Turd Mentality

Come 2030, only the rats will be happy. -- Stephen King, 1922

The Holocaust is not only history, but warning. -- Timothy Snyder, Black Earth

One hears the clatter, as the corporate media valiantly attempt to revert to their natural horse-race stasis, about the elusive "shy" Trump voter, that numinous unicorn of frustrated pollsters and halfwit pen-jockeys. This is the person who, when contacted by pollsters, supposedly claims as independent -- or even, amazingly, undecided.

I just can't decide between the kindly, ancient lifelong corporatist, or the burbling lunatic avatar of full-throated white supremacy. Neither campaign has sufficiently marketed itself to my delicate sensibilities.

Considering that the median Trump voter has, in its practically infinite guises -- construction worker, harried soccer mom, fist-shaking codger at Wichita Stuckey's -- embodied one common trait, that of incoherent yet sanctimonious fury, it beggars belief that there is an abundant cohort of like-minded individuals who just don't want to confess their devotion anonymously over the phone for fifteen seconds.

Perhaps the "shy" one, like the elusive sasquatch, exists but quietly, secretly, perpetually crouched in a furtive state, appearing only rarely and at random to adorn the fuzzy freeze-frames of hooch-addled mountaineers -- not to mention the credulous rubes of the aforementioned corporate media, very nearly as duped as the noise-addled rage-monkeys they so dutifully chronicle.

Never mind; the ultimate point of such leprechaun-hunting is really to keep it close, keep those ad buy rates as high as possible. Money is the blood of such things, and every campaign season is a newer iteration of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Between greed, laziness, and an unshakable institutional impulse to keep Democrats on a hook while letting their opponents' worst excesses go lightly covered, the practical outcome is to keep liberals and Democrats (to the extent that those actually overlap) always on their heels, always unable to push forward with any real force and/or clarity that might undermine the ongoing plutocratic insurgency -- which, after all, underwrites the entire tedious theatrical exercise.

If there is such a thing as a "shy" Trumpkin, maybe the reason they're keeping it quiet is because they know what they are and what they support, and the secret they're really hiding is that they're embarrassed of it. Which they should have been a couple years ago at most. Maybe they just don't want their friends to know what they are.

I doubt it. I know which of my friends and relatives still support him, we just don't talk about that anymore. It's actually pretty easy to shut down -- once they start bringing up the perfidy of the libturd media argle-bargle, all you have to do is respond, "You don't need to watch the media. All you need to do is watch him unedited, unabridged, unexpurgated on YouTube. There are hundreds of videos to choose from. Pick one at random. Make it interesting with a bottle of liquor. Drink every time he says something stupid and/or untrue. You'll be dead of alcohol poisoning by the twenty-minute mark."

You'd be surprised -- or perhaps you wouldn't -- at how quickly they change the subject, or at least the idiotic "fake news" tack of their dead-horse excuse for an argument.

A functional "opposition" media would be ringing Noel Casler's phone off the fucking hook. Aside from a People (of all things) article a couple years ago, I'm unaware of any major media entity that has talked to him. Certainly not CNN or MSNBC or the networks, these supposedly nefarious, scurrilous bastards who take any and every opportunity to crucify Orange Jebus every chance they get with their entirely made-up attacks.

You can't even chalk that version of institutional cowardice up to the marketplace. Are you fucking kidding? Casler @'s every single one of his targets, every time. Any responsible journamalist would at least run down the allegations, which are numerous and colorful -- and true.

The people that we're friends with or related to are generally not a uniform bunch, unless you grew up in a highly insular, conformist community. But most of us have some sort of balance of these various people in our lives. And we bond with them over different things -- music, cars, food, and occasionally politics is a conversational spice in all that, but generally not a qualifying factor or a disqualifying one.

A reasonable rule of thumb might be that the degree to which someone is eager to befriend or defriend someone for purely political reasons is likely to be directly proportional to your own depth of political fervor. Either that or the other person has become such an insufferable pain in the ass, they don't talk about anything else anymore, which is just exhausting these days. Looks like the ol' #TrumpPlague showed up just in time, eh?

I think what we're finding is that we've always been able to "agree to disagree" over usual, normal differences of policy preferences:  taxes, guns, education, blondes vs. brunettes, etc. And now those days are gone and we're not quite sure how to handle an increasingly volatile impasse.

But what you find when you read these countless anecdotes about people who "just can't even" anymore with their elderly parents, their co-workers, their Fakebook friends, whatever -- it's not really the political specifics that drives the problem. It's that people who live in different realities don't really have all that much to talk about anymore.

I mean, there are some basic principles in the mix as well -- for example, I happen to think rather strongly that the chief executive of this country ought not to be a rapist, an boastful pervert, a shameless asshole, a pathological liar, and/or a clownish moron. These would be foundational for me even if things were going well, though I could certainly be flexible on those ideals if, for example, such a person also managed to resolve some or all of the many dire crises facing this hollowed-out husk of a nation.

But they're not going well, and a big part of that is because of all those vile traits. By way of contrast, one could also be at least somewhat forgiving of current circumstances if said chief executive were kind, honest, intelligent, empathetic, strategic, and made even a modest good-faith effort at resolving some of these crises. But as we're seeing, character really is destiny. It does matter.

And we can tell ourselves it's just because we're all too polarized or propagandized or whatever, but the daily ingestion of this garbage political culture we're all immersed in has this as yet another in a long list of consequences. The contradictions have heightened, and it turns out that how you view all these polarizing events that tumble through our collective view every day or so clarify how you view the world in general, what's "real" and what isn't.

I don't know what to make of someone who sees Trump as competent or qualified for any job. His behavior would have gotten him fired from mop-up duty at a porn theater by now. More seriously, try to imagine a single company anywhere -- even a company that publicly slobbers over him -- giving him any sort of real job.

I'm not bullshitting here. Here's a challenge to consider:  that My Pillow asshole, Lindell? If Trump loses the election, I fuckin' dare that chump to give Trump any sort of actual job duty, anywhere in his company -- production, shipping, sales, accounting, finance. Anything. I defy the most Trump-eyed pelf-grubber out there to put their filthy money where their mouths are, and offer him an actual job that creates measurable value for that company.

It won't happen because Trump is a doddering, worthless piece of shit who's never been good at anything except stealing and lying, and his billionaire butt-buddies are slightly more adept turds of a feather. Lying and hypocrisy are their real currencies. The only thing Mike Lindell or Stan Kroenke or Charles Koch or any of these greedy bastards care about is having more, and you having less.

So of course they love Fat Donnie. But even if he were twenty or forty years younger, they'd never give him any sort of real job, one that involved work. At most they'd cut him a check to do a promo commercial for them. But again, I mean actual fucking work, something that takes skill, focus, ability. Something more than just delegating to minions.

And that reflects a certain way I view the world, and my expectations of the other people who share it. I don't know what to make of someone who saw any of Tuesday's clown hall event with George Snuffleupagus, and came away thinking we're in good hands. I don't know what to make of someone who is so brain-damaged that after five years of watching Trump's incessant prattling bullshit, they still think he's qualified to pick his own drug-decayed nose.

I do know that there aren't any more arguments or debates to be had.