The Arc of the Moral Universe

Last week tens of millions of hopeful Americans and citizens around the world rang in spanking new 2021 by watching the tail end of Donald Trump’s presidency explode spectacularly on the landing strip.

Think of Trump as a metaphorical airline: he had but to taxi his presidency to the gate, walk off the plane with his carry on item in hand, go to the baggage carousel and pick up his clubs then make his way to a golf course. That would be his refuge. He would spend the rest of his days doted upon as a (quasi-) statesmanlike ex-president. He would escape prosecution for any crimes, his debts and past-taxes would be forgiven or paid for by donors, he would be warmly received by Republicans everywhere. The Trump brand would be expanded: bridges, airports and roads to nowhere would be named after him. His children would run for office. He would become the conservative gatekeeper with more prestige (and money) than he could ever have as president …

… he would whine the entire time about how unfair everyone has been to him, how the coronavirus debacle was China’s fault, that he won the 2020 election but was cheated. Trump didn’t dignify his office any more than a 10-year old girl would have, but still … he lied himself into a corner he couldn’t turn around and lie his way out of. What remains is wreckage and collateral damage that is in the process of being tabulated.

Oh well …

People knew something like this was going to be the endgame in 2016 and before. They knew Trump’s record as a fake ‘businessman’, as a TV personality, as a bigot and abuser, as a tabloid-‘Page 6’ regular, an inhabitant of New York’s cocaine fired demimonde inhabited by burned out Warhol stars and ‘celebrities’; as a client of mafia consiglieri Roy Cohn and in general a mob hanger-on; a ‘friend’ of child rapist Jeffrey Epstein. The Trump drift to politics was natural like falling off a cliff, the gap between media driven ‘civic leadership’ and depravity almost nonexistent, one being the qualification for the other.

The arc of Trump’s presidency was long but from the start it bent toward stupidity. “Aim low, you’ll get there,” instructed my wise and cruel Mom: “Never borrow any more than you can repay by working a job at 7-Eleven.” Trump never had a problem with the aiming low part. He was born conniving then drifted. He was the Formica salesman’s idea of a rich man, a Potemkin tycoon. He was squanderous; he had burned through a half-billion dollar fortune by the time he was 45. He was mean and tasteless, he lacked wit or generosity, everything about him, from his signature haircut to his overly long necktie screamed ‘phony’. He cheated at golf.

He was ‘A Man For His Time’, America’s id. In that explicit way Trump was- and still is the embodiment of the postwar waste-based economic society, we are uncomfortable because of the truth that represents. We are a stupid country. We are a denying, prejudiced, self-infatuating, vain and violent country, one that insists reality — if it exists at all — is for the little people; that workhouse capitalism is the just reward for the boot-strapless poor, that socialism/tax cuts are for the well to do; that the Ponzi scheme promoters, greedy tech billionaires, international strong arm robbers and business cheats are going to save us from ourselves, that flying cars and trips to Mars will be here tomorrow or maybe the day after. That all we must do is throw what’s left of our remaining capital into the fire and watch it burn. Trump is our man but not really; less a living person than a symbol, the outline within which we can paint ourselves any way we like.

Trump is impunity in a suit. He would never have existed if the Wall Street bankers had been prosecuted post-2008 for blowing up world finance, if firms had been allowed to fail then restructured. Trump would not have had financial support, his multiple bankruptcies would have finished him off. Once the bankers learned they could get away with murder, so did everyone else including Trump. He was also beneficiary of the corporate media crap-o-sphere that gave us ISIS. Why? Because there was a buck in it:

We grasp Islamic State instantly because we’ve spent decades and trillions of dollars perfecting ourselves until our monsters are in our image, intimately familiar because they are us … a novelty reality TV show where those voted off the island are run over by a tank. Islamic State occupies the ‘too much is never enough’ corner of Pop culture along with Charles Manson and Omar Little, Edie Sedgewick and Donald Trump. It squats at the end of the road, a toad-like squirmy headed Freddy Kruger in James Howard Kunstler’s twilight America; where “anything goes, nothing matters and nobody cares.”
 

Monsters in our own image: without Islamic State and its nightmarish, acid-trip violence and media savvy — and self-interested firms leaning in to profit by it — there would have been less an opening for the thuggish, media savvy Trump. Support would have been seen as too risky. As it was, the uninhibited nature of Trump and his hooligan tendencies were the products offered for sale. He drew viewers, clicks, internet ‘likes’ and money.

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Politicians are acutely sensitive to wind direction which is how they succeed. They are rarely leaders but highly sensitive followers attuned to trends, ever on the hunt for bandwagons to jump on. Trump’s self-inflicted political death has marooned Republicans, leaving them to their own devices on unfamiliar ground. Their choice is to either look like idiots for following Fearless Fosdick off a cliff, or for carrying the flag after he’s kaput or for believing there is something else to Trumpism besides revolution against one’s own job. The alternative is to be seen as disloyal (unpatriotic) and opportunistic. Those caught in the vortex of indecision for more than a few minutes will be seen as ‘out of touch’. What are they to do? Instantly there is a brand-new game nobody knows how to play. One clue can be detected in the behavior of the ex-Senate Majority Leader, a wily survivor type with decades of experience in saving his hide; he has jettisoned his Q-anon Gold Membership and has become an instant moderate.

Nothing is real unless it can be uploaded to Facebook.

Hundreds of Trump supporters are going to learn the hard way the difference between too-big-to-jail bankers who received bonuses and cheap loans for their crimes, and their non-banker selves who face terrorism charges and 25 year prison terms. Incompetent as it is, the system is good at protecting itself.

The Trump brand died on the air strip along with Trump’s presidency (Mish Talk)

Donald Trump has managed to transform Joe Biden, the establishment’s faithful servant and personification of mediocrity into a statesman before he has been sworn in.

Poor Mike Pence, who wore out the knees of his trousers groveling like a dog before Trump, saw the baying, bloodthirsty mob directed against him as a reward. And this is for the crime of pricking Trump’s fantasy.

Before last week it seemed likely that Trump and his enablers would be forgiven their trespasses and escape criminal prosecution. Fast forward and it is inevitable that Trump and his associates will be prosecuted and convicted, that his lawyers will be disbarred, that Trump-supporting legislators will be removed from office and perhaps be prosecuted themselves. Trump’s singular talent as a criminal was his instinct for keeping one foot on ‘yea’ side of the law, for reaping the benefits of crimes while escaping any responsibility for them. In the end the incompetence of his loyalists betrayed him, he needed someone to tell him ‘no’, to save him from himself and there wasn’t any. What supported the ‘idea’ of Trumpism — if there ever was such a thing – is that it could not be contained or managed by conventional discoursive means, which turned out to be exactly true. Now will be constrained by being outlawed as too self-destructive.

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Trump claimed over and over that he really won the election, and that he had won in a landslide and that he had been cheated out of his victory by corrupted voting machines, Hugo Chavez, China and unscrupulous Commie-leaning Democrats. This was a lie but not the one that mattered. Rather, it was the lie directed toward Trump from the outside in; that he was widely popular, that he was well-liked and even loved by most Americans, despite 650,000 deaths and millions of coronavirus infections; that he was a capable manager with remarkable achievements, that he was the second coming of Abraham Lincoln. An entire ecosystem of media enterprises, talking heads, advisors, agencies and spokespersons was erected around Trump like a Dyson Sphere to protect his ego but also to nourish itself. Why would 75 million Americans vote for Donald Trump after … everything? Because, in voting for Trump they were really voting for themselves, not their aspirations — which were ground up and spat out long ago — but their persistent reality reflected in the Trump mirror.

Here was the cultivation of a president like a greenhouse stuffed with tomato plants; it was an enterprise with zero barriers to entry, only the willingness of individuals to sacrifice their integrity. So many were eager to do so, the process became self-reinforcing. Trump did not matter to supporters, it was the supporters themselves who mattered, the clicks and followers and Facebook likes. Also self-interested Others: police unions, Republican politicians, commodity farmers, Big Businessmen, all of them seemed loyal enough, so did (ex-) Hollywood stars and (obscure) celebrities. Within this escapist ambit Trump’s grievances festered and became all-consuming. How could a boring non-entity like Sleepy Joe Biden win an election against America’s Favorite President without cheating? It was the outside-in lie that was the parent of all the others.

Official Q-anon team merchandise, buy yours today!

And now it is all done. Americans gave Trump money and support and millions of votes and he offered freer-flowing shower heads and low-mileage automobiles … which we already had. And yet, are these not the best and highest hills to die on /slash/ cliffs to wander off of?

A: In Ponzi World, these best and highest hills are all we have left.