[Our ginger girl Poe, checking out the neighborhood.]
Well, it’s certainly been a week. Just after I posted the previous roundup, word came out that disgraced former President, adjudicated rapist, and convicted felon Donald Trump was slightly injured in a shooting at a rally in Pennsylvania. Much more importantly, one of the attendees, Corey Comperatore, a retired firefighter, was killed, and two other attendees seriously injured in the attack. The gunman, a 20-year-old white male Republican armed with an AR-15, was immediately killed by secret service agents.
Already Trump’s bootlicks are blaming anybody except young white male Republicans with easy access to assault weapons. And they are blaming anything except the violent rhetoric of the previous president, who lost tremendously to President Biden and then threw a temper tantrum and tried to stage a coup. At every stage of his political career Trump has advocated for and encouraged violence in the political arena. The only way it should be a surprise is that, rather than targeting a classroom (as young men with easy access to assault weapons usually do) the gunman targeted Trump.
And already, Trump’s bootlicks are trying to make him out as a hero. This is demonstrably false. There is nothing different about Trump today than there was in the hours before the attack. He is the exact same violence-cheering fascist he was before one of his own tried to take him out. Trump is not a victim. Mr. Comperatore is a victim. Comperatore’s family are victims. Trump is not. David Dutch and James Copenhaver, the two attendees who were critically injured in the attack, are victims. Trump is not.
Trump is spinning his survival and minor injury during the attack as proof that he is fit to be president, which demonstrates a level of political intelligence expected from a failed reality show host. And the people who vote for him are eating it up. From their point of view, anyone who encourages such high levels of violence and division must be doing something right, and they feel if Trump returns to office they will be part of his in-group and will be allowed to indulge in the violence which Trump has been advocating for his entire political career. They’ll just turn it outward against their myriad imaginary enemies and oppressors, rather than inward toward the ideology which has given them permission to openly be fascists.
As the meme says, bad things happening to bad people doesn’t turn them into good people.
On Monday, Trump’s owners picked J.D. “Bougiebilly” Vance to be Trump’s running mate.
At the moment this post goes live, Trump and Vance are holding a rally about a mile from here, accompanied by a massive fleet of emasculated manbabies in big trucks which are covered with decorations which advocate for violence both abstract and particular. Which is redundant, since the existence of MAGA is an act of violence.
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
Reading
I am still reading Viriconium. The events of the past few weeks are keeping me distracted enough that I don’t have the focus to dive into this beautiful book as deeply as I would like.
Writing
Based on a recommendation from a member of my writing group, I set up an account at Notion.so, and am playing around with building a wiki for my work-in-progress Cacophonous. I want to test things a little before I move several years of notes to a new platform.
Subject: Super Powers, Kaiju
Setting: Virtual Reality
Genre: Horror
Listening
Interesting Links
- “The true, tactical significance of Project 2025” (Cory Doctorow, Pluralistic)
- “The coming storm, part 2” (Charles Stross, Antipope)
- “Inside Ziklag, the Secret Organization of Wealthy Christians Trying to Sway the Election and Change the Country” (ProPublica)