Public Enemy

I honestly don’t know why I bother with this sort of garbage, other than the fact that it’s both sociologically interesting and politically terrifying that the nation’s leading editorial page remains so eager to print objectively pro-fascist propaganda. (Gift link because I actually read the thing and now you must too.)

A couple of observations: That there are good and bad outlaws is a banal point, as is the observation that every single demagogue that has ever lived claims that his demagoguery is justified by the corruption of the system. The whole thing, then, is to distinguish between actually good and actually bad outlaws. The piece, which is authored by the founder of Compact, which I gather is a vaguely red-brown alliance look at how edgy we are kind of thing, presents us with Billy the Kid (psychotic murderer), Jesse James (standard issue bank robber ETA: A historian friend writes: “Not only a standard issue bank robber, but also the “Last Rebel of the Civil War.” Not only a stone racist, but he also made a point of terrorizing Union veterans.”), Al Capone (basic mafioso) and Robin Hood (largely a folk legend as opposed to an actual historical figure).

How about, say, George Washington, Crazy Horse, and Martin Luther King? This idiot actually mentions Washington once, but as an exemplar of law and order conservatism, as opposed to what’s apparently the revolutionary praxis of Jesse James’s and Al Capone’s most prominent contemporary fan:

Mr. Trump’s embrace of an outlaw image marks a change on the American right. A political formation that once was committed to what Russell Kirk called the “defense of order” is now drawn to the most anarchic figures in our national mythology. The exchange of George Washington for Jesse James reflects the right’s growing alienation from America’s leading institutions. But the break may not be as total as it seems. Even as Robin Hood defies the local sheriff, he maintains his loyalty to the king. He may humiliate the bishop, but he prays to the Virgin Mary. A similar combination of rebellion and reverence characterizes Mr. Trump’s attempt to run as an outlaw who will restore law and order.

What, other than his own monstrosity, does Donald Trump have reverence for, I wonder? Somebody who can write a sentence like that is not thinking about the actual meaning of the words he’s stringing together, but is instead engaged is some other sort of enterprise, which in this case is trying to advance the cause of fascism in America under the guise of above it all social commentary.

If you think it can’t get worse than that, think again:

If Mr. Trump can manage to convince voters that he is an outlaw hero, then the usual criticisms of him won’t stick. His vices, however grave, will be seen as expressions of the democratic character, bound up with the political system his critics purport to defend. The threat he presents won’t be addressable by limiting foreign influence or vanquishing a single candidate. Indeed, given the nature of the outlaw hero’s appeal, we shouldn’t be surprised if efforts to counter him end up limiting things that are normally cherished as democratic values — not least, the freedom to challenge authority.

I guess if “the freedom to challenge authority” includes the freedom to sexually assault women — something Trump has been found to have done by a court of law, and that of course goes unremarked in Matthew Schmitz’s paean to edgy political transgression — then Trump can be thought of as a politically admirable if “problematic” figure.

The other thing worth noting here is that there’s no interest in the question of whether this fascist dreamscape of Donald Trump as outlaw hero has the slightest correlation with what a more old-fashioned epistemology would be so crude as to call “reality.”

But who needs reality when you’ve got reality TV?