The year in re-phew! Part 3

Almost done!

[Reminder: I’m off next week! Here’s Part 1 of this series, and here’s Part 2. The final installment will be your Christmas present, ha ha! ]

3. ICE Follies. While La Migra has always been a pain in the ass, once they were at least sort of like normal feds doing sort of normal border enforcement. Trump’s expansion of their remit to include violent, cruel kidnappings of immigrants and citizens alike, and their removal to distant branch offices and even black sites — all performed by literal goon squads who feel no need to present warrants or give their names and badge numbers or even show their faces — is a different kettle of fash.

While everything Trump did in the first year of his new term was terrible and often unprecedented, the creation of these shock troops was so far out that not even the weak sisters of the Democratic Center defend it. In fact, ICE’s antics (and those of the U.S. Border Patrol and other federal agencies who assist them and who also suck shit) have actually crashed Trump’s poll numbers on immigration enforcement — once one of his strong points with voters. (Per Pew, 53% say it’s too much vs. 36% who say it’s the right amount — and as for the 10% who say it’s too little, I doubt they can find their polling places or arrive sober enough to be admitted.)

Yet Trump shows no sign of backing off. He celebrates his cruelty with “Alligator Alley” signs, repulsive social media videos, and the filler-plumped visage of Kristi Noem dispensing absurd totalitarian parodies of the Constitution. His thugs keep breaking the law and his Attorney General keeps fighting to keep the law broken.

If it were anyone else hanging on so hard to any unpopular position, you might think their recalcitrance was due to principle. Well, in a way it is — the principle being revenge for being denied reelection in 2020. Yeah, he still says it was a hoax, but he knows he was beaten and he blames America. And he knows that while he can only hurt most white Americans indirectly with tariffs, selective rescission of federal funds, the destruction of public health, and so on, he can kidnap and torture immigrants all he wants and it’s a safe bet he’ll get away with it.

2. Charlie and the Chaos Factory. We talk a lot lately about how Trump’s belligerent disregard for norms and laws, which seemed overwhelming at the outset of his term, now seems less so. Part of the reason is Trump himself. But part of it is context.

I have a theory about this. When Trump himself unleashes rightwing culture war stuff — portraying himself humiliating his opponents, erasing minority achievements, giving himself military parades, a ballroom, etc. — most normal people find it distasteful, but many will find it amusing, Trump being Trump and all that. But when they see people who are not Trump acting like Trump — e.g. ICE — they’re repulsed (see #3, above), and they start seeing the outrages as outrages rather than as political entertainment, to the detriment of both Trump and his followers.

When rightwing hatecaster Charlie Kirk was murdered in September, conservatives exploded in anger and what might in some cases have been genuine grief. Among centrist Democrats there was a lot of maudlin question-asking and pleading for comity. But the right rampaged. They got people fired for being insufficiently worshipful of The Blessèd Kirk — either by criticizing him or by quoting him accurately, which was considered just as insulting because Kirk said a lot of stupid and vicious shit that contrasted with the hagiographic impression his votaries sought to enforce. JD Vance called for the faithful to rat out anyone who took his name in vain; Stephen Miller promised revenge.

There was a grotesque stadium service at which Trump snarled at Democrats and Kirk’s widow commenced her career as a rightwing celebrity. Dark red states actually passed laws mandating the erection of statues and tributes to Kirk’s memory and philosophy (i.e. fascism).

It seemed for a time as if America’s Years of Lead had finally arrived. But the mania burned out quickly. The Widow Kirk took her act to Bari Weiss’ CBS News — and viewers who were not already devotees tuned out. Conservatives still cross themselves when they mention the Blessed Kirk, but ordinary people shrug; polls show they dislike the mandated Kirk idolatry and attribute Kirk’s murder, not to antifa or liberals as the Kirkians insist, but to the more amorphous “extreme political rhetoric” — and guess who’s famous for that? And now people who got fired for what they said about Charlie Kirk have started to fight back in court, and they tend to win.

Maybe that’s why, since the Kirk-fuffle, conservatives have just gotten crazier. The sudden rage-high and equally sudden crash seems to have unbalanced them.

Conservatives who have been screaming that anyone who disapproved of Israel’s genocide in Gaza is an antisemite now find it necessary to pick sides between conservatives clustering around Candace Owens, a popular disseminator of both rightwing conspiracy theories and Jew-hatred, and her sidekick Tucker Carlson, and those who prefer their fascism with a little less blood libel. The controversy has already riven the conservative Heritage Foundation and Kirk’s own Turning Point USA org, and led to much whither-conservatism yak at rightwing outlets that usually devote their pages to praise of Trump.

As I’ve said in the past, MAGA people are nuts, but once upon a time the Prestige Press was devoted to keeping that quiet. Now they can’t even pretend — whenever someone pokes a microphone at a Trumper, they invariably reveal themselves to be deluded or Nazi-curious. And don’t think normies fail to notice that — if these guys talk like this to the media, how must they be talking to their friends, family and co-workers?

It may turn out the Charlie Kirk affair will be remembered as the moment when MAGA finally flamed out. Fingers crossed!