More Grotesqueries from the Trump Administration
Reveling in cruelty.
I opened up X to look for something I had saved about jobs, and was greeted with this (clip through if the embed does not work, as that has been hit or miss of late).
Like the “ASMR” video of sending people to CECOT, this is just a celebration of cruelty and an attempt to dehumanize illegal immigrants.
Not only do we know that a lot of people who are being shackled like this are not, in fact, the “worst of the worst,” but instead are mostly brown people who are in the country illegally but otherwise are law-abiding. These are grandmas, gardeners, Uber drivers, and the like.
Is it any wonder I had the reaction I had to Greg Bovino’s sartorial choices?
Celebrating the shackling of human beings is grotesque. Connecting it to a holiday that is about family, peace, and love (not to mention Jesus himself was an immigrant to Egypt in his youth) is off the charts.
Without getting into some parsing of what it means to be Christian, this is clearly a perversion of the spirit of the season.
This is evil right in front of our noses.
“Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, screw them.”
Is it possible Trump is even more loathsome now than he was in his first term?
@CSK: He was restricted by grownups in term 1, term 2 is basically the “let Trump be Trump” era, and also the people around him are much, much worse. It’s not that he’s more loathsome now, they’ve just removed the guardrails that existed the first time around.
@CSK: He is. This is Trump surrounded by enablers and with no one to tell him “no.”
I saw a different, but similarly themed ad on YouTube just yesterday. I could not hit “skip” fast enough.
These are meant to scare people into leaving on their own, I think.
This is not new. All the way back in Gulf War I, I recall some magazine, I forget the name, very patriotic, bragging about the weapons available to the US forces, and filled with quotes on what fun it will be to kill Iraqis. This was during the buildup but before coalition forces started offensive operations.
That was over 30 years ago.
@Jen: @Steven L. Taylor:
You’re both right. I had forgotten that during Trump’s first term, he was restrained by competent people.
@Steven L. Taylor:
I don’t think this particular post came down to nobody telling Trump “no.” This was one of his lackey’s doing, though they may have been simply trying to run a thrill up Orange POTUS’ leg. Point being that the grotesqueries run deep beyond the titular head of the Trumpist movement.
@Scott F.: I was being simplistic, to be sure. But one of the things he was told “no” about, so to speak, in term 1 was putting people like this in charge of social media. That is: the personnel patterns this time are a function of no one responsible left.
Indeed. I have never suggested otherwise.
@Kathy: I would not defend such behavior, but I think this is worse because it is about domestic law enforcement and is aimed at getting the population to accept it all as normal.
There is some malignancy in the Trump Administration that isn’t satisfied with complete control of governance and any resulting political outcomes. They find it important, maybe even necessary, to corrupt the country culturally. The efforts on anti-DEI, the Kennedy Center take-over, the construction/destruction of DC landmarks, the insertion into the World Cup/NFL/Taylor Swift engagement, the Charlie Kirk respect policing, the cruel response to the murder of the Reiners, this latest perversion of the spirit and traditions of the holiday season – OMG the list goes on & on – these are all of a piece to remake the nation at a societal level.
I suspect they understand that if MAGA wants to prevail, the movement has to own the definition of what it is that makes America “Great.” That’s what the shattering of norms is all about. The abnormal becomes normal. That’s why the administration’s mouthpieces take such umbrage when their behaviors are called out as fascist or racist or tone deaf or cruel. “Oh no, our way is the American Way and it’s only radicals who hate America who say otherwise.”
Bottom line: if what makes America great is what is normal for American society today, what is there to “Make Great Again?”