Der Untergang

Interesting video from Paul Krugman, on the last (?) days of Trump:

Krugman points out that Nazi analogies, which back in the day produced enough pearl clutching to turn coal into diamonds, are now commonplace among even some Very Serious people, because after all lots of people in Trump’s orbit are literal Nazis or Nazi-adjacent. For instance a GOP congressional candidate posted a photo of his grandfather in full Nazi military regalia — the grandfather had been in the German armed forces, although I don’t know if he was in the SS — along with a message that the candidate wanted to “honor all who served.” (Good people on both sides dontcha know).

Krugman also points out that Hitler was obsessed with building gaudy ballrooms and triumphal arches, and plastering his name on everything, and that when things went south he blamed the German people for failing him, and tried to pull down the whole country with him as he saw his regime collapse.

Here’s how I’m vibing this morning, which along with six bucks will get you a mocha latte grande Ariana at Starbucks:

(1) Trump’s interference with the midterms won’t get very far. Elections are state affairs, time has practically run out — early voting starts in some places a month from now — and as always this chaotic fascist clown show isn’t very good at actually accomplishing anything, even purely destructive things.

(2) The Democrats are going to take the House and have no worse than a 50/50 shot at the Senate, despite the terrible map.

(3) Trump will make a bunch of noises about how the election was rigged and the new Congress shouldn’t be seated and so forth, but this won’t go far because of a combination of the absence of any formal route to blocking the results of the midterms — in this regard the midterms are quite different than presidential elections — and the chaotic fascist clown show referenced in (1) above.

(4) Trump’s last two years will be an almost literally incredible collapse of everything — a downfall if you will — in which the utter failure of Trumpism will collide with his own and his cult’s absolute refusal to recognize this. I do think he’s going to try to stay in office, because despite all the decline and dementia there’s still a part of him that recognizes that when he’s finally out of the White House he will be openly despised and worse yet mocked by everyone who is currently afraid of him, and that is something that will be a psychic and quite possibly literal death for him.

So in short some exciting times are ahead, beginning with the midterms that really are just about here, as Trump’s approval craters to a third of the electorate, and even some GOP candidates are starting to try to run away from him. How much of the country he manages to take with him, in imitation of his favorite author’s departure from the historical stage, remains to be seen.