This is a time for mourning.
So let us mourn for the dead of Afghanistan, for the lives brutalised by twenty years further war.
Let us mourn for the dead, injured and impoverished of Iraq, who were dragged through chaos for a pointless and cruel lie.
Let us mourn too for the US and coalition troops, whose reward for volunteering was death, injury and PTSD, all in the name of deceit, greed and blind vengeance.
Let us mourn for a shattered international order, and the revival of aggressive war as a policy tool.
Let us mourn for a debased and degraded democracy in the US, with civil liberties ground underfoot, with torture revealed as official policy, and with mass surveillance as the new normal.
And finally, let us mourn for our future, for we were not able to stop this.
But let us only do so for a moment, because there is only one time to fight back against these great evils. Now.
Was it slow and painful?
Asking for a friend.
One Donald down. One to go.
That’s a known unknown known.
There are a lot of comparisons between the Bush administration and the Trump administration, but I think it is pretty much Lawful Evil vs Chaotic Evil. Bush’s crew were evil, working in the interest of the Upper-Class United States and its Corporate Interests, and against the poor and about 75% of the world.
Trumps crew were evil, working in the interests of themselves, alone, without care as to whether the United States or the world as a whole was a flaming ruin by the time they finished raiding it, and against the poor and 100% of the rest of the world, both rich and poor. The one possible exception is Russia, who I think had leverage over Trump, but Trump was too narcissistic and ignorant to be a useful tool regardless of whatever film they had of him getting peed on or whatever.
On a long enough timeline the destruction of humanity by both parties is sure, the timeline is just longer on the Lawful Evil side. The ‘unknown unknowns’ speech is a good example. It’s easy to parody but it is sound thinking overall. No one connected to Trump in any way is smart enough to be that self-aware, or even interested in being so.
Yeah, it makes the flesh crawl seeing the Bush-era cronies shrink in horror at Trumps misdeeds.
Or: Liz Cheney.
It’s like some demonic psychological experiment:
“Great, so there is a line past which you will not cross.”
Yeah.
I can at least understand the Bush administration’s brand of evil. To a small degree, if I squint and shift a little I can kind of actually believe that they really love this country and were doing the best job they knew how to do. They were wrong on many levels about that, but they also probably were so ingrained that they really thought things were for the betterment of this country and its people.
Again, war criminals. But I get their brand of evil.
Trump administration? It’s not even about the country. It’s about Donald. It’s why he can’t let go. It’s why his people can’t let go. Because even if Trump found someone who was somehow politically aligned with him, it wouldn’t be good enough for that man to be president. Because it wouldn’t be HIM. It’s all about him. None of it is about this country and it never has been.
It takes a certain level of sociopath to survive in politics long enough to make a career out of it, no matter who you are. Especially amongst the presidency. But at least almost all of them at least act like it’s not about them.
And whats odd is: his supporters are fine with that! They, too, are all about him and not some other “compromised” deep state RINO. Ostensibly Trumpist politicians become a RINO/Never Trumper the moment Trump decides they are, by showing the slightest independence from his dictates— which even he himself doesnt know until he bloviates it.
When Germans in the 1930’s were slavishly worshipping Hitler, at least they had been through: a world war loss, a great depression, humiliating armistice conditions including economy-wrecking war reparations, no former tradition of stable democracy.
Trump supporters’ inciting conditions were: 8 years of a black president, who gave them healthcare.
He can join Robert Macnamara in his special circle of hell.
Donald Rumsfeld is survived by the one true love of his life: war in Iraq.
(I cant take credit for that one. Overheard somewhere today.)
It’s like a sick joke, but the press coverage of the Bush administration was a sick joke, so…
Somehow, this article on Fox News (please do yourself a favor and don’t click on the link) only serves to strengthen the schadenfreude.
Yes, the soft secession continues, the GQP rolls it’s way toward the precipice-
Old “Rumbottom” will end up seeming quaint in comparison …
Hello, other person that remembers Total Distortion!
A brief reminder here that in 1988 Rumsfeld was mounting a campaign for the presidency…
To be fair, the socialists, anarchists and Marxists are celebrating too. Some of the more idealistic libertarian-capitalists will probably be joining in as well.
ETA:
Far-left pundit Cenk Uygur
They really have no idea, do they? Cenk is centre-left at most, somewhere between reformist and radical, but nowhere near a revolutionary.
Well count me in!