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There is a tendency in the Anti-Trump resistance for some people to deploy the rather obvious charge of ‘hypocrisy’ when Trump, his administration, and his allies perform crude and obvious actions that they have deeply and loudly criticized among their political opponents.

The list is nearly endless and stretches back decades to the Clintons, through Obama and Biden. Money donated to the Clinton Foundation, was in reality monies going directly to them, proof of their ‘corruption,’ however billions washed through Trump’s various crypto schemes are unworthy of any thought. Still images of Obama nose in the air peering down at someone solid proof of the man’s narcissism, egotism, and arrogance. Trump’s display of nearly clinical malignant narcissism, merely proof of his opponents ‘derangement.’

The reason the charges of hypocrisy are pointless is that they miss a fundamental truth, every single attack is not launched in anything approximating ‘good faith.’ These people care not one iota for the truth of the matter but only for the effectiveness of their attacks. The point isn’t about what really happened but only to win the ‘news cycle’ and drive down their opponents’ support. The moment a particular tool or weapon ceases to be effective it is discarded.

It is a waste of time and resources to answer any of it with ‘hypocrisy.’ That merely invigorates the charges, often patently false, providing Trump and his allies with even more opportunities for attack.

Weakly bound voters I think are more likely to be swayed with attacks that simply go directly at the man and his administration’s criminal and authoritarian actions without reference to any hypocrisy. His solidly committed voters, motivated by racism, or self-interest and simply the delusion that a Democratic politician is always the wrong choice cannot be dislodged with this charge.

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Throughout its long history humanity has tried many systems of government. Evolution molded us for hunterpgatherer bands that function on interpersonal relationship and knowledge. Agriculture and creative intelligence exploded our populations well beyond that scope and ever since we’ve grappled with creating systems that work efficiently but also with a freedom that at very least sates individuality to the point that people are satisfied enough to not burn it all to the ground.

History is replete with Kings, Emperors, God-Kings, Oligarchs, and religious domination. For the last several centuries the newest and boldest experiment has been democracy.

Amid the various forms and systems, the essence of democratic governance is the concept that in some method the populace, rarely the entire populace, is polled and their preference in party or person is elevated to government. The assumption being that a widely distributed method of selection will tend to marginalize extremism in favor of moderation in rule. There have been spectacular failures, NAZI Germany for example, where the populace selected quite poorly and that points to the flaw of democracy that looks to be uncorrectable.

Self-selection.

The men and women who put themselves forward to be chosen have self-selected. Only those who want to be in power are options for the populace to elect from. While the nobility of service is real and there have always been and always will be people for whom service is their goal they never have and never will be the only ones in that pool.

Power attracts those who want to abuse it for their own selfish needs or twisted ideologies. The pool from which the populace can select will always be tainted by the greedy, the corrupt, and the evil. As such the possibility that the greedy, corrupt, and the evil secure power for themselves is unavoidable.

I am not advocating abandoning democracy, it’s a flawed system that has far fewer flaws than the rest but it is not perfect and your franchise is a terrible power you must always use wisely.

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When Reagan ascended to the Presidency in 1980, he often described the Republican party as a stool with three legs to describe the major divisions of the movement as: Family Values, Fiscal Conservatism, and Anti-Communism.

One can argue with aspects of any one or all three elements, but I do think that description pretty much told you who and what made up the GOP at that time. There are some deluded fools who think it still has bearing but the legs of that stool have long since been replaced with three new ones.

Cruelty to the Queer, Looting Public Funds, and Isolationism marbled with a rich vein of white supremacy are the new legs.

What little compassion for others in the old ‘Family Valuers’ crowd, and there hadn’t been much to begin with, has boiled away with its concentration in the homophobic transphobic, and woman-hating stew it has become.

Fiscal conservatism, however, it may may have erred with ‘supply side’, now makes no pretense at sane or rational monetary policies or decisions. The last Republican president, who is also the current one, ran the debt and deficit to insane amounts and now wants to add trillions more to it with additional tax cuts for the very wealthy.

The isolationism of the new GOP is unmistakable, democracies are derided and left to suffer invasions from militaristic and expansionist neighbors while the deep and binding commitments of the post war era are abandoned. The white nationalism is plain when books about racism are removed from the Naval academy, but Mein Kampf is left for the cadets to read.

From 1980 through about 2003 I was a registered Republican, but the mark of true wisdom is not being free of mistakes but recognizing when you have made them.v

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Before I start let me state without qualification or evasion that Elon Musk, unelected and unaccountable, should get the fuck out of our government.

A recent spate of vandalism against Tesla dealerships and charging stations has erupted on the news cycle prompting the President to declare the acts as ‘domestic terrorism’ with promises of persecution. This is turn has caused some corners of the left to insist that it is ‘just vandalism’ and not terrorism.

I would maintain that acts of violence, against people or property with the goal of effecting political change, in this case driving Musk from his position of power, is pretty much the definition of terrorism. It occurred within our national jurisdiction and presumably from American nationals making it thoroughly domestic. Simple logic renders the inescapable conclusion that these acts are indeed ‘domestic terrorism.’

That’s not the real fuck issue.

The real issue is that this administration will in no way or in no manner treat all acts of domestic terrorism equally. The pardoning of the violent insurrectionist who attempted to overthrow a fair, free, and legitimate election is proof of this. Further evidence is the legal action against the man who organized pro-Palestinian protests.

When Trump promises to use law enforcement against some persons but not others, he is employing the fascist credo ‘For my friends, everything; for my enemies the law.’

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The affirmation ‘fake it ’till you make it’ has long been one employed to fight the dreaded ‘impostor syndrome.’ To be a writer with confidence, act like you have that confidence, play the part until it because a reality for you. This applies to nearly all areas of human activity; act the way you want to be, and it will help you become exactly that.

I think there’s a dark mirror-universe version of this effect as well. I think if you want to be that thing you are act is fairly irrelevant. You will tend to become what you pretend to be, even if that was not your original intention.

There’s an activity, principally online, known as ‘owning the libs,’ where people, mostly men, perform in a manner to provoke anger and outrage from liberals and then rejoicing in the fact that you managed to make the outraged. The fact that there’s an entire community of people acting this way is of concern because in my opinion many of them are ‘faking it’, being homophobic racist until they ‘make it’ actually becoming homophobic racists.

Compounding this effect is the presence of actual homophobic racist all too eager to welcome anyone to their ranks. The pressure of conformity within any social group is powerful, humans are social creatures, and those drives are very hard to overcome. Pressure to conform to the hateful community eventually molds those ‘pretending’ into actual adherents.

So, maybe that ‘okay’ hand gesture wasn’t really and truly meant as a white power symbol, and maybe that ‘roman salute’ was just someone throwing their heart to the crowd, but such things a welcomed with great joy by the fascists and racists and positive reinforcement changes people. Sometimes they fake it until it makes them Nazis.

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One of the more tedious debates in popular political discussion is the endless argument about placing fascism on the left or on the right. Both ends of the political spectrum are desperate to have the 20th century’s greatest monsters reside in their opponents family tree rather than their own. As such both sides are immune to actual arguments and logical constructions because it is a requirement of their purity that the ‘truth’ bend to their personal preference and that their ‘side’ remains free of that taint.

Some years ago, I saw the fascinating documentary Architecture of Doom which examined the NAZIs from an artistic point of view instead of a political one. The thesis was that while the party lacked any real coherent political philosophy adopting conflicting positions if that led to real power its aesthetics were fairly consistent. From Hitler on down there was a real obsession with how things looked. A fixation on the ‘high’ art of the past and a hatred of the modern ‘degenerate’ art.

Which brings us to America today and the neo-fascist that have corrupted the Republican party.

This past week Trump dismissed most of the board of the Kennedy Center for the Arts and installed himself as that chairman. When asked about it during the Super Bowl interview one of his comments was “It’s not going to be woke. There’s no more woke in this country.”

Later that day the Super Bowl paused for its massive halftime show led by performs Kendrick Lamar. Apparently, I did not watch the game or performance I was at Disneyland, there were no white performers in the show and there’s been quite a bit of griping about that show. Of course, most people have interpreted the complaints to be principally about racism and they are not far off in that assessment. But a great component of the right’s racism is again an aesthetic issue. These performers don’t look like what these racists think people who are to be admired and coveted should look like.

This applies to the queer and trans communities as well. The neo-fascists know precisely what they think men and women should look like and those who vary from that image are the ‘degeneracy’ that the neo-fascists fear and abhor.

None of this is meant to dismiss or play down the very real legal threats that are multiplying like tribbles in our government today. The flood of illegal actions, dismissals, and seizure of power is a very real threat to our system of government. These must be fought. We are under assault from every quarter and the artistic is a vital one not merely a sideshow.

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Among my political reading and podcasts are former Republicans who have walked away from their party since the rise of Trump. It has been fascinating to see what changes has taken place in their worldview as they now think write, and debate outside of the borders of what had once been their ideological home. Particularly interesting is their view back at their colleagues and friends and former friends that remained ‘good’ Republicans and have drifted more and more into mindsets that these formers have a hard time comprehending.

Here is a fallacy many people believe; that people choose a political party based on how much that party matches with their own internal set of beliefs and policies. That’s not how it works. What happens is there are one or two really important issues for the person, and they gravitate to the party to matches those very limited concerns. It may be right for an under representative group, it may be a specific thing like abortion or guns, or it can be more nebulous like ‘traditional mores’ but it’s mostly a very limited set of things. Then once the person is in the party, in the social grouping, theybegin to change their beliefs and attitudes to match the larger group. These ‘minor’ issues aren’t what brought them there, but they adopt them just the same. Humans are social animals, and it is our evolved nature to conform to the society we wish to belong to.

What has happened with the Republican Party under Trump is a similar sequence except instead of joining a clique the clique changed and the people who remained in it changed to stay accepted members. It is not a conscious and intended act these changes; it happens below the level on intention action. The person makes slight, minor alterations to their speech, their actions, and eventually to their thoughts.

These people who stayed with their party for whatever reason that they found compelling were buffeted by the new changed GOP and it’s ideology and standards. Some left the dissonance between their image of themselves and the party to great to bridge but many stayed. They stayed and convinced themselves that they hadn’t really changed, not had their goals, only the tools and methods had changed. Like Saruman they didn’t and don’t think of themselves are being in the wrong, only bending to necessity. But as time drags on and the process is never ending like water eroding away a mountain the results are inevitable. They become the thing that they said they stood against without any defining moment save the first that one can point to as when it flipped. It’s that first moment, that second when you decide to do something that is wrong, but you have argued yourself that it’s really for the best that is the fall.