Everybody seemed content
Fifty bucks paid the rent
Freaks were in the circus tent
Those were the days!
--Archie Bunker, "Those Were the Days"
One of the lawn signs that appeared around Hampton during the last Presidential elections was "No More Creepy Weirdos" and it got quickly disappeared from roadways and even private property, presumably because it hit a nerve.
The fact is, the Trump mob really does look and act like something out of a Batman comic book, from the supremely smarmy Scott Bessent, whose smile remains pasted on even under withering ridicule from Democrats during Congressional hearings--having been asked how he justifies Trump gambit making billions by buying low after he announces another bombing to continue the Iran war only to sell high when he announces another ceasefire--"Well, before you ask that, you should get your own house in order," Bessent ripostes , and then sits up arching his back as if he's just won the National Spelling Bee.
There's something so utterly creepy about a man who listens to someone call him an unscrupulous liar and scoundrel and all the while maintains a totally incongruent smile, just like those Southern women with their ladled on pancake makeup, who listen to someone vilify them, but they remain smiling beatifically and respond, "Why, Bless your heart! I can see I'm going to have to educate you about this."
And there's J.D. Vance, the now bearded boy who made his mark by writing "Hillbilly Elegy" about his Appalachian upbringing, from which the only escape was joining the U.S. Marines (as in Dylan's famous line, "Join the Army If you Fail") and this is the same man who savages others for relying on the government and joining the ranks of the terminally lazy dependent on the government dole--as if the Marines have nothing to do with the government.
Vance tells a story about returning on leave from the Marines with his pay in his pocket and he was able to take the family out to Chili's for lunch and the sense of pride and accomplishment he felt for the first time, as his broken "family" had never been able to collect enough cash for something like that. It's a truly affecting scene, one infused with humanity and pathos--but a few chapters later, there's Vance denouncing all things government as unvarnished evil, never acknowledging that his own success depended on a government program--the Marines.
For so many Trumpies, this is the case. After all, they "earned" their way by serving in the army. They enlisted out of economic desperation, and they got paid for their efforts, but now they are heroes for having climbed out of poverty by being noble warriors, mercenaries really, just as so many armies over history have been filled with economic failures who, when armed, served the purposes of the rich.
But the most creepy moment of all for Mr. Vance occurred when he looked into the camera and told us he knew, for sure, based on creditable sources that Haitian immigrants in Ohio were eating their neighbors' cats and dogs --and, who knows?, maybe their hamsters and rabbits-- and that's no lie because we know that darkies did that back in Mr. Vance's hardscrabble boyhood neighborhoods!
Then there is the endless parade of Trumpish women wearing crosses: Pam Bondi, Kristi Noem, Telsi Gabbard, Karoline Leavitt, Laura Loomer, each more bizarre than the next.
Among the males, Trump's new Jeffrey is Elon Musk, who is ripped right from the pages of Marvel comics, with his Dr. Strangelove accent, his Nazi salute and his apartheid South African origins and, really, look at that face! Right from Central Super Villains casting! And now his ultimate scam of becoming a new master of the universe by selling the New York Stock Exchange on the ultimate scam: We Will Colonize Mars! We are the Masters of the Universe!
And, in this America, where government is the problem, and private enterprise the King and free markets must reign, the maker of Tesla is protected from the BYD Chinese electric cars, who everyone from Canada to Mexico is buying because they cost only $10,000 and they are way better cars than Tesla or any American EV. Oh, those tariffs surely do ensure a free market economy! Amen.
But nobody can quite match the sheer super villain appeal of Bobby Kennedy, Jr. his own self, with that voice, (yes, Mad Dog knows it's impolite to point to a physical deformity and try to voice shame, but really, how can you not?) and his tic of dropping to the floor to do push ups, and his endless quoting of "medical literature," which shows that more people were killed and injured by the polio vaccine than were ever helped by it. And don't get him started on measles. Well, he will get us started back on the path to measles, which will make our country stronger by killing all those too weak to survive it.
The MAGA mob has taken Hitler's admonishment from "Mein Kampf" to tell the Big Lie and eschew the small lies, because people will believe the Big Lie but question the small ones. So, we look at the things which society acting as a community has done to improve life for everyone--public health, infrastructure, the internet, reversing air pollution and water contamination--and we say, NO! Those things are actually horrible depredations of our white Christian nation. Bad vaccines! Bad clean air! (Good clean coal). Bad clean water! Good crypto currency! Bad national healthcare! Good Middle East wars.
Whew!
Joe Rogan, who Mad Dog has never actually tuned into, apparently is now in charge of truth.
Fortunately, there is also Youtube, which has Ricard Feymann and Neil Degrasse Tyson to fact check: There are no aliens flying around Earth because of, well, the speed of light and distances, and we will never be able to colonize even Mars, despite the movie, which Mad Dog loved, because Matt Damon is fun when he grows potatoes in his own poop, but, actually, Mars is just too far. We did manage to build a transcontinental railroad, and lots of Robber Barons got rich in the process, but at least that did do what it was designed to do and, Indians, mountains and tornadoes notwithstanding, it succeeded.
And those images of the Cabinet meetings, with the line up of Marvel Comic cabinet officers all expostulating in turn how wonderful things are now under the benign dictatorship of President Trump! The first time Mad Dog tuned into those, he thought it was the cold open of Saturday Night Live, but then he realized: THESE ARE ACTUAL REAL PEOPLE!
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| Now, tell me: "Where Is Her Gold Cross?" |
Even Trump is real. He doesn't look it. He looks like a comic book character: with the hair, such as it is hair, the painted skin, the bright ties, the stained hands, the billowing feet.
These guys are about as real as the memories of which Archie sings.
