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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.

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At a recent event hosted by Univision Kamala Harris was asked if she could list three virtues of her political rival Donald Trum. Like Hillary Clinton before her this question stumped her with Harris only managing to pay some services to Trump by saying she believed that he loved his family, a safe statement that would enrage no one.

The story got me thinking, what if we matched the seven cardinal virtues with Trump? Would we be surprised by any of the answers? Each virtue traditionally has a corresponding vice, so for each I think the test is which better fits the know personality and action of Trump, the virtue or the vice?

Chastity/Lust

Well, this one’s pretty much on the vice side. A man who has been adjudicated in court of sexual assault, criminally convicted for covering up sexual affairs, and who boasts his personal Vietnam was not getting an STI. This virtue cannot be listed as one of his.

Faith/Idolatry

Again, there is no question. He sells bibles but displays them proudly upside down while calling for violence the man has shown no interest in faith and not only idolizes himself but expects others to do so. This virtue too cannot apply.

Good Works/Avarice

There are no good works that can reasonably assigned to Trump and his lust for money may very well exceed his lust for flesh. Even when it came to his own protection detail, he charged the government for freight for his expensive hotels unwilling to lose a single dime. Avarice it is.

Concord/Discord

It is a virtue to have an agreeable nature and a sin to be pointlessly disagreeable. Again, Trump nature makes this an easy call. A man known for his screaming and demanding nature while expecting subservience from everyone else can hardly be called ‘agreeable.’

Patience/Wrath

His anger at even the slightest perception of an insult is well known. Trump routinely calls for violence and harm upon those who he perceives as enemies, without every showing the slightest ability to forgive or even delay his own gratification. Wrath wins.

Humility/Pride

Well, a man who slaps his name is giant letters on everything he can and who has never ever admitted error, and who cannot, in his mind, ever lose only be cheated raised Pride to levels rarely seen.

Six virtues so far and not one can be credibly associated with Trump. Is this going to be a clean sweep?

Sobriety/Indulgence

Here’s one we can actually give to Trump. He is sober. The loss of his older brother to alcoholism apparently affected him deeply and he is known to be a non-drinker and non-intoxicating drug used.

1 out of 7, clearly a failing grade.

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On the subject of School shootings Senator Vance advocating for ‘hardening’ of the targets as the preferred solution saying, ‘But I unfortunately think that we have to increase security in our schools. We have to make the doors lock better. We have to make the doors stronger. We’ve got to make the windows stronger.’

This is sheer pedantic word play. For one thing the Senator is far too bright to not know that the money simply doesn’t exist to harden every forking school and pre-school in America.

Set that aside, though. Say we could wave a magic wand and instantly fortify every school like a well defended hardpoint on the battle line. Does that actually solve the problem? Does the would be shooter, now denied the school as a target, just lay down his arms and assume the post of a responsible peaceful citizen?

Of course not.

The shooter driven by rage that has been fueled by agony moves to a softer target. Perhaps a park, or a supermarket, or a shopping center, or a sport game. Or even just a forking busy street out in the open. The school isn’t shot up but someplace else is. Then what? Harden that next target, and then the next and the next until all of America is locked-down self-imposed prison calling itself the land of the free?

The truth of the matter is that Vance proposed no solution, and he knew he proposed nothing. He wanted to cast the illusion of someone that cared while maintaining for his base that solid commitment that no amount of a slaughtered children or people would ever justify even the slightest impediment to their hobby.

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When the story broke that the MAGA and Trump backed candidate for Governor of North Carolina Mark Robinson, a pol that frequently rants about pornography, was in fact a loyal customer of porn shops in the 1990s and early 2000s I had little interest. The story struck me as merely another example of the blatant hypocrisy so often seen in crusading extremist politicians. But then one detail came to my attention, not only did he visit these shops five or more times a week, but he was a regular customer of the booths.

Now, for several years in the 1990s I worked in a adult shop selling toys, magazines, and renting out porn to the customers. Like any business we had our regular customers and for someone to shop there five or more times a week would certainly be memorable. Also like nearly all of the adult shops we had the ‘arcade,’ a dozen or so closet sized private booths. A couple or the booths were fitted so that someone could rent a video, we’d load it into the player, and they would watch it in the booth, but that was not the majority of the booths. Most played an endless loop of porn on a number of channels and the customer just fed money into the machine and cycled the display to what struck their fancy.

But the real purpose of the booths was not to watch porn.

After all this was the 90s, video tapes players were in nearly every home, rentals were easy, and a cramped stuffy booth was hardly comfortable. Anyone interest in the porn would be far more comfortable at home.

No, the booths were for cruising.

Cruising is anonymous sex in public and semi-public places. Public Parks at night, airport bathrooms, and video store booths. Men, and it is always men, make their discreet eye contact and then follow each other into a booth, feeding the machine for the privacy to engage in sexual activates, afterwards going their separate ways.

Mark Robinson, in addition to his rants about pornography, his holocaust denial, and other unpleasant public stands is also blatantly homophobic.

I do not know that Robinson cruised the booths but it would hella shocking for someone that dedicated to the booths to not have.