Trump simply exploited what people were already feeling—feelings that, according to the data, are rooted in authoritarianism, racism, and social dominance orientation. He was always about a “vibe,” and that vibe was to hurt the people his audience thought should be hurt... [T]here is a strong, underlying desire for an authoritarian fascist to rule the country and … even those who aren’t true believers [will] simply go along with it, or disbelieve it altogether. These perfectly nice, ordinary, generous, pleasant people are no different from any German in 1933–1945… Trump [is] merely the invitation. He [is] an outlet for an unspoken desire to seize control and remake the nation, hurting the people who [need] it along the way.
Hurt, hurt, hurt. Yet the author titles this piece NICE ORDINARY PEOPLE CAN BE FASCISTS.
Which is it, babe? Is it nice to be a sadist? Me no think so.
I’d put it this way: Sadists can behave themselves a lot of the time, but they’re still sadists; and non-sadists, even in ‘nice’ dealings with sadists, may well sense the sadism.
There’s plenty of evidence, for instance, that the daughter in law of the nation’s sadist-in-chief, perky pleasant Lara Trump, is an extreme sadist, deriving real pleasure from the spectacle of hurt and humiliated people.
She will soon chair the Republican National Committee. Put her name in my search engine.
Indeed so intimately, so thrillingly attuned is her sadism to that of her father in law that UD feels sure we will eventually learn she and he have been going at it hammer and tongs and zip ties for years. I’ve seen and heard enough of Lara Trump to identify her as a pervert who, like Trump himself, shouldn’t be broadcast during family hours. But most people still see the perky mask.
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Edward Albee once wrote that his plays condemn “complacency, cruelty, emasculation and vacuity; [they are] a stand against the fiction that everything in this slipping land of ours is peachy-keen.” His hyper-sadistic masterwork, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, considered by many the greatest American play of the later twentieth century, describes Americans (he names his two main characters George and Martha) as rage-filled self-loathers, pacifying their disgust at their stupid existence – everyone’s stupid existence – with alcohol, and, when that fails, attacking one another with a viciousness that definitely intends to destroy. Donald Trump is a kind of savior for these (tens of millions of) people – He’s doing their dirty work for them every day, eviscerating the world at a much higher level than they ever could.
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Like many of the most fervent evangelicals, these people just want the fucking shitty world to end, and they correctly identify Trump as the one who will get them there.
February 14th, 2024 at 3:40PM
Yes, Ionesco works; and of course I’ve talked about Jarry’s Ubu on this blog forever.
I’m kidding about the zip ties and all.