Fifty Shades of Orange

the twilight fanfic era of political journalism

Trump jokes a lot, Politico says. Just like Adolf Hitler.

Levity, that familiar weapon of dictators. And indeed, who among us hasn’t roared with laughter at the cheeky humor of The Triumph of the Will, or grinned along with Benito Mussolini’s sly self-deprecation? In many ways, the Great Terror still reminds me of Bridesmaids, with Bukharin as the Kristen Wiig character. Here, just watch this exquisite comic timing:

See all the levity? I mean, don’t forget to tip your cocktail waitress, ladies and gentlemen, you’ve been a terrific audience. You probably thought that was Paula Poundstone, there for a second, before you got oriented. You’ll be shocked to hear that Politico quotes Ruth Ben-Ghiat as one of the experts who thinks that dictators are often very funny.

I’ve spent the last few days sort of staring in wonder at the flood of absolute nonsense pouring out of the sewage box (click on the link to the play the insane video screencapped below).…

…but then professional hysteric George Conway handed me the magic decoder ring:

He may well have been talking about this other thing, and I’m willing to assume for the sake of argument that he was, but what he was actually talking about makes no difference to the danger he poses. The 7th post in the thread is the decoder ring: “And so it doesn’t matter what he’s specifically referring to at the moment.”

• He is sick and dangerous.

• So when he speaks, he is saying sick and dangerous things.

• And even if the thing he’s saying isn’t actually sick and dangerous, he is sick and dangerous, so the thing he says that isn’t sick and dangerous is sick and dangerous.

It’s a cultural instrument of spontaneous psychological translation: If Trump says it, it’s very very very bad. “I like roasted carrots.” DID YOU HEAR WHAT THAT DISGUSTING NAZI MONSTER JUST SAID ABOUT THE ROASTED CARROTS DO YOU STILL THINK HE ISN’T TERRIFYING AND DANGEROUS OH MY GOD I’M LITERALLY DYING

And so the New Republic ran a story last week titled “Trump’s Cabinet of Horrors,” and it’s a news story about…the future? Reported in the past tense, like the reporter has just been there watching it. It’s Fifty Shades of Gray — it’s grotesque, sadistic fanfic in the style of semi-literate gibbering. Secretary of Education Christopher Rufo is crushing the brilliant president of Harvard University, Michelle Obama, while presidential advisor Chaya Raichik looks on in glee, and Attorney General Laura Ingraham and and and….

It’s horror porn, completely fake and so a major story in a news magazine. It’s outrageous for Donald Trump to call us “fake news,” the editors say, rushing to get their detailed story about an imagined future, with elaborate direct quotes, into print.

They’ve literally descended into making things up, and they’re literally telling you that they’ve descended into making things up. The news is explicitly unreal. It doesn’t matter if he didn’t actually say that, because he’s dangerous, so he might as well have said that. I’m a man with very specific tastes, Donald Trump said, picking up a paddle sheathed in leather.

We’re projecting a fake Trump because none of this has to do with the human being named Donald Trump. If his amazing orange birth had never happened — incredible birth, believe me, everybody says so, a lot of people say it was the best birth ever — somebody else would be playing his role as a fetishized cultural scapegoat.

Remember that the Canadian government exploded in a manufactured terror-rage over some truckers with a bouncy castle, and started freezing bank accounts, while Rupa Subramanya walked around and talked to people in the Freedom Convoy and reported on how pleasant they were. Or see, for example, the bizarre efforts of the German government to code a bunch of ordinary disagreement as terrifying extremism.

There is a global crisis crisis in the governing class, and in the adjacent classes of apparatchiks, an apparently willful desire to perceive normal discourse in a climate of terror. He’s making jokes, Politico warns. Just like Adolf Hitler!

Go back up and read George Conway’s eight-post thread. You’re watching a man talk himself into it. Remember that.

By the artist Sako Asko