Loud boos for the demons of the left
A Guardian reporter goes to CPAC.
“Do you remember I started running and people would say, ‘Are you sure he’s a conservative?’” an exultant US president asked the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Friday.
“I think now we’ve proved that I’m a conservative, right?”
Or perhaps more accurately, the conservatives gathered in the cavernous ballroom proved they are all Trumpians now. There were “Make America Great Again” caps, raucous chants of “Lock her up!” and “Build that wall!” and loud boos for the demons of the left. Old-school Republicans were thin on the ground, usurped by a crowd that included young and sometimes rowdy students.
Old-school Republicans are nothing to write home about either, but Trump is a fantastic tool for making them look better. Maybe that’s the secret, and not Russia at all – it’s a plot to make “screw the poor” look respectable.
The spotlight was dominated a succession of administration members answering toothless questions. Speakers included Eric Trump (“The media of this country does not understand the tone of this country”); rightwing populists Marion Maréchal-Le Pen (“I want America first for the American people, I want Britain first for the British people and I want France first for the French people”); and Nigel Farage (“I thought Trump’d be good but I’ve got to tell you, he’s exceeded all expectations”).
There was also the former White House adviser and conspiracy theorist Sebastian Gorka, who roamed the corridors basking in attention when not shoving a reporter.
On Thursday, Wayne LaPierre, the head of the National Rifle Association, sought to reject post-Parkland demands for gun control with a speech couched in Trumpian language that savaged elites, the media, anti-fascist protesters, Hollywood, George Soros and the FBI.
Nothing about The Jews? The Protocols of the Elders of Zion? The Illuminati? The Masons?
Here in the UK, George Soros was the subject of a newspaper article that many considered used anti-Semitic tropes, so it seems likely that the reference to him actually is about the Jews.
“Savaged elites”. Yet somehow the yahooing billionaires, Trump himself being a prize example, do not qualify as members of any ‘elite’. And it is the same for the extreme right ideologists all round the world.
And this is good old Boston,
The home of the bean and the cod,
Where the Lowells talk only to Cabots
And the Cabots talk only to God.
Strange times indeed. It must be a sign.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2016/06/10/here-new-list-richest-people-mass/OaNMT5TILihKuLoyLNBwbL/story.html
Wayne the Rock listed three billionaires by name that generally support Democratic causes and who, just by chance, happen to be Jews. Nothing to see there, folks.
Also, I had something of an epiphany yesterday: fascism isn’t one clever madman whipping up a bunch of rubes; fascism is one idiot being deified by a bunch of terrified apes that demand to be led. The crowd at CPAC loudly booed the idea of naturalization ceremonies, private property, holding sexual harassers accountable, and reasoned disagreement. We have seen fascism, and it is all of them.
When, fate willing, he winds up out on his ass and hopefully in Federal prison, it will be “He wasn’t really a conservative” again.
You’re being way to generous Seth…
There is nothing remotely “conservative” about the Trump cultists. They’re every bit as radical as any glaze-eyed Maoist of the far left, and every bit as hostile to the West, in word and deed, as Jeremy Corbyn or the Rosenbergs. It is absolutely no coincidence, to take just one example, that both the far left and far right provide some of the biggest fans of Wikileaks. This is the horseshoe.
Hm. Trump’s fans are predominantly anti-intellectual, anti-immigration, anti-woman, anti-diversity… putting them quite solidly on the conservative side of things. I’m not so certain that there are many, or any, fans of Mao on the left, what with Mao heavily curtailing the freedoms of the chinese. And I wasn’t aware of Jeremy Corbyn being ‘hostile to the west’ in the slightest. Oh and the horseshoe theory of politics? Please.
Other than not knowing who the Rosenbergs are, I think every item of #6 warrants a side-eye.
#4
Holy shit, brace yourself for swarms of conservatives suddenly remembering his pre-presidential campaign positions on virtually every issue. “He donated to Killary! He was a Democrat all along!”
But that can’t be! I’m assured by my young liberal friends that all millennials are liberal! And all baby boomers are Trumpistas!
Of course, anyone who tries to claim that all of any generation are one thing are another is going to wind up being spectacularly wrong.
@#7:
I’m with you pretty much 100% but Trump voters aren’t conservatives; conservatism is long dead apart from its name.
Plenty of conservatives have been dead set against Trump since day one
I’ve a feeling the republicans are going to do better than expected in the Midterms.
The identity politics current among minority groups since the 60s has come to white America.
Identity politics? Like, believing that all people deserve the rights of full citizenship, and the opportunities that have for millennia accrued only to one group of people?
I would say that identity politics has been the core of white America, the idea that one particular sex/ethnic group gets to rule the roost, while the rest of us sit around waiting for crumbs (us, because as a woman, I am in that group that waits for crumbs, but being white, my crumbs are somewhat larger). The other so-called “identity” groups are based around the idea that all people are entitled to be fully part of society. They only appear as identity groups because they have divided the work based on certain groups, such as women’s rights, black lives matter, etc, because there is too much damn work to be done for any one cohesive group to try to manage all that under one umbrella (though the ACLU certainly tries, but their scope is limited to legal matters).
This is the perversion of language. Because white men have always been seen to be on top, the idea that white men should remain on top is just society functioning as it always has; business as usual. Any challenges to that, anyone saying “all of us should have that same opportunity” becomes branded identity politics. And the media charges ahead with that, accusing the Democrats of “identity” politics for daring to whisper that all these groups should be represented, while the Republicans, with their focus on “white” “middle” “Christian” America, are seen as the ones who are bringing forward the “forgotten” and “ignored”. Add to that the fact that this “forgotten” and “ignored” group has been petted and pampered by the media and the government at least since Nixon (before that, pre-Civil Rights, there was no need to pet and pamper them, they were just plain in charge), and that the electoral college amplifies their vote above others (which is exactly what it was intended to do), and the election of 2016 becomes nearly inevitable.
So, John, if you want to talk about “identity politics”, please quit applying it to groups that are simply trying to claim that all of us should have equal opportunities, and realize that this country has always, always, always been about identity politics. It’s just that there has been a turn around, and there are other identities shouting a bit louder, screaming, like the Who’s in Horton Hears a Who, “We are Here!”