty, greed - Liberace backed by the Stasi, a nation of gulags filled with gold (plated) gimcracks. SAD.
Historically, the 100-day milestone is seen as an ad-hoc national Rorschach test on a new president - or in this case führer - with pundits viewing the political landscape and drawing rational, data-based conclusions. Amidst our current mayhem, though, the only clear verdict is, "There's some seriously dystopian things going on." Polls show an administration (sic) that's lost the support of much of its populace, with the mad king's approval ratings underwater on virtually every issue, including the economy and immigration. Happily, he keeps losing in court, even before Trump-appointed judges: Thank you independent judiciary and the ACLU. Nobody wants to visit his despotic third-world shithole of a country anymore, mouthy Democrats like Jasmine Crockett won't stop saying mean things about him - to his rants about keeping us safe from criminals she invariably notes, "I haven’t seen anybody with a rap sheet that looks like the president’s” - and despite a lame "ONLY THE WEAK WILL FAIL!” rallying cry, he's crashed the economy with "this most imbecilic and destructive trade war in the history of the world."
The "holy-shit-that's-dumb" spectacle of his disastrous "Liberation Day" tariffs offered grim quick proof of his staggering ineptness: What could match the mad dissonance of $6 trillion instantly obliterated in a market meltdown as he bragged of "billions and billions of dollars pouring into our country"? He confused trade deficits with the national debt, made up numbers - a 25% tariff on cars would raise $100 billion, no wait, $600 billion - and wildly flip-flopped. It turns out he based his "formula" on research its author said he got "very wrong" and advice by a fictional "Ron Vara" conjured up by Peter Navarro, who Elon dubbed "dumb as a sack of bricks" before later apologizing to bricks. The crowning moment of "chickenfuckery": Nobody collected any money at ports packed with goods due to a "technical glitch." The Economist on the "complete drivel" of a trade policy by an idiot duped by his own MAGA echo chamber: "If you failed to spot America being 'looted, pillaged, raped and plundered by nations near and far,' congratulations: You have a firmer grip on reality than the President of the United States."
Luckily for him, a flunky says, "He’s at the peak of just not giving a fuck anymore." Great news for the nuclear codes! Thus does the old mad king spend over a quarter of his time at his crappy golf courses - cue many Nero cartoons - at a cost of more than $3 million a game. Asked about his weekend as the economy burned, he gloated, "I won (at golf) - it's good to win." We wouldn't know. Meanwhile, he rants, spews, babbles, out of the loop. He's said to considering drone strikes on Mexican drug cartels. He wished "Happy Easter to all," even the "despicable and unAmerican radical left lunatics (who) hate our country so much" and the "WEAK and INEFFECTIVE judges allowing this sinister attack so violent it will never be forgotten!" On Earth Day, focusing on the important things and celebrating now that "we finally have a president who follows science," he announced he's putting up two, new, beautiful, yuge "top of the line" flag poles at the White House: "They needed flag poles for 200 years. It was something I've often said, you know, they don't have a flag pole per se. It's going to be two beautiful poles."
It's also, as always, "a great time to get rich." Which is why he's as always, if stupefyingly - how much money is enough? - still grifting, a tacky hucksterism that recalls a 2016 observation Trump is "the Republican Party’s answer to Liberace." Both bitchy, germaphobe divas, Trump was (sort of) friends with the king of glitz, a master of sequined suits, candelabras on the grill of his Cadillac and gold-and-chandelier-drenched Las Vegas home - akin to Trump Tower, dubbed "the Liberace of buildings" - but impressively topped by a faux Sistine Chapel ceiling featuring himself. His mantra: ‘Too much of a good thing is wonderful." And so to Trump's new scam, a $TRUMP memecoin that netted him millions, joined by $MELANIA, before predictably crashing. Now he's offering “the most EXCLUSIVE INVITATION in the World," where top buyers can attend an "unforgettable Gala DINNER.” "Own $TRUMP! ARE YOU IN?” shrieks the promo with exploding confetti like Better Call Saul ads. "The competition is fierce!" Sen. Chris Murphy: "This is the most brazenly corrupt thing a President has ever done. Not close.”
Still, the scams and bling keep coming. Recently, FCC Chair Brendan Carr posted a photo of himself wearing a gold lapel pin of Dear Leader squinting up like he did at an eclipse, a cultish image prompting the NYT to boldly suggest it "raises questions" - like, given its resemblance to once-ubiquitous Mao Tse-Tung pins, "Is Trump the most communist leader we've ever had?" Following in the tradition of dictators past - Libyan students had to quote Gaddafi, Turkmenistan's gold statue rotated to the sun, North Koreans wear Kim Jong-un badges and sing Friendly Father - Trump has worn an aptly cartoonish version of himself, and myriad pins online go for as little as $3.97. His relentless merch machine hawks this for $25, "gold-plated," reportedly of a base metal used for cheap doodads that's toxic: "Tacky and cheap in every way. The Trump brand." Also, "The SS had their Death Head, MAGA has their Shit Head." The White House denies rumors pin-wearing is mandatory, but adds it's A-ok to "show support for the greatest President in history," also nice little family you have and how sad if anything happened to them.
More grandiose gestures hover. Trump is said to be considering planning a much-dreamed-of, $100-million "great celebratory military parade," just like other big bad guys, to mark his June 14 birthday, which coincides with the Army's 250th anniversary. Cue marching soldiers, armored vehicles, tanks ripping up the streets of D.C, and what waste and fraud? Also, the guy losing faster and sooner than any president in history continues trolling about maybe running (or crawling by then) for a third term. "They say I can't run again - that's the expression," he jabbered in February. "There are methods which you could do it. A lot of people want me to do it." Just in case, he's already cashing in with yet another crappy red cap - more trashy, deadly marks of the beast - this one declaring Trump 2028, which costs $50 and promises to "make a statement," presumably about evil tinpot wannabe dictators who just will not STFU. His store is also selling $36 t-shirts: "Trump 2028 (Rewrite the Rules). The future looks bright!" Except - per Billy Roach's "Facts owe" - for most of the denizens of a now-ravaged, on-the-edge America.
Back in the real world, away from the bling and lies and frenzied delusion, Trump and his accomplices are feverishly committing ever more outlandish atrocities against everyone who isn't them, especially if brown-skinned. Last month, citing "the dynamic nature of enforcement operations," the Justice Dept (sic) quietly gave ICE agents the power to conduct searches without warrants of people’s homes if based on "a reasonable belief" they suspect targets of being "an Alien Enemy." (Good god almighty they deserve hell just for their twisted desecration of language itself). "As much as practicable," agents should follow legal procedures and get warrants before "contacting an Alien Enemy,” the memo generously adds. “However, that will not always be realistic or effective in swiftly identifying and removing Alien Enemies," so sometimes they might just be whisked in the middle of the night into murderous gulags in foreign countries like Abrego Garcia and over 200 Venezuelans who happen to have tattoos while Kristi De Goebbels primps and smirks, but hey, too bad, so sad, at least now we're legally covered.
Under such dubious rubrics, Trump's rabid cabal of fascists and lickspittles have eagerly taken on the task of dismantling burdensome due process. Slimy Marco Rubio has defended detaining and seeking to deport over 300 innocents, including Tufts graduate student Rumesya Oztur, for mere political speech he doesn't agree with, gloating, "Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visa. It's just that simple." Except when not: In another shitshow, he also revoked visas for South Sudanese after their country allegedly refused to accept one of their own named Nimeri Garang; in fact, Rubio mistakenly sent them DRC citizen Makula Kintu who told the U.S. he wasn’t from South Sudan but they wouldn't listen, insisting his argument was "legally irrelevant." Defying multiple court orders, Rubio is reportedly still sending “alien enemy” victims to El Salvador if they're over 14 - "What about those deadly Venezuelan toddlers?" - and praising their evil, profit-making alliance as “an example for security and prosperity, though U.S. law bars financial support for “units of foreign security forces," torturous or no.
Meanwhile Nazi Press Barbie says they're "exploring legal pathways" to disappear U.S. citizens, but only "heinous criminals (who) have broken our laws repeatedly," maybe like with 33 felony convictions? Tulsi Gabbard says gangs are foreign terrorists "invading" us 'cause they're working with the Venezuelan government to make America weaker and browner so they don't deserve any due process, though experts and 17 of 18 U.S. intelligence agencies call the charge "ludicrous"; in response she told Congress they're all deep-state liars who "twisted and manipulated" the (fictional) evidence "to undermine the president's agenda," she "fully supports" the (imaginary) assessment they're foreign terrorists acting with Maduro's support, they're thus subject to arrest and removal as alien enemies, and in what one skeptic calls "the fastest mole hunt in the history of mole hunts,"
she's already referred the leaking "deep-state criminals" to the DOJ for possible prosecution and, obviously, conveniently, their removal to CECOT or some similarly merciless location. Whew. Stalin really could have used her.
And still the ICE rampage escalates. In New Orleans, they just arrested, held incommunicado and deported two mothers, one pregnant, and their three U.S.-citizen children - 7, 4 and a 2-year-old girl with metatastic cancer - at a routine immigration hearing, even as the girl's father was frantically petitioning the court to keep her in the country; agents admitted the move was a ploy to get him to turn himself in. For once, there was blowback: A horrified judge, Trump-appointed yet, ordered a hearing based on his
"strong suspicion the government just deported a U.S. citizen with no meaningful process.” We hope he knows multiple others have met the same fate - U.S. permanent residents detained at DHS offices, delivering paperwork, in naturalization interviews, a deported family with a 10-year-old U.S. citizen with brain cancer, a deported Cuban wife of a U.S. citizen with whom she shares a baby daughter. Her distraught husband: "They separated a girl from her mother. They killed a mother, a father, and the future of a girl while she was still alive." So much winning.
On Friday, the fascist-abuse-of-state-power-meter got turned up still more when FBI agents in Wisconsin arrested Milwaukee Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan, 65, for allegedly helping an immigrant evade arrest by ICE in her courtroom by letting him leave by another door. Though they caught him later, an outraged Ka$h Patel clamored, "We believe Judge Dugan intentionally misdirected federal agents away from the subject, an illegal alien" - oh how they love their racist slurs - for which she faces two federal felony counts of obstruction and concealing an individual. Defense attorneys called the action "very, very outrageous"; Attorney-General (sic) Pam Bondi, who took bribes to let both Jeffrey Epstein and Trump U. skate, went on Fox News as usual to declare the judiciary "deranged" and darkly warn, "We will find you." FactPac called on the Florida Bar to review Bondi's conduct and consider her disbarment for being "a lawless Attorney General." Finally, observers wondered, "What stage of fascism does arresting judges mark?" and speculated, "Her Nuremberg trial will be the best one."
Because the authoritarian goal is to harass or intimidate anyone who seems able to thwart their power, the regime's targets have also included labor unions, disgruntled or fired federal workers threatened with criminal penalties if they speak up - "Und Blabbermouths vill be zhot" - and victims of former anti-discrimination agencies like Equal Employment perversely flipped in service of today's hatred, like Barnard College professors asked to declare if they're Jewish and have encountered anti-Semitism or "unwelcome discussions." Given the sinister Red-Scare tactics and horrific damage inflicted by "a guy who eats a big bowl of contempt for breakfast each morning," it's hard to fathom the freakish juxtapositions at work, to conflate the cheesy huckster with the foul, dark, implacably broken sociopath, devoid of empathy, grace, any saving human virtue. Jamelle Bouie posits a personality so driven by the need to dominate, to demonstrate "mastery over his perceived enemies," to "trample over those who don’t belong in his America," that he "will always want more...There must be a loser or else there is no Trump."
"When historians reflect on this regime," Robert Reich muses, "cruelty will be the word most used to define it." Also emblematic, others suggest: Sadism, stupidity, corruption, the vital task of "seeing people for who they really are." Recently, comedian Larry David wrote a blistering piece parodying Bill Maher's account of a dinner with Trump, who he called "gracious and measured." David's My Dinner With Adolf begins when, in the spring of 1939, a letter arrives "inviting me to dinner (with) the world’s most reviled man, Adolf Hitler.” "Everyone said don't go, he's a monster," but he decides "we need to talk to the other side - even if it (has) annexed other countries and committed unspeakable crimes against humanity." At dinner, Hitler laughs and tells jokes, like about his dog having diarrhea; he beams, "'Hey, if I can kill Jews, Gypsies and homosexuals, I can kill a dog!' which got the biggest laugh of the night...Suddenly he seemed so human. Like this was the real Hitler...We're not all that different." Leaving, he tells the furher, "I'm so thankful i came. Although we disagree on many issues, it doesn’t mean we have to hate each other." Then, "I gave him a Nazi salute and walked out into the night.”