Plus ça change ? No way! Up is now down. Black is now white. (Okay, black is still black; let’s not go overboard.) White, however, is whiter than ever, thanks in part to Darth Bannon and Stephen Miller-Himmler. The sans culottes now love gilded haute couture breeches. That Motel 6 thing called Versaille isn’t anywhere near ornate enough!
Trumpistan makes Camelot seem like a hopeless rundown ghetto.One really needs a scorecard to make sense of the demographic shift---(a microcosm of which exists in the form of the vocal membership of Zerohedge)---that is Trump’s base. In a few months things have flipped 180 degrees. The head spins! Libertarians have become Statists, Anarcho-Capitalists have become jackbooted Stormtroopers. Autocracy is now the people’s best friend. The Constitution has become a Tweet, limited to around 140 characters and containing only a single Amendment (the 2nd), and all that other fluff that deals with stuff like speech and the press are Fake Rights. Superfluous nonsense! Dishonest!
A while back, the threat of terrorism was ‘made up’, the odds less than a lightning strike. Today, only the Emperor can keep folks safe from the Muzzies, by refusing US entry to Sudanese basketball players and Somali auto workers headed to Detroit. Saudis and Emiratis are okay, as are Egyptians, however, because they have the good sense to let Trump build hotels and golf courses, or borrow a few hundred million dollars to fund his businesses. Maybe those three nations get a pass owing to confusion as to whether 9-11 was really a terror attack by Saudis, Emiratis and an Egyptian, or an inside job false flag limited hangout psy-op. So much cognitive dissonance! They was framed, I tell ya! Speaking of Truthers, and knowing how much faith Trump puts in alternative news, even Alex Jones and Infowars are members of the White House Press Corps, no doubt taking the seat once held by the dangerous Arab Helen Thomas.
One wonders about things like Chemtrails in the now-welcome New World Order, because everybody’s newest favorite love muffin has his own 757, and he MUST have ordered it with the Chemtrail option installed. He is a billionaire, after all. A billionaire has to be an elite, and elites get the inside track on all the goodies. Maybe Chemtrails are not mind control substances after all, but actually a special kind of vitamin, good for young and old alike, so there’s nothing to fear? Trump would tell us, no doubt. He’s looking out for us. Our Father, who art in Mar-a-Lago, awesome be thy name!
It’s odd that just last year government needed to be as small as possible, if it even needed to exist at all, with sufficient checks and balances to keep everybody slightly off guard. Now, the Judicial and Legislative Branches are impediments to the Dictator’s sole authority. Get rid of them! It’s one man rule, an all-knowing autocrat who can issue endless Proclamations, totally obviating Congress and the ‘so-called’ courts. A Medici Pope was more fallible than Tsar Trumpski.
Didn’t TV used to be bad? Many used to express great pride not owning one of those silly things. Now that we have a Game Show Host as POTUS, however, TV might be making a comeback. Maybe we should load up on Best Buy stock.
It’s not all bad, however. Jews are suddenly okay again, and if Donny Boo Boo wants to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem, damn if he shouldn’t do it. Bibi Netanyahu, once perhaps the third most hated man on Earth (after Soros and Obama) is Trump’s good buddy now, and Trump’s Orthodox Jewish son-in-law, another real estate developer, is going to finally put an end to a 2000- year old feud between Arabs and Jews. In Trumpistan everything is possible. Personally, I’m happy the Jewish people are finally getting a break, as they traditionally catch the blame for everyone else’s failures. Now we can comfortably just blame Muslims and Mexicans.
Most surprising, perhaps, is that Goldman Sachs has gone from being the devil incarnate to actually doing God’s work the way Lord (sic) Blankfein once quipped, since Trump sprinkled his government with lots of former Goldman partners, from Gary Cohn to Steve Mnuchin to Steve Bannon. Billionaires and rich people, too, are now good, even if they inherited their wealth like Betsy DeVos, whose family ran a sort-of pyramid scheme called Amway. It’s all good. It seems like just yesterday, however, that the gang here was certain nobody made any kind of big money honestly, and many a boiled rope was supposedly prepared to be lopped around the necks of people now in the Cabinet. Today we expect that any day now Sean Spicer is going to be replaced by Robin Leach, and that’s all good, too. No, in Trumpistan nothing is good, because there are only superlatives. There is only ‘best’, ‘greatest’, and ‘unbelievable’. “Champagne wishes and caviar dreams” beats liberté, égalité, fraternité. In Trumpistan, places like Lake Wobegon, where ’everybody is above average’ are second rate. Slackers! Losers! In Trumpistan everybody is the best, like the meatloaf at Mar-a-Lago!
Anyone who might have spent the last six months on a desert isle would look at Trump’s demo or visit ZH Comments today and think there had been a total housecleaning of the membership ranks, all replaced with Statist Toadies. Trump is a demigod, and the people scream Heil!
But wait! Does all that flash have a purpose other than Trump’s self-aggrandizement? Is there a kind of compromise where Trump gets what he really wants (the stage), but no real power? Is Trump just for the masses, a slight of hand to capture the attention of those for whom style is way more important than substance? Bright lights and flash bang may have hidden the bloodless coup that took place since 8 November. Trump has the stage, but adults can now run the show. General Mattis is at Defense. Pompeo is at CIA. General Kelly is at Homeland Security. Lt General McMaster heads the NSC. Not a one of them is a yes man. Not a one of them will give way to Bannon or Miller. They will speak truth to power, even if it upsets Donny Boo Boo so much he exceeds 140 characters. Three of four know war, and don't want it, even if Trump insists on doing some big time killin' in Iran and playing 19th Century Imperialist by stealing Iraq's oil. Maybe they will just ignore the ostensible power and do the needful while Trump plays the Twiddle. There’s no need now for Alex Jones’ FEMA Camps, because the plebes have been hypnotized. They have their Game Show Host, which is all they really wanted.
Maybe, behind all the glitter, it really is plus ça change.
