Adam Serwer, back in 2018 wrote in the Atlantic Monthly, "The Cruelty is the Point," in which he noted that the Trump mob celebrates thuggery. This is the glue which binds them.
There's a line in "Avenue Q" about the word "Schadenfreude" (joy at the misfortune of others)--"Oh, that IS German!"
Well, that is American, too.
Right back to the lynchings in the American South, which persisted into the 1960's. The kindred of photos of the grinning mobs jeering at Jews in Austria, who were forced to scrub the sidewalks with their toothbrushes juxtaposed with the grinning mobs at American lynching is striking.
It is the same character trait which drives the boy who puts a kitten into a microwave and delights in watching it fry alive.
There are certain behaviors which denote deep psychopathology--microwaving the kitten, placing fresh, defecated stool in a dresser drawer of folded laundry. At a medical school dorm at Yale, I once stepped into a toilet stall in a bathroom, and right next to the toilet was a steaming pile of stool in a wordless display of a deeply diseased mind.
 |
| Delighting the MAGATS |
That is what you've seen at Trump rallies dating back to his first run for office, as he points to some dissenter in the crowd and tells the crowd to beat him up and carry him out. It's not just the gesture from the stage; it's the delight in the mob.
 |
| Date Night In the Deep South |
The fact it's so open is important. All that it is is hiding in plain site. We are the champions. We are the irresistible horde, the orcs, the Wehrmacht, the Army of Northern Virginia, marching toward Antietam, the Roman legions, the Force.
Oddly, or perhaps significantly, the leaders are often deformed: the bald, corpulent Mussolini, the whole Nazi crew: Fair as Hitler, tall as Goebbels, lean as Goering the joke went. Hitler with that comically elephantine nose and the brush mustache attempting to distract the gaze, the dwarf Goebbels with his club foot, Goering who grew so fat he could not fit any uniform--like Homer Simpson who had to be fitted with a smock.
When Hillary Clinton, in a rare unguarded moment observed Trump and his fans were a "basket of deplorables" she touched a nerve and the reaction was so electric she followed her advisers' advice and retreated rather than doubling down on it. She had stuck the bull with the picadors' stakes and rather than rising to match Trump's rantings, she retreated.
But now, we can see she spoke the truth, too mildly and without enough conviction.
We can see the monsters. The Trump rallies are nothing short of the crowds along the route to the guillotine.
This is what marching those shaven men, shoving them down from behind the neck is all about. It is the old Sheriff Joe Arpiao marching men outfitted in pink underwear who had been arrested but not even arraigned, through the Arizona streets, while he stood atop his tank painted with flames along its flanks, the ultimate tough guy.
 |
| Sheriff Arpaio's Delight |
