On Booman’s recent post Trump’s Ship is Going Down, Jordan Orlando posted a succinct summary of what is happening between Trump and the Permanent Government.
What’s most interesting about all this, from a classic Watergate “cover-up is worse than the crime” standpoint (and, Yastreblyansky had a great discussion of this the other day) is that, in a modern context with the composition of the conservative population being what it is right now, you’re actually better off just yelling out what you did, in the Trump fashion, than attempting to conceal it (as his staff is clearly scrambling to do).
Post-Iran/Contra, post-Lewinsky, post-John-Woo, the voting public’s conception of the laws and rules and principles is so feeble and inconstant compared to their understanding of the “horse race” and the ideological tribalism, that you can just break the law and brag about it and be in better shape than you would be breaking the same law and sneaking around afterwards.
Of all the crazy, unpredictable political skills that Trump somehow mastered (in his idiot/savant or idiot/idiot fashion), this may be the most important and the most powerful. He’s spent decades skating away from responsibility for everything he’s ever screwed up, simply by declaring victory and praising himself. It turns out that his supporters find this — the bragging and positioning — more “real” than the Republic of Laws, or the numbers in the budget, or the international climate, or anything else.
Yup. Precisely right.
I replied. The reply grew. Read on for more.
Jordan…
Excellent. Right on the money.
But you…all of us…must begin to understand that we are now living in an alternative universe. A post-factual universe.
PostFactual America. Even Time Magazine Knows What’s Happening!!!
Trump understands this on a cellular level. He helped to create it. He made his fortune using it. He personifies it!!!
And…he uses it better than anyone in the government. Perhaps better than anyone has ever used it. It’s part of his genetic makeup, I think. He’s a public relations idiot savant.
In that article above, I wrote:
Yup.
Even Time Magazine knows what’s happening. They are one of the guilty parties in the crime, but they are reporting on it anyway. Why? How? Because as President Trump says in the interview linked below:
TRUMP: And then TIME magazine, which treats me horribly, but obviously I sell, I assume this is going to be a cover too, have I set the record? I guess, right? Covers, nobody’s had more covers.
TIME: I think Richard Nixon still has you beat. But he was in office for longer, so give yourself time.
TRUMP: Ok good. I’m sure I’ll win.
PostFactual sells!!!
Unbelievable.
PostFactual America, however, is alive and well.
President Trump’s Interview With TIME on Truth and Falsehoods
Interpret the above article any way you want.
Any way you can manage.
Turn it upside down, inside out.
Shake it to see if something inside of it jingles.
Read it backwards.
Make a William Burroughs-style cutup of it.
I don’t care what you do; there is simply no there there.
Liars speaking to liars.
False proof speaking to false proof.
An endless merry-go-round of lies.
You all know how it’s going to end, don’t you?
Alfred Hitchcock did:
The out-of-control Lie Machine is eventually going to break down…break apart…and then there is going to be hell to pay!!!
Bet on it.
For the liars and the chumps who bought the lies. On both sides. And for everyone else as well.
Once the lies are truly parsed, there is going to be a breakdown in this country that will rival the Great Depression.
Watch.
The only question that remains is…who in this system is going to play the part of the old man who crawls slowly and carefully…oh so slowly and carefully…underneath the runaway machine and finally pulls the lever that stops it?
Comey?
Maybe, maybe not.
Somebody…
Please!!!
Let us pray.
Because…if that old man had not pulled that lever and the carousel had continued its unstoppable acceleration, eventually it would have exceeded the speed of light and the whole film would have burned down. Now…we don’t want that!!!
Do we?
Naaaaaaahhhhh…
Where is our old carny guy?
Comey?
I doubt it. He’s just one of the cops trying to stand far enough away from the disaster to survive.
Mueller?
Maybe, but he’s made a a career in the DC lie system just as have every one of the other players.
Is it possible that no one can turn this careening carousel of lies off?
Yes, it is.
And if that happens there is going to be hell to pay, eventually.
Watch.
The Diogenes Watch.
Looking for one honest man.
AG
P.S. I had a dream…a vision of sorts…a couple of weeks ago about Trump’s plane taking off from DC, ostensibly headed for Mar a Lago. Instead it made a 180 degree turn and headed for Moscow on the Great Circle route.
He’s In Saudi Arabia now. Moscow is much closer.
Let us pray.
