The New Normal (original) (raw)

With the second inauguration of Donald Trump looming, because apparently Americans didn’t get enough of his hateful and exhausting behavior the first time, things definitely look bleak. And it’s worse because it seems like a lot of what I hear is about people sucking up to him when he hasn’t even taken office yet. How is he getting more entertainers to perform at his inauguration this time than the last one, when he’s only reinforced how terrible he is? I’ve heard that Victor Willis from the Village People is a big fan of Trump’s, and is trying to deny that they were ever a gay group. Appropriately, he was the cop.

He was also married to Phylicia Rashad, so I guess he’s used to people who downplay sexual assault. But really, how difficult is it for people to just avoid this guy whenever possible. He loves attention, so why give it to him? I know politicians are going to have to work with him because he’s President, but why private citizens? Do they support him, or do they just think it’s business as usual? I feel that he was so terrible as President that it’s making me rethink how much respect and leeway the office of President gets even when the person in charge isn’t determined to flaunt all the rules? I know Jeff Bezos is supporting Trump, even though the former President personally insulted him before, putting him in the same category as Ted Cruz. It really seems to be a thing among rich people that they can absolutely hate each other, but still always have each others’ backs in some respects. I guess they want to protect the system that keeps them in power. Mark Zuckerberg is also being friendly with Trump, and it’s probably related to this that Facebook is no longer employing fact checkers and has specifically said that homophobic and transphobic slurs are perfectly okay now. They’re not only allowing them (which, really, they probably did anyway in a tacit manner), but pretty much encouraging them. I’ve seen people saying they’re leaving Facebook and its offshoots because of this, and it makes sense, but I probably won’t at the time. I never deleted my Twitter account either, although I never look at it anymore either. The thing is, I don’t personally recall seeing racist Nazi crap on there even after Elon Musk bought the site. It’s more that the people on there whose posts I liked abandoned it, so why even bother anymore? Facebook, on the other hand, still has a lot of people I like, some of whom don’t use other social media. I’ve never really liked the Facebook interface. Twitter was really easy to use, and Bluesky is pretty much the same; but Facebook is a bit cumbersome, making it a little strange that it’s the platform of choice for people who aren’t particularly computer-savvy. I suppose it’s mostly publicity. I think Trump might have had some issues with Musk at some point, but now they’re basically inseparable. They’re both really racist and into eugenics, so why not?

Coca-Cola, after publicly denouncing the 2021 insurrection, have recently decided to use Trump in a promotion. Corporate executives seem to think corroboration with Trump is good for business, despite his not even getting fifty percent of the vote. And maybe they’re right, but it’s depressing. Don’t corporations do enough immoral things without also being affiliated with a wannabe dictator? In a way, I kind of think it’s better when I don’t know who the CEOs are, because I feel like they only come to my attention when they do something horrible.

I’ve also been thinking about religious support for Trump, partly because I just read Talia Lavin’s book about the Religious Right, but it’s been on my mind anyway. For one thing, I’ve wondered whether it’s appropriate to use the word “evil” to refer to him and his cronies, as it has a lot of religious baggage, if not quite as much as “sin.” George W. Bush, who seems to have been a genuine American Evangelical rather than just someone who uses them, loved to talk about evil. I guess my conclusion is that evil is a real thing, but it’s not a mystical force like religion tends to present it, instead simply being people choosing to do malicious things for whatever reason. And there are probably many cases where the term is appropriate, but not necessarily helpful, because in some ways it’s hard to take seriously. It appears that Isaiah 5:20, “Woe unto those who call evil good and good evil,” is very popular with right-wing Christians, except they use it in what I see as a Bizarro World kind of way, where innocuous things are evil and bigotry good. Good and evil are relative, but I’d say there’s no way that prejudice based on race, gender, and sexual orientation have to fit pretty firmly in the evil category if it’s going to mean anything at all. But when you can redefine things and claim God agrees with you, I suppose it doesn’t really matter. The Religious Right likes to say Trump was chosen by God, and while he’s hardly the first they’ve said that about, it seems worse in some ways, like they think the Donald is somehow magical. I remember overhearing someone (not difficult, as he was very loud) saying that Trump could have quickly ended the war in Ukraine. Even putting aside that he’d probably want to do so by handing it over to his puppet master Putin, how would that even be possible? But maybe they just think presidents in general are magical, as I’ve heard several stories in the past few years suggesting that they control the weather. Declaring world leaders to be the Antichrist is also a popular hobby for evangelicals.

While THE Antichrist (as opposed to multiple Antichrists who are just people opposed to Jesus) isn’t even in the Bible, the general idea is that he has mind control powers (so those who follow him might not entirely be doing so by choice), that he’ll eventually lose, and that even dying from his actions isn’t necessarily permanent. I don’t think we really have that sort of guarantee that things will ultimately work out all right, regardless of what you think being all right constitutes. It may be true that humanity is basically evil, but not for the reasons fundamentalists think. That’s not to say that things can’t get better, just that they can also easily get worse. I’m not even sure there is a moral arc of the universe, let alone one that bends toward justice.