Speaking Power To Truth
Finally the Left is starting to learn that he means it. Hopefully some of the stupider delusions of the last few months might start being shed, but I’m not optimistic. As I’ve said multiple times now (e.g. “Set Up For Failure”), Trump doesn’t even need to succeed with the things he promised — he only needs convenient scapegoats to demonise in case he fails, and he’s got so many of those, so many ripe targets in the ranks of the easily outraged. And clinging to the belief that somehow the Supreme Court or other institutions will protect us all is simply delusional — if it comes to the Supreme Court vs. Trump, who do you think will win? Hint: not the Supremes — if he loses in the court, he gets a new set of scapegoats for his followers, setting it up as a discredited institution for them; when he later stacks the court, the rest of us lose any respect for the institution of the court itself as well. He wins both ways. He’s a creative wrecker — a classic disrupter….
Not that learning that he really means it will make much difference. His base will support him in everything he does (even when those things would seem to be against their own interests, something the Left never, ever, seems to learn — how long are you going to condescendingly keep waiting for his supporters to “wake up”?!), and many others will be at best indifferent. Only the easily outraged will be outraged, and they’re the easiest people to scapegoat or ignore (or troll). For example, Silicon Valley firms are angered by Trump’s latest immigration orders — but it’s difficult to believe that that angering is not part of Trump’s strategy, and I’m sure he and his advisors are even now expressing pleasure at that easy target’s validation of his actions — there are so many in this country who would root for the failure (or at least the suffering) of Silicon Valley and associated techies.
Trump can just go on speaking power to truth as he has for years, and having laid the groundwork over the past year for a radical nihilism, for many that truth is whatever he says it is (or isn’t) — and the rest of us just retreat into our own little truth bubbles (many of which we have been smugly preparing for decades).
As always for the last year or so, my anger is fairly evenly distributed between Trump and his opponents — especially the stupider (and by far the most numerous) parts of the Left in this country. There’s no easy way out of this mess that so many helped create over the years and decades, and I can’t pretend to have any answers; I only know that gesture politics, ineffectual protests and protest art, and stupid Facebook memes aren’t quite the ticket.
