Moral Panic

Now we know.

After a couple of days of wildass speculation in the MAGAverse, a suspect in the murder of the Great Martyr Charlie Kirk has been taken into custody.  He is…wait for it…wait for it…you will be shocked…a twentysomething white male.

After two “persons of interest” were arrested and released, theories surrounding the killer ran amok.  Some concerned the latest MAGA moral panic, the transgender mass shooter.  If you weren’t paying attention, a few weeks ago a transgender person in Minnesota who posted regrets over their transition on their socials shot and killed two children and wounded 18 attending mass on the first day of their parochial school term.  In 2023, a transgender person killed seven and injured two at a Nashville Christian school.

And that’s about it.  Since both perpetrators died in the attacks, we cannot know for certain their motives though their social media presence offers clues.  In both cases, it appears they immersed themselves in websites castigating trans people and others promoting mass shooters. A simpler explanation is the Oswald motive: They did it to be famous.

No matter.  Transphobic rhetoric colored the commentary from the right.  My personal favorite quote came from Congresswoman Nancy Mace, who proclaimed to reporters that a “tranny” was responsible for Kirk’s demise.  She went on to say that she and her staff were afraid to come to work because of the looming threat of radical left violence.

Apparently, this is a common fear in MAGA world.  Because it’s all about them.  Random clicking dredged up videos of bearded white men shouting into the camera about how patriots like them are being targeted for death by the violent radical left.  Some of them—okay, most of them—bemoaned the rising death toll among men like them at the hands of these deranged leftists.  They also promised that this fictitious carnage would be met at gunpoint.  Disturbingly, one of these videos was posted by a police officer in uniform.  I feel reassured that this guy is out there protecting the public.

The ludicrous overreaction continued at the top, at least for a hot second.  The president announced he was awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Kirk, further cheapening one of our most prestigious honors.  The vice president flew Kirk’s remains home aboard Air Force Two, at taxpayer’s expense of course. But when asked for comment about Kirk on the White House lawn, Trump devoted a few seconds to express his regret before launching into a monologue touting the new construction of the White House ballroom.

The president has perhaps moved on, but the MAGAsphere are like dogs with a bone.  The most disturbing revelation of the past few days is the creation of a website which purportedly gathers the names of anyone who might have cheered Kirk’s death on social media.  The idea is to get people to dime them out so their employers will terminate them.  (Trump and MAGA are unpopular among my colleagues, so I think they are safe from the “mass firings” promised by the website’s creators.) 

I don’t think this doxxing website poses much of a threat.  It’s just more posturing.  But the past eight months under Trump 2.0 have been exhausting.  I was raised by a narcissist, and I recognize this feeling as a constant from when I was a kid.  Add to that all the demented shit emanating from the right and the constant state of hypervigilance provoked by it, and one’s sense of wellbeing becomes hard to maintain.

The discourse from the left—the actual left, not the boogeyman living in MAGA’s imagination—is not encouraging.  For all the grandiose talk about themselves as “the resistance,” their writ doesn’t extend much beyond Tik-Tok and YouTube.  They are too few to pose a threat.  Meanwhile, more moderate critics of the administration unself-consciously muse over whether Charlie Kirk is the Trump movement’s Horst Wessel or whether his killing is the administration’s Reichstag Fire.

It doesn’t matter.  Trump and his allies control or have coopted all three branches of the federal government.  We may not yet beyond the point of no return, but that point is edging closer by the day.   Charlie Kirk’s murder, while unfortunate and unwarranted, will be bounced from the headlines in short order in service of flooding the zone.  And the base will move on to fixate upon some other outrage.

 

© 2025 The Unassuming Scholar

Descent

A few months ago, I wrote about a bizarre incident in Colorado where a man stalked a TV news crew, following the news vehicle back to the station.  When they arrived, the man confronted and assaulted the crew’s on-air reporter who was described as being of Pacific Islander ancestry.  During the assault, the man yelled, “This is Donald Trump’s America!”

At the time, I mused that political violence under a second Trump administration would vary in intensity while the legal consequences would depend on local sentiments.  In the case of the Colorado incident, the reporter’s assailant has pled not guilty and is to stand trial in January.

This afternoon, another violent act may put my speculation to the test.  Right-wing activist Charlie Kirk was shot dead while giving a speech at a Utah college.  Details are unclear, but Kirk was apparently shot from a rooftop of a campus building about 150 yards away.  A “person of interest” has been detained.

The reaction to Kirk’s death among prominent Democrats so far is in contrast to Republican reactions when Democrats are physically attacked.  The June murders of a Minnesota legislator and her husband and the wounding of another legislator predictably generated vituperative victim blaming, for instance.  On the other hand, Kirk’s murder elicited condolences and condemnations of gun violence from Democrats.

Personally, I despise everything Charlie Kirk stood for.  But there shouldn’t be a death penalty for expressing despicable opinions. 

Naturally, MAGA has overreacted in ways which border on the absurd.  President Trump has ordered the flag flown at half-staff for the next several days, as ifi Kirk had been a great statesman rather than a self-serving, hate-mongering opportunist.  The next few days will likely bring more hyperbole.

Considering the fate of the shooter, I cannot predict.  Republican-majority Utah has been somewhat cool toward the MAGA phenomenon.  I am sure any trial jury would approach the case independent of political considerations.  But Utah’s governor has said this will be a death penalty case.

Would red state juries impose the death penalty on the murderer of a liberal activist or Democratic politician?  Would they convict in the first place?  Incitement is much more common on the right.  It’s not much of a leap that if a liberal activist or Democratic politician were murdered in a red state, the social media response would find a way to dismiss the crime and find a way to subtly (or not so subtly) put the onus on the deceased.

Returning to the right’s knee-jerk reactions to any threat, real or imaginary (mostly imaginary), let’s look at the ongoing, unnecessary occupation of Washington, D.C. by National Guard troops.  Although it had to have been in the works for weeks, the immediate precipitating event appears to have been an attempted carjacking involving DOGE twerp Edward “Big Balls” Coristine.  (Okay, I don’t condone violence, but the revelation that Mr. Balls was beaten up by a 15 year old girl made me smile.  Besides, his pride was hurt worse than his face) 

Any crime committed against a white person in a city with a plurality or majority population of color is going to set off right-wing alarm bells.  Since most of our cities, whether in red or blue states, have significant minority populations and tend to have Democratic administrations, they draw right-wing ire by their very being.  The planned replication of performative military intervention is certain, all in the interest of preventing violent crime of course.

I wonder if the president will be sending troops to Orem, Utah anytime soon.

Not very likely.

 

© 2025 The Unassuming Scholar

Drag

In the first season of Mad Men, protagonist Don Draper crashes at the apartment of a would-be girlfriend’s bunch of beatnik associates.  Needless to say, they don’t hit it off.  When asked how he sleeps at night, ad executive Draper replies, “on a bed of money.” 

Nevertheless, they agree on one thing.  They eventually fall asleep after smoking a large quantity of pot.  In the morning, they awaken to a police raid in progress at a neighbor’s apartment. 

Draper, needing to report to work, straightens his tie and tugs on his suit coat to pull out the wrinkles.  As he opens the front door, one of the beatniks anxiously objects, “You can’t go out there!”

Don pauses a beat and says, “No, you can’t,“ and walks out, nodding at the policemen in the hallway as he goes.

I was reminded of this a couple of weeks ago as I boarded a plane for a brief vacation in Mexico.  Walking down the jetway, I passed by a Customs and Border Protection agent.  Suffice it to say, he was playing the part.  Body armor, M-4 carbine slung across his chest, etc.  Briefly looking over at him, he gave me a slight nod.  Reflexively, I nodded back.

A fleeting exchange to be sure, but telling all the same.  Like Don Draper, and unlike many other people, I can pass.  I’m an average-looking middle-aged white male who presents conventionally.  In a sense, I’m above suspicion.  I’m just grateful no one can detain me for my thoughts.  Yet.

At least the CBP agents were clearly identifiable. The news of late tells of law enforcement officials unidentifiable by agency or uniform rounding up migrants and student activists.  Are they or aren’t they actual cops? 

The second coming of Donald Trump has provoked a resurgence in militaristic cosplay.  I first noticed the trend the first time around during the lockdown phases of the pandemic.  We were shown the spectacle of white men donning tactical gear and brandishing weapons at urban civil rights protests and setting up unauthorized roadblocks in rural locales asserting authority they did not possess.  The January 6^th insurrection appeared to be the climax of this nonsense which would simmer down with the absence of Trump and his minions from Washington.

Wishful thinking.  Shortly after the election, I was at the airport waiting at the baggage carousel when I noticed a young man milling amongst us.  He was white, with a beard of course.  Otherwise dressed in civilian attire, he was sporting a tactical vest.  He walked slowly, with a serious expression, thumbs hooked at the top of his vest.  I had no idea who the hell he was or why he was there aside from being an arriving passenger, and I asked myself if anyone else was even noticing this.  No one seemed to.  It is common enough lately that such sights scarcely raise an eyebrow.

Much as they had during Trump 1.0, the real authorities have gotten in the act.  News and phone footage showing what seemed to be ICE agents abducting individuals in public are disturbingly frequent.  The agents are generally clad in black or in casual wear, their faces obscured with balaclavas or masks, and they are not displaying badges or other markings identifying which agency they represent.  Homeland Security officials defend the practice as protecting law enforcement personnel from being doxed.   

Maybe, but probably not.  The intended effect is performative intimidation made more ominous by ambiguity.  It also looks cool, if you’re into that kind of thing.

Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem is the poster girl for posturing as substitute for public safety.  We see her in tactical gear joining Border Patrol agents on a raid.  We watch her posing in front of a packed cell of deportees at El Salvador’s supermax CECOT, sporting a $50,000 Rolex no less.  She parries a question from U.S. Senator Alex Padilla at a press conference on the wholly unnecessary federal intervention in the civil unrest in Los Angeles by siccing the Secret Service on him.

The optics are lost on her.  Appearing before a congressional committee recently, Rep. Bennie Thompson greeted her by thanking her for her time amidst her busy schedule “of photo ops and costume changes.”  Noem scarcely batted an eyelash.   

As to be expected, bad actors are getting in on the act.  You, too, can buy ICE merch online.  Young white males have taken to stationing themselves in Home Depot parking lots wearing ICE jackets to scare off day laborers looking for jobs.  Even more troubling are reports of midnight “raids” on immigrant households by people claiming to be government agents.  In one instance, a family was told to hand over their phones and any cash in their possession.  Contacting ICE and Homeland Security offices afterward, the agencies denied knowledge.

The Trump administration’s methods of ensuring law and order have encouraged vigilantism and enabled common criminals to prey upon vulnerable people.  You could reason that this is an intended consequence.  In the first category, we have a small group of MAGA diehards who believe Trump possesses extralegal authority and that anything they do on his behalf is justified.  (I call this the deputization defense; several J6 rioters believed Trump had “deputized” them to stop certification of the 2020 election results.)  In the second category are opportunistic crooks and garden variety assholes exploiting people who can’t go to the police.

Authoritarians are drawn to military and police regalia.  Perhaps even more so when the individual never served in the military or law enforcement.  (Consider Trump’s fixation on parades.)  At a certain point, fantasy and reality blur.  At a certain point, the biggest Walter Mitty losers can delude themselves into believing they’re the good guys simply by cultivating a look. Provoked by the violent rhetoric emanating from Trump and his allies or internalizing a belief that white men with guns are sheepdogs protecting home and hearth, and you have a recipe for tragedy. 

Policing in a stable democracy must operate in the open.  Law enforcement should be clearly identifiable to the public they serve.  If you’re acting legally, there is no reason to hide who you are.  Otherwise, you erode public trust.  When legitimate law enforcement is indistinguishable from the LARPers you don’t believe your eyes anymore. 

Perhaps this moment will stimulate reform.  We can set guidelines for law enforcement agencies at the federal, state, and local levels relating to how they present themselves to the public they serve.  Place limitations on the sale and possession of certain items such as body armor and certain kinds of lethal and non-lethal weapons (though this probably wouldn’t pass constitutional muster in some cases).  Introduce stronger sanctions against impersonating law enforcement and military personnel.  Any of these would be a good start.

What we may not be able to fix is a cultural toxicity that long predated Trump and MAGA.  They are a symptom or the latest permutation of that ugliness.  The only road to improvement is through individual hearts and minds.  And that is a task fit for Sisyphus.

 

 

© 2025 The Unassuming Scholar

Vanity

Tomorrow’s the big celebration.

President Trump is finally getting the parade he’s been after for years.  On his birthday, no less.

There will be several thousand soldiers marching through the national capital.  There will be Abrams tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles, and self-propelled howitzers rolling down the streets, and a swarm of helicopters in the city’s skies.

But wait, there’s more.  There will be fireworks, musical performances, and appearances by astronauts and NFL players.  In other words, the parade looks as if it will be the sort of cheesy corporate spectacle[1] that has characterized any number of “patriotic” celebrations of the last twenty years or so.

I don’t plan to watch.  I dislike these kinds of overblown displays as a general rule, and the fact that the administration has misappropriated the United States Army’s 250^th anniversary to serve the Narcissist-in-Chief’s unbounded vanity is a bitter pill.

But, you’re probably thinking, the president is making a heartfelt gesture celebrating soldiers past and present.  How could anyone object to that?

Well, it doesn’t look like it’s going to be awfully pleasant for the soldiers marching past the reviewing stand.  According to the Army’s public affairs office, the soldiers will sleep on folding cots in vacant federal buildings.  Rather than providing them with at least two hot meals a day, something easily achieved with mobile kitchen trailers, the soldiers will enjoy two MREs and one catered hot meal daily during their stay.  (Each will also receive partial per diem which will undoubtedly go far given the cost of takeout and fast-food meals these days.) Some news sources report that personal hygiene opportunities are being rationed, with field showers operating on rigid schedules.

Now that’s what I call military leadership, screwing the troops you profess to care about.

What’s most concerning are the optics.  There’s the frequently voiced objection that such displays are worthy of Russia, China, and North Korea.  That’s bad enough, because it’s true.  The mindboggling cost of the parade, not to mention the street damage which will inevitably result from numerous tracked vehicles passing over them, provokes wonder at the administration’s priorities.

However, the widespread perception across the political spectrum that this event was planned solely as Trump’s “birthday parade” is what I find most galling.   On the right, Saturday’s quick-time lollapalooza will be yet more justification for the MAGA revolution.  For the left, the association with Trump serves as further proof of our military’s supposed evilness.

Neither camp appreciates the planning and logistics involved.  It’s been known for a very long time that the Army’s sestercentennial was coming up, and you don’t just throw together a large-scale public display at the last minute.  In other words, there would most likely have been a public commemoration even if Kamala Harris had won the election.  With less bombast, perhaps, but a military parade nonetheless.  The emerging details of the logistical clusterfuck housing and feeding 6,600 people suggest the original plans had been more modest before blowing up at the last minute.

Context dismissed, the Big Parade will be always remembered as Trump’s celebration of Trump.  Before the media hype conflated the Army’s 250^th anniversary commemoration with the president’s autocratic fantasy of one-upping Putin, Xi, and Kim, I had privately looked upon the milestone with quiet satisfaction.  It was a satisfaction borne from the longevity of an institution which had played a part in shaping me as a person.  It was satisfaction that I had played a part in its story.  A trivial, momentary part, but I had been there for it all the same.

I don’t feel that now.  It’s as if something special of mine has been sullied.  I am also concerned by the MAGA influence on the military.  President Trump’s address to troops at Fort Liberty Bragg this week reflects this.  The speech was the usual word salad complaining about political correctness and how Joe Biden, Gavin Newsom, and Karen Bass ruined America.  The soldiers’ laughter, cheering, and boos were disturbing.  Subsequent reports said these soldiers were prescreened volunteers attending what was for all purposes a political rally.  While it’s reassuring that the audience were self-selected MAGA-heads who are not (we hope) representative of all Fort Bragg’s soldiers, an important norm is eroding.

That norm is the traditionally apolitical military.  Servicemembers are expected to keep their political opinions to themselves while on duty or any other occasion they are in uniform.  That custom is fading into the past.  The unprofessional conduct of the soldiers at the president’s speech, gratifying as it may have been to Trump, is a bad sign.

The public is noticing, and their conclusions do not augur well for the military’s reputation and its societal role.  You cannot turn the military into a political instrument in a democracy and have it remain a democracy.  This is what is at stake.  The question now is whether there is any turning back.

 

© 2025 The Unassuming Scholar

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[1] The Army reports that “more than 20” confirmed sponsors are (partially) funding the festivities.

Flooded Zone

The tipping point for this post was a required online training for work.  It was a refresher on Title IX and the Clery Act.  Two things stood out from last time I took the training.  The first was an advisory to clear my browsing history afterward.  The second was the “safety exit” button present on every page.

I suspect these warnings were meant for my colleagues on their work computers.  (I took the training on my personal laptop.)  The company administering the class is a contractor which probably operates in states other than my own.  What this tells me is that we are now at a point where workers have to be warned to cover their tracks after receiving DEI training.

The last ten weeks have been surreal.  I originally meant to write about Signalgate, then the deportations to hellhole prisons in El Salvador, then the economic whipsaw of the tariffs.  Now I’m left trying to take it all in.

Like millions of people, I have seen a good portion of my net worth vanish into the ether over the past two weeks.  After a lifetime following the conventional financial wisdom of saving for retirement by investing in equities, it’s likely that none of us will fully recoup our losses.  I’m rethinking my summer travels over concerns over being able to leave the country or return to it.  More than before, I am self-censoring.

One thing I’ve noticed is the lessened prominence of rank-and-file MAGA in media coverage.  Sure, you still see plenty of red trucker hats in the wild, but you see more reporting about Elon and RFK Jr.’s antics or the obsequiousness of public officials and media when appearing in public with the president.  (On the other hand, a student told me about an incident she saw at one of last weekend’s “Hands Off” demonstrations.  She related that a man driving a pickup truck with the obligatory Trump flag flying from the bed came to a sudden halt.  He then got out and punched the first protestor he came to before getting back in and speeding off.)

I think I can say with certainty that the “flooding the zone” approach is working.  Meanwhile, the apologists look at the pointless chaos and tell us to “trust the plan,” and that Trump is playing 4-D chess. (Honestly, I think tiddlywinks would be too complicated for him.)  They don’t notice or acknowledge that real people are being hurt, some of whom voted for Trump last November. 

I think back on the last ten years as unimaginable at their onset.  I grapple with how to explain this moment when it’s my job to do just that.  And I ponder what the world after will look like.

 

© 2025 The Unassuming Scholar

Calamities

I’ve spent the past weeks wondering which outrageous act would prompt me to write about Trump 2.0.  Keeping up with the firehose gush of ratfuckery emanating from Washington is exhausting and demoralizing.

Today’s televised White House meeting between Trump, J. D. Vance, and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky was the tipping point.  The meeting degenerated into a shouting match where Trump and Vance scolded Zelensky for being insufficiently grateful to Trump.

It should go without mention that Trump and Vance’s conduct was beneath the dignity of the American presidency.  But so has so much of what has transpired since January 20^th.  Elon Musk’s gang of teenaged incel tech-bros hiding behind an imaginary government agency randomly wrecking actual government agencies is probably the worst of them.  The dismantling of USAID alone will diminish our standing in the global community.  Our holding NATO at arm’s length will do the same.  Cuts to Medicaid will imperil the health of millions of economically vulnerable Americans.

Just as troubling is Trump’s slavish sucking up to Vladimir Putin.  Putin was undoubtedly the target audience for this morning’s public dressing down of President Zelensky.  This, coming on the heels of Trump’s repeated assertions that Ukraine was the aggressor in its war of with Russia, was a perverse form of virtue signaling to ingratiate himself with Putin. 

Then there are the more mundane policy proposals, particularly tariffs.  In the fantasies of the MAGA-verse, these will be a “Take that!” to our imagined rivals.  In reality, they will drive up the price of imported everyday commodities.  Tariffs will also provoke retaliatory tariffs, dampening the market for U.S.-made goods.  Then again, few in the base will believe that rising prices will be the fault not of tariffs but of—take your pick—Biden, congressional Democrats, irresponsible blue-state governors, DEI, ad nauseum.

The media are falling eerily in line this time around.  Not that they have a choice.  First, the Associated Press was banished from the White House press pool over the AP’s insistence in calling the Gulf of Mexico…the Gulf of Mexico.  Then, the White House press office wrested selection of the reporters in the press pool from the White House Correspondents’ Association.  The confrontational, occasionally belligerent demeanor of MAGA Barbie press secretary Karoline Leavitt does little to ease media relations.

The squeezing out of mainstream news services is accelerating.  Fox News Channel has long been the most-watched of the cable news nets.  Fox and the popularity of alt-right outlets appear to be incrementally taking control of the national narrative.  Really, the dominant message taking hold is little more than a string of tropes.  Here is the right’s narrative reduced to a few words: A mob of trans drag queens, along with the illegals, will descend upon Real Americans to take their Bibles and guns while grooming their kids in woke ideology.

Or maybe it is more than making the world scary for the base.  While inflation is slowing, prices are sticky.  The received wisdom since November 5^th is that voters were attracted to Trump because the Democrats had not done enough to make daily life affordable.  Sounds true.  Probably true. 

In closing, I have just one question for those non-MAGA voters who went with Trump last November.

Still worried about the cost of eggs?

 

 

© 2025 The Unassuming Scholar

Day Zero

It begins all over again tomorrow.  It seems almost a sacrilege that this inauguration day happened to fall on Martin Luther King Day.

The silver lining is that due to the mourning period for President Carter, the flags will be at half-staff.

Reckonings

I have been a poor correspondent lately.  Cascading current events and work have distracted me.  So, for what it’s worth I will write down some musings at the end of the year.

Summer and fall were unusually unsettled, even by the political standards of the last ten years.  Joe Biden’s befuddled performance in the July presidential debate, his withdrawal, the sudden spot of hope of the Harris-Walz campaign, to the somehow predictable debacle on November 5^th, the second half of 2024 delivered on the worst pessimist’s expectations.  Now, as in 2016, we look upon an uncertain and turbulent future.

Donald Trump’s promises of revenge and retribution have renewed the long-simmering animus among the base.  As with any one of his past vows, this will not be what the Trumpers are expecting.  But we are already seeing manifestations of hatred among the less stable Trump followers.  Last week’s stalking and assault of a nonwhite TV reporter in Colorado by a taxi driver is likely the shape of things to come. 

According to news reports, the assailant followed the reporter’s news van for 40 miles to attack him in the station’s parking lot.  Claiming to have been a marine, the attacker demanded to know if the reporter was a citizen and proclaimed his self-alleged veteran status entitled him to police illegal immigrants.  At one point during the incident, he yelled, “This is Trump’s America!”

Yes, it is.  The confrontation is on-brand.  It is reminiscent of any one of similar incidents in the lead-up to and during Trump’s first presidency.  The assailant’s booking mugshot is familiar, reflecting a sad sack whose scant sense of self-worth is entirely rooted in his identification with Trump.

I’m speculating, of course, but I’m probably right just the same.  What to make of this episode?  Is it MAGA re-ascendant?  Is it the return of the cosplayers claiming authority over others they do not possess?  A case of stolen valor?  Or, is it just a case of an emotionally disturbed person acting out?

Doesn’t matter.  To the disappointment of people on the right and left, we most likely will not see widespread mass violence.  The rule of law, though weakened, has not disappeared.  What we can expect instead are a few dead, a number of injured, and millions in property damage at the hands of the worst MAGA nuts.  Some of them will be held accountable by the legal system, some will not.    

Each of these potential defendants will have their own story, but there will be certain themes in their self-justification.  They will say that President Trump “deputized” them to do what they did.  They will cite nonexistent or spurious legal doctrines.  They will claim persecution by the deep state.  If they identify as veterans, real or phony, they will say they were upholding their oath to defend the country.

(An aside is in order.  Many of these oath claimants were discharged years ago, releasing them from said oaths.  Any attempts to leverage their three years in the E-4 mafia to gain acquittal should not be acknowledged or allowed by the court.)

The extent to which any of these defenses will be taken seriously depends on political sentiment in the jurisdiction where the case is tried.  On a certain level, these will be mere media diversions. The incoming administration’s real damage will be on the policy level.

The immediate threat will be to immigrants.  The promised mass roundups and deportations are logistically infeasible in the short term, but four years is a long time.  Trump’s promise to end birth citizenship won’t pass the constitutional smell test, but the administration could make life miserable for the U.S. citizen children of migrant parents.  Other policy questions will stall for the time being.  There won’t be any progress on gun safety.  Reproductive rights, such that remain, are probably okay for now at the state level, and any proposed constitutional amendment banning abortion will not achieve the supermajority needed in both houses of Congress.

Foreign policy is another area that could harm the country internationally and at home.  Withholding funds from NATO is worrisome in light of the ongoing war in Ukraine.  (It seems Mr. Trump has forgotten that NATO was here for us in the immediate aftermath of 9/11.  It’s good to have friends.)  North Korea requires careful handling, something beyond the incoming top policymakers.  The proposed tariffs will only hurt ordinary Americans dependent on affordable consumer goods. 

Then there is the roster of amateurs proposed for the cabinet and other higher-level posts. Personal loyalty is a more important criterion than qualifications or competence.  No one knows for certain what sort of influence, if any, that the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 will have on the new administration’s policy choices but if even a small part of these get enacted it will have a deleterious impact on the public. 

It is at times like these where a crystal ball would be most helpful.  We can comfort ourselves that it’s only four years, but a lot of damage can be done in that brief span.  Destruction is easier than construction and much more lasting.

 

© 2024 The Unassuming Scholar

Aftermath

 There is little to say.  We are truly fucked.  Welcome back to the Trumpocalypse.

One of Us

This week’s Republican National Convention has so far yielded few surprises.  Donald Trump secured his third successive presidential nomination.  Trump’s naming of U.S. Senator J. D. Vance as his running mate did not raise eyebrows either since the freshman senator was already shortlisted.

Vance’s comparatively brief public career has reflected an interesting but also unsurprising evolution.  His 2016 memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, painted a bleak picture of the lives of Appalachian transplants in Ohio.  Vance’s personal biography is presented as a paradox: A career in venture capital preceded by Yale Law School by way of Ohio State University and the Marine Corps.  The book made him a media darling, an overnight pundit on the state of poor whites.  A voice from the people who made good, one of us as it were.  Vance was a Never-Trumper that election year, at one point tempting Godwin by speculating Trump might be a latter-day Hitler.

His election to the Senate in 2022 showed that Vance, like the Republican establishment, had “evolved” on the topic of Trump.  Trump endorsed Vance, who defeated his opponent, Tim Ryan, by a healthy but unimpressive margin.  Once in office, he fell into line.  It paid off.

Vance’s positions have been variously described as national conservative to populist.  He’s certainly a social conservative; the Heritage Foundation favored Vance as a candidate.  His stated policy positions align quite well with its Project 2025 plan.  While never liberal in his beliefs, he appeared a run of the mill conservative before he actually went into politics.  To repeat, he fell into line.

Thus Vance’s views are alarming should he ever be in a position to act on them.  It’s quite possible; the 39-year-old Vance is nearly half Trump’s age.  Even if Trump completes his term, some of the editorial commentary has already anointed Vance as the heir to MAGA and he’s in scoring position for the 2028 nomination.

This week’s RNC solidifies a years-long trend.  The Republican Party is wholly the Party of Trump.  That’s the choice.  With Biden’s obvious lapses and stubborn refusal to step aside as candidate, we have seen the future after November 5^th. 

 

© 2024 The Unassuming Scholar

Something Like This

Something like this was bound to happen.  Yesterday’s assassination attempt on Donald Trump is yet another manifesting of the roiling stream of violence churning beneath the surface of American life. 

It could have been worse.  But for the quick reaction to shots fired from outside the crowd by the Secret Service the incident would have joined a sordid history of political murder in this country.  It is bad enough an innocent bystander at the Pennsylvania rally died and two others were injured.  It is a sobering thought to know that even with extensive security precautions a would-be killer can come within millimeters of taking down a president.

Naturally the intended target immediately grasped the optics of his near-miss.  Blood trickling from his injured ear, Trump greeted the crowd with an upraised fist as his bodyguards hustled him away.  Predictably, he attributed his deliverance to God.  Millions of others undoubtedly believe this.  The attempt also serves to further the shared sense of grievance and need for a martyr among the base.

As time goes on the thread of our political narrative becomes snagged.  Presidential elections used to be routine affairs; they came, they went.  There were occasional complications, as in the case of the 2000 election, but for almost a half century most passed without incident.  Perhaps we should have seen it coming with the Tea Party movement, but the surprise outcome of 2016 remains just that.  More accurately, it was an all-around surprise at the time but has become a divinely ordained event to Trump’s more fervent supporters.    

Given that last tenet, the public reaction to the incident is as expected.  Commentators from the left expressed relief the attempt failed.  From the right, the rhetoric from Trump’s opponents was to blame.  As for the shooter, little is known at present other than his name, his age, and a few biographical tidbits.  He is reported to have been a registered Republican who also made a small contribution to a liberal group, but neither fact really has any bearing on what he did.  The demographics track; he was a twentysomething white male.  But his motive is a mystery.

It's certain that Trump’s brush with death will pervade the discourse at next week’s Republican National Convention.  It will likely become a theme in campaign media as we near the election.  Perhaps it will have an effect on undecided voters.  Trump’s sangfroid does enhance his image.  Whether this will be the case several weeks from now remains to be seen.  But the fact that something like this has happened is an ominous sign of our polarization.

 

© 2024 The Unassuming Scholar

Bedtime for Democracy

 

(Apologies…I couldn’t come up with a better title, so I borrowed from The Dead Kennedys.)

The Supreme Court wrapped up its term last week, and it was predictably disheartening.  Former (for now) president Trump got his executive immunity.  Attempted election tampering and inciting insurrection are no barriers to the highest office.  The Sackler family is immune from being sued for Perdue Pharma’s role in the opioid crisis. The courts no longer have to defer to the expertise and judgment of administrative agencies.  The Biden administration has been blocked from its efforts to curb air pollution.

And so forth.  None of this is surprising, just more of the usual.  Long standing protections and safeguards are falling one by one and there seems to be little will to push back.  Biden’s disastrous performance in the first presidential debate seems to augur worse tidings to come.

Time has blunted the sense of shock surrounding J6.  It’s hard to reconjure the feelings of dread pervading the pandemic year as emboldened armed nutters tested the boundaries of duly constituted authorities and the law itself.  But it seems we are careening toward a repeat performance.  Donald Trump is a master of self-reinvention, and it is becoming evident we are on the threshold of a second Trump presidency with all the implications that carries.

There’s always been an underlying current of violence beneath the placid surface of American life which periodically erupts as sudden, startling paroxysms of carnage.  Nine short years ago some laughed and shrugged as long-shot candidate Trump bragged he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue in broad daylight and get away with it.  But January 6^th demonstrated that his words could move bad actors to commit bad acts. 

It’s tempting to reflexively paint Trump and his devotees as fascists, which isn’t always a subtle enterprise, but there are historical parallels.  An apt comparison is the assassination of Italian politician Giacomo Matteotti a century ago.  Matteotti had challenged the victory of Benito Mussolini’s Fascist Party in the 1924 parliamentary elections, charging intimidation and election fraud.  Days after making the accusation on the floor of parliament, Matteotti was kidnapped and murdered.  The antifascist opposition then miscalculated and abandoned its parliamentary forum and counted on a general strike to topple Mussolini’s government.  The strike failed and the withdrawal of the opposition only solidified Mussolini’s hold on power, moving Italy toward the totalitarian state it became. Mussolini eventually took credit for Matteotti’s death, framing it as a necessity and condoning the actions of the assassination squad. 

It is not a broad inferential leap to see something comparable in present-day America.  The Democrats won’t withdraw from electoral politics to be sure, but the Republicans use razor-thin majorities in Congress much more effectively than the Democrats.  If Trump wins and the Republicans regain the Senate in November, matters could deteriorate quickly.  With SCOTUS loosening its oversight of the executive and with Trump’s stated intention to replace civil service merit hires with handpicked loyalists, it won’t take a large majority in Congress to advance the MAGA vision.  The roadmap is already there in the Project 2025 policy document published by the Heritage Foundation.  The conservative long game that began with the Powell Memorandum in the 1970s is about to pay off magnificently.

But then there is a faint glimmer of hope amidst the dark tidings.  New York state just disbarred Rudy Giuliani.  For election denial.  Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.

 

© 2024 The Unassuming Scholar

Projection

Justice Alito is afraid.

The author of last summer’s holding in Dobbs said this week that the leaking of the decision draft in May exposed his fellow justices (the right-wing ones, anyway) to risk of assassination. 

One can partly attribute this rhetorical drama to conservatives’ self-importance.  Conservatism is rooted in the belief one is intrinsically better than other people.  Putting oneself above others leads to self-aggrandizing ideation.  Having said that, we have to look at who is victimizing whom in the long-Trump pandemic.  Aside from the incident of an antifa protestor killing a Patriot Prayer militant in Portland in 2020, there are few credible examples of lethal left-on-right violence in recent years.

Before Dobbs I saw Samuel Alito as I regarded other run of the mill conservatives in high places, something resembling a pebble in my shoe.  His low public profile in the past led me into a grudging acceptance of his presence.  Since the May leak, Alito’s outspoken assholery has become nearly intolerable.  We have learned much of his character in past months.  Alito strikes me as an angry, embittered man with antediluvian views who poses a threat to the personal liberties of tens of millions of Americans.

But it isn’t Alito’s hyperbole that prompted me to write this.  The attempted murder of Paul Pelosi in his San Francisco home yesterday is the worst example of right-wing violence since the January 6^th insurrection.  The accused is, unsurprisingly, a Trump-troll whose activism was previously limited to shitposting on social media.  News reports indicate the assailant planned to hold Pelosi hostage until his wife returned from Washington.  Pelosi was able to dial 911 during the home invasion and the police promptly responded, but not until after the attacker fractured his skull with a hammer.

The attack on Speaker Pelosi’s spouse is the latest incident in the trend of escalating far-right aggression since 2016.  As I write, a group of self-proclaimed militiamen (i.e., armed cosplayers in camouflage) are on trial in Michigan for plotting to kidnap and murder governor Gretchen Whitmer.  The ambiguity of Donald Trump’s statements on such incidents from the “good people on both sides” assertion after Charlottesville to his instruction to the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” before the 2020 election constitute a tacit endorsement of illicit force directed at other Americans.  Statements by other Republican leaders, such as Lindsey Graham’s prediction of “riots in the streets” if Georgia prosecutors dared to indict Trump for his attempted election fraud simply add fuel to the fire.  Last summer’s YouGov / Economist poll reporting more than 40% of those polled believe a civil war is likely in the next decade is probably a reflection of the ratcheting bombast emanating from Republican politicians.    

And yet, to hear them tell it, these same pols are the victims.  Alito’s drama queen fears of assassination have manifested in little more than Brett Kavanaugh being forced to cut short a night out when a few protestors showed up outside the restaurant.  To the last individual, Republicans at all levels whine about imaginary stolen elections while shamelessly advocating and instituting policies designed to exclude minority voters in future contests.  Delusional imaginings of violence meted by antifa and other lefties ignore the very real threat from the right.

There’s a word for this: Projection.  Push your faults and your misdeeds on your opponents.  That’s what is happening here.  Call it for what it is.  Call out the offenders.  May the truth win the day.

© 2022 The Unassuming Scholar

Probity

Although I should be paying closer attention, I’ve sporadically followed the January 6^th House Select Committee hearings. Most of the live coverage and commentary I’ve listened to has been from NPR during my work commute. 

As viscerally horrified I was that day, time has blunted my emotions surrounding the incident.  I chalk this up to Trump fatigue.  I’m almost at the point where I say, “Fuck it.  Let ‘em all walk as long as I don’t have to hear about them anymore.”  

It’s not the conduct of the hearings.  Reps. Bennie Thompson and Liz Cheney are making the best of an awful situation.  The revelations are nauseating but unsurprising.  The parade of in person witnesses and recorded depositions has become a rehashed drone of things we either already knew or suspected. 

Nevertheless, I was struck by Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony the week before last.  Hutchinson was White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows’ aide in the months and days leading up to January 6^th.  We learned of President Trump’s infantile reaction to Attorney General Barr’s denial of election fraud, White House Counsel Pat Cipollone’s warning of potential violence in the wake of the January 6^th rally, and Meadows’ strange inaction during the riot, as well as the requests for pardons afterwards.  

There was one thing in Hutchison’s testimony that cleared up a question I had had for the last year and a half concerning why Trump did not march on the Capitol after the rally as promised.  Apparently it wasn’t one of the innumerable cheap pledges he’s made over his career; Trump reportedly lunged at his Secret Service driver after the driver told him he had to go back to the White House.  That was the first actual surprise to come out of any the testimony.  Another was that Trump wanted the metal detectors removed from the rally site so that his supporters could bring firearms since he thought they posed no security threat to him.  It is unthinkable how much worse the ensuing riot would have been had Trump prevailed. 

Like many of the reporters and talking heads covering Hutchinson’s testimony, I was uncritical at first because I was genuinely impressed by her.  She projected a calm self-assurance, maturity, and wisdom beyond her twenty-five years.  I was also taken with her earnestness.  She was quoted in one source as wanting a career in public service, something that resonated with me.  I was a wide-eyed idealist as a young adult, though I soon learned to keep those sentiments to myself because they were often met with eyerolls.  At the time I worked in a position with a considerable amount of responsibility for a twentysomething, albeit far from the levers of power, but which nonetheless comported with my own aspirations. 

The passage of a couple of weeks has tempered my admiration.  I do not doubt Ms. Hutchinson’s idealism (or at least her own belief in it), and I will not criticize her conservative politics.  I can even forgive her cringy dance with Kayleigh McEnany to “Y.M.C.A.” during the 2020 campaign.  However, the White House-aide-as-Capra-heroine narrative does not completely hold up the closer one looks.  Certain questions arise. 

As an undergraduate Hutchinson interned with both Ted Cruz and Steve Scalise, two of the most disreputable people on Capitol Hill.  Surely, she was aware of their reputations before seeking work with them.  Then there is her accepting a position in the Trump White House.  Was it really idealism, or a self-serving determination to get ahead?  Only the most fanatical MAGA nutters, the people who believe Trump was chosen by God to save America from whatever imaginary threat, can truly believe Trump possesses even the slightest shard of integrity.  Then there is her apparent acceptance of an offer to work at Mar-a-Lago post-presidency which was later withdrawn (and has led to accusations from conservative media that her testimony was sour grapes for not getting the job).  

I am not second-guessing Ms. Hutchinson’s testimony.  I believe her to have been truthful with the committee.  However, I question the choices which put her in this position to begin with.  Although she did the committee a service, it does not mitigate her responsibility for being part of a criminal presidency.  Others may vouch for her character, but I am unconvinced. 

 

© 2022 The Unassuming Scholar