God I hate politics-by-Twitter. I'm appalled that the US is turning into a fascist country, but I'm even more appalled by how pathetic, puerile and trashy the US' new fascist overlords are. At least Hitler dressed in Hugo Boss and made speeches that enthralled people: MAGA dresses like tramps, Steve Bannon-stylee and bullies other countries like kids on the playground.
That shows clearly that these tariffs are there to distract (yes it they hurt Americans, Canadians and Mexicans, but he doesn't care) to make media stop talking about Ukraine.
And ukraine is there to distract from tax cuts, and tax cuts and there to distract from the lost of medicare and the lost of medicare is there to distract from them stealing everything, etc etc
There's still a difference between the severity of some of these things.
With the right leadership America could undo tariffs or the anti-DEI stuff or even drastically redistribute that stolen wealth with the stroke of a pen. The damage to America's alliances could be repaired over time, especially if they show broad commitment to reforming. These things suck and will hurt but are fixable.
You can't sign a piece of paper to unfuck Ukraine, or restore gutted institutional knowledge or depose hereditary president-for-life Trump Jr.
Yeah, I remember watching speeches by Hitler back when I was in school. I didn't understand German so I didn't know what he was saying, but I could at least appreciate that the Nazis knew how to project power and competence.
I always understood the fascist aesthetic to be something very macho, very serious-seeming, etc. I always thought the idea was that you had an incredibly charismatic strong-man leader who had all the answers. And, given that, I could understand how people could be taken in.
But, the MAGA aesthetic is so ugly. Their rhetoric is so unserious. Their leader is so old, fat and caked in orange makeup, and he sounds like an absolute moron. The people attending the rallies do comical things like wearing diapers. And yet, half the US looks at that and thinks: yeah, I'll vote for them.
And then there's Elon Musk. Every time he opens his mouth it's less and less believable that anything he ever did was the result of skill or competence. Any time he talks about programming or system administration it's clear he has no fucking clue what he's talking about. When he talks about gaming he claims he's one of the top players in the world, and yet it's obvious he's barely played the games involved. But, apparently Americans are so brainwashed that being rich means you're "a genius".
I hated George W. Bush, but at least I could understand how some people found his schtick endearing. I could understand how he harnessed people's fear and hate and turned it into support for his "war on terrah". But, with Trump my opinion of Americans has gone down to the lowest level ever. This is what works for you? Really??
To be fair, the nazis were pretty fucking stupid too. The evil-cool, machine-like, storm trooper aesthetic they're known for is cultivated, at least by a significant portion, by nazis overseas that wanted them to be likeable.
Some of it is cultural momentum, for sure. I also like Storm Troopers. But nazis really like Storm Troopers.