Before I begin my latest act of contrarian journalistic blasphemy, I feel morally obligated to observe the basic fact that Donald J. Trump is a completely grotesque piece of human filth. Unspoken ethical obligations aside, I do know this fact to be existentially true. America's current Commander in Chief is a pathologically heinous human being and the evidence to this fact is quite overwhelming. The Donald himself barely even tries to conceal it. In fact, he often seems to be downright proud of his Gotham-grade villainy.
This is a man who took his daddy's slumlord kingdom and turned it into a multibillion-dollar empire by defrauding entire zip codes with corporate welfare schemes that left South Jersey in the shadows of a colossal graveyard of gawdy gutted casinos. This is a literal serial rapist with over two-dozen accusers who was also a known confederate of Jeffrey Epstein during the peak of his own nefarious career as a child sex trafficker to the stars. And this is man whose almost demonically derelict pathology extends far beyond ancient history; it informs his leadership as a modern-day Caligula who has merely taken his kinks and made them public policy.
The man wantonly threatens a global economy still reeling from the pandemic he oversaw during his last reign of terror with a massive trade war unless every other nation agrees to aid and abed his insane conspiracy to ethnically cleanse the Rio Grande and turn the War on Drugs into the new frontier of the War on Terror. He is threatening to recolonize the Panama Canal, buy Greenland from Denmark like an Arctic slave plantation, and pave over Gaza while children still writhe in the rubble.
You would have to be ethically anesthetized not to detest such an obviously loathsome beast but the only thing more horrifying than this pathological trainwreck's still buoyant popularity is the fact that he actually isn't all that unusual among his fellow elites who seem to only begrudgingly tolerate his existence when they aren't using their dying news empires to openly declare him to be the reincarnation of Gilles de Rais.
We all seem to forget that Donald is in fact one of them, the gilded class of American aristocracy that floats effortlessly back and forth through the revolving doors of big business and big government. This is largely because both Trump and his ilk of swampland predators have quite a bit invested in the notion of him being exceptional. But he's not.
After all, the Donald was old friends with Bill Clinton at a time when he too was an active sexual predator and a frequent flyer on their co-conspirator Jeffrey Epstein's Lolita Express. The upper echelon of both parties is riddled with tax cheats and inside traders, some of whom are afforded the unquestioned status of respected elder statesmen like Dianne Feinstein and Nancy Pelosi while they rifle through our wallets like dope sick junk fiends. And critically acclaimed presidents with virtually untarnished reputations have been proven guilty of all manner of diplomatic gangsterism.
Barack Obama, the man generally held in esteem by the legacy media as a sort of sainted anti-Trump, had democracies in Honduras and Ukraine overthrown over relatively minor disagreements on how their leaders should pay the rent and the only reason that Donald Trump even has a graveyard to build condos on in Gaza is because Barack's VP, Joe Biden, filled it with corpses by bankrolling Bibi's final solution.
So, yes dearest motherfuckers, Donald Trump is guilty as shit, but he is guilty as shit of the exact same fucking shit that nobody could be bothered to give a shit about until his dayglow ass was the one sitting on the toilet. The only thing that makes Donald Trump any different from the rest of these thugs is that he has the nerve to be proud of the sick fucking things that they all do.
While the Kennedy's tactfully pay for another abortion for the help in one of the more shadowy neighborhoods of Camelot, Trump boasts bombastically about their shared ability to "grab them by the pussy." While the Bush's and the Clinton's lean on their NATO tricks to kick up the rent in the backrooms of Brussels, Trump shakes them down in front of a live audience like Paulie Walnuts bathed in bronzer. And while America's mandarins have been carefully prepping the Gaza Strip for fumigation for nearly a century while pretending to sue for peace, Trump announces plans for a Holocaust memorial theme park by the Levantine Sea before the blood has even dried on the beach.
The only thing really unprecedented about Donald Trump is his total lack of shame. He is the one overprivileged despotic asshole who is actually proud of being an overprivileged despotic asshole. Sadly, this cocky bravado is also what seems to convince an electorate despondent after decades of empty promises and cheesy pick-up lines to believe that Donald Trump is some kind of Beltway outsider even though he once bankrolled most of his supposed rivals.
This is also the only reason that certain classes of Donald's fellow elites despise him. They don't oppose his sickening behavior; they oppose his refusal to keep it behind closed doors like the rest of them. The last thing that a bunch of greedy imperialists want is to advertise to the world exactly how the sausage is made but at the end of the day, doesn't the world deserve to know? Shouldn't the people of Egypt and Ukraine know exactly what they're selling their souls to put in their stomachs?
This is the one silver lining on the toxic smog belching from Donald Trump's smokestacks and the results are occurring in real time as we speak. Europe's leaders are openly discussing cutting ties with Washington and courting their own more regional spheres of influence rather than delegitimizing their own slippery grip on power by licking an irate imbecile's boot. America has never been more openly despised by the typically compliant quislings on its borders and the Middle East is more united than ever over their opposition to a more public Nakba than what they have become accustomed too. This is how empires die but this is also how democracy degenerates into open authoritarianism.
My argument here isn't that Donald Trump is not the new Hitler; it's that his opposition in the Democratic Party are the new Social Democrats too. People forget that Adolf Hitler wasn't all that special either. Germany had long been an empire defined by cruelty and authoritarianism. The first concentration camps were actually built in Namibia during the 19th century to cure that German colony of the tribes most resistant to its rule.
Hitler's own rise to power was paved by his rivals in Weimar Germany's Social Democratic Party who decimated the plutocracy of the Reichstag with emergency orders like Article 48 that allowed the Chancelor to rule without consent. This device was used to restore order after Hitler's 1923 Beer Hall Putsch only to be used by the Devil himself a decade later to declare himself Further.
When it's all said and done, fascism is little more than the state without shame. It comes about when empires like America and Germany run out of excuses for their vile existence and are left with nothing more inspiring to resort to than exploiting the gross sense of entitlement they have cultivated in their long-suffering subjects along with more naked displays of longstanding repulsive behavior that tend to impress a population still clinging to a toxic relationship with its leaders.
Donald Trump may not be any less vile than his predecessors but much like with Hitler, the popular mandate given to his open venality could be one thing that pushes him to take it one step further into the abyss. However, it must be understood that this fate is only the end result of the sanctified state anointed by his predecessors and still trafficked as a panacea by his rivals. When we fail to recognize that Donald Trump is merely one of them with less table manners, we make his return or the return of another like him inevitable.
We have to recognize that the state itself is the problem and that its existence in any form is one defined by violence and barbarism. Otherwise, this cycle of "legitimate" authority followed by "illegitimate" authority will only continue until there is nothing left to rule but graveyards dug next to a rising sea.
Peace, Love, & Empathy- Nicky/CH
Soundtrack: Songs that influenced this post
* The Hand That Feeds by Nine Inch Nails
* Frankenstein by New York Dolls
* Shitty Ballet by Bleached
* Sweet 69 by Babes in Toyland
* Joiner by Blondshell
* All Hail Me by Veruca Salt
* Shadowboxer by Fiona Apple
* Revenge by Ministry
* Bad Boy by New York Dolls
* Up the Wolves by the Mountain Goats
This post is devoted in loving memory to David Johanson and Michelle Trachtenberg. Two odd souls who made this odd soul feel a little less odd.
