IS THIS THE STORY OF JOHNNY ROTTEN?

Things change, Kundun, and life comes at you fast.  Especially if you’re a Republican, or live in a country ruled by Republicans.  Two years ago on this date, I was looking forward to Election Day, confident that Hillary Clinton would be the next president and wondering what would happen to the Republican Party in the wake of its defeat.  I figured it would turn into something unrecognizable.  I was right about that, at least.

In those innocent days, when I was just following links, I landed on an article on The Federalist website.  The Federalist has been in the news lately because its higher-ups were among those instrumental in pushing Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination.  Back then, I thought it was just another conservative website, albeit one with quirky views.

One such quirky view came from a Federalist writer named John Daniel Davidson, who wrote shortly before the election that “the white working class thinks Donald Trump can solve its economic problems. But their problems aren't primarily economic, they're cultural.”  Davidson went on to say that “if conservatives want to regain control of the Republican Party and actually govern, they’ll need to reach out to these people and speak to their anxieties—not by pandering to their worst fears and inclinations, but by persuading them that they are wrong about almost everything.  Working-class whites, to the extent they think China and Mexico have taken their jobs and despoiled their communities, are simply mistaken.  The problem with their neighborhoods and towns is not primarily economic stagnation, but cultural collapse.” 

Two years later, Davidson’s point about the source of working-class white anxiety remains valid, but he completely misread Donald Trump and the Deplorables.  Working-class whites continue to stick with Trump through thick and thin because he’s done exactly the opposite of what Davidson advised.  Trump tells his fans every day that their culture isn’t collapsing.  Instead, it’s being sabotaged by a vast conspiracy of foreign and domestic enemies. 

Not only does Trump absolve working-class whites from any responsibility for their own dilemma, he also offers them a long list of potential scapegoats to suit every occasion.  Blame Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.  Blame the Deep State. Blame the press.  Blame immigrants, Muslims, and football players who kneel during the national anthem.  Blame China and Mexico, blame ISIS and MS13.  What the heck, blame all of them at once.  They’re all working together, taking orders from paymaster George Soros.  Only Donald Trump and his big, beautiful wall can stop them.

Conservatives spent decades scolding African-Americans and Hispanics for “playing the victim card” when they tried to explain the challenges that minorities face in America.  Then Donald Trump showed wingers how much fun they could have by pretending to be a victim, even when they were rich, white, male, and in total control of all three branches of government.  You can do anything you want, and never have to take responsibility it.  In 2018, being a Republican means never having to say you’re sorry.  

Donald Trump is Hall of Fame narcissist.  Not giving a shit comes naturally to him.  But some members of the GOP still had remnants of a conscience, withered and twisted though it may have been.  They’d been lecturing Americans about family values and fiscal responsibility for decades.  They needed a new narrative to help them adjust to their party’s new disdain for those values.  And Trump gave them that narrative:  their real enemies were their fellow Americans.  Their entire way of life, everything they hold dear, is under attack by the Democratic Party.  When you’re in a war for survival, it’s OK to break a few rules along the way.

The most benign version of this narrative is that Democrats are chronic busybodies.  They want to impose a nanny state, where the government’s primary role is to promote social justice for minorities at the expense of whites, for the poor at the expense of the rich, and for women at the expense of men. 

Conservatives, according to this narrative, are actually freedom fighters.  They’re fighting for the rights of white Americans, especially rich white male Americans.  And the most important right they’re fighting for is the right to limit the freedom of everyone they disagree with.  Instead of a nanny state, conservatives want a church lady state, in which the government’s role is to hold progressives, liberals, and minorities to mid-20th century moral standards – while looking the other way when someone on their side does the same thing. 

What does this new GOP look like?  The party that Republican Dennis Hof threw in Las Vegas earlier this week is a microcosm of the new GOP.  Hof was running for a seat in the Nevada legislature.  He was also a real, honest to god pimp, with a string of brothels in Nevada.  He hosted a 72nd birthday party for himself on Monday, where guests included long-time anti-tax guru Grover Norquist, Arizona’s racist ex-sheriff Joe Arpaio, and porn star Ron Jeremy.  Just a bunch of typical Republicans out to have a good time, until Hof was found dead the next morning.

Speaking of parties and people dying, it now appears that a bunch of Saudi security agents were having a friendly get together in Istanbul last week when someone’s bone saw accidentally went off, dismembering a nearby Saudi reporter.  A damn shame, but accidents happen.  And if it turns out not to have been an accident, remember that the only protection against a bad guy with a bone saw is a good guy with a bone saw.  If the Saudi reporter had been packing his own bone saw, maybe none of this would have happened. 

But whatever.  We know it’s all good because the Saudi King has given Donald Trump his personal assurance that the Bone Saw Brigade wasn’t acting in an official capacity.  The Secretary of State Mike Pompeo summed up the official American position when he said, “I don’t want to talk about the facts.”  Including, presumably, the facts about massive Saudi financial support for the Trump family.  That’s why Donald Trump has been venting his rage in tweets targeting Stormy Daniels, Elizabeth Warren, and Taylor Swift rather than, you know, murderous dictators. 

Repressive governments around the world now feel free to simply murder dissidents, reporters, and anyone else who makes a nuisance of himself, and I wonder how long it will be before the United States decides to dip its toes into that water.  Already, Donald Trump’s demands for extra-judicial punishment for his critics are his biggest applause lines.  How likely is it that he’ll moderate his rhetoric if more serious threats to his power come along, either from voters in 2018 and/or 2020, or from the various legal investigations that are closing in on him?  

When the first American journalist is murdered, or when Deplorable mobs begin to bust heads at Democratic rallies, how will Republicans react?  It’s not hard to guess what congressional Republicans will do – they’ll issue statements of concern, but like Mike Pompeo, they won’t want to talk about the facts.  I’m more interested in the reactions of rank and file Republican voters – our relatives, co-workers, and neighbors who believe that Trump speaks for them.

I hope I’m wrong, but my fear is that most of them will talk themselves into being OK with anything that helps keep Trump in power.  They aren’t going to turn back into good Eisenhower Republicans any more than John Lydon is going to turn back into Johnny Rotten.  Rust never sleeps, and everything Trump touches dies, including the souls of his followers.