Nurse the Hate: Repeating History

While I find it extremely interesting that the President of the United States has essentially decided that he is no longer bound by the law and is an autonomous ruler of the nation, much like a King, it is not nearly as interesting as the reaction from “the people”.  As far as I can tell, no one cares.  There is absolutely no discussion of it in my workplace.  I don’t hear any of my neighbors express even the slightest concern.  Maybe it’s fatigue from the continual barrage of outrageous rhetoric and outright lies from the White House, but The People just can’t seem to engage.  The reality TV show guy is making a move to be a dictator?  Huh.  Hey, did you see Game of Thrones last week?

I remember studying history in school.  Whenever we would learn about Nazi Germany, or Fascist Italy, Spain, or whatever authoritarian ruler you want to insert into the discussion, I would always think “How could those people have let that happen?  What a bunch of dopes.  It was so obvious how that was going to end.”.  Yet, at this moment in history, it’s enlightening to see how it happened.  It moves slowly with deliberate progress.  Three years ago if you were to say “The President will openly defy Congress, place his cronies in position to subvert the laws, claim to be totally exonerated from all wrongdoing when an investigation shows the exact opposite, prevent anyone from seeing that full report that supposedly exonerated him, prevent anyone from looking at his financial dealings with foreign adversaries with which he has an unexplainable chummy relationship, send his personal attorney to meet with Ukraine to have them investigate his political opponent, provide no open communication with the free press, and continually undermine the pillars of our society via his rallies and Twitter outbursts and you will think it is normal.”, you would say “Get the fuck out of here!”.   

Yet, that’s where we are today.  Things that would have been considered krazy with a capital “K” a couple of years back don’t even get anyone’s attention now.  The propaganda TV news network provides talking points for the sycophants.  “Why should he have to show his tax returns?  He was a private citizen then!”  (Ah, because of his murky finances and confusing influxes of cash when no one would lend to him maybe?)  “The economy is doing great!”  (Oh, I guess there’s no need to follow the Law of the Land since my 401K earned an additional 3% while this guy was in office.)  “Investigate the investigators!”  (Oh, you mean punish anyone that dares to question the President, especially if they find something?  That doesn’t sound like Haiti or anything…)  Build the wall!  (Ah, the brown people are the root of the problem!)   “The investigation failed to turn up anything!”  (34 indictments, sweeping Russian effort to aid Trump’s election, obstruction of justice, continual lying from administration about pretty much everything, but beyond that, nothing.). 

Maybe after 2.5 years of “holy shit, what did he do now?”, people are just fed up with the entire thing and got tired of paying attention.  It’s like when you are in Vegas.  In the beginning it’s awesome, all the lights and noises.  Then at Day 3 it becomes sensory overload and the #1 goal is to just get out.  You'd rather sit quietly in your hotel room than have to walk through the casino to get to "Raffles", the delightful coffee shop.  It will be interesting how this all ends up.  It seems like The Bad Guys are more committed to winning.  They don't care about anything but themselves.  They appear willing to do absolutely anything while The Other Guys get their dicks kicked in playing by the rules.  The Bad Guys are laughing it up while The Other Guys keep helplessly yelling “Hey!  You can’t do that!”.  Meanwhile the masses watch Netflix and assume none of this will impact them down the line.   “Hey, Trump just said he should get two bonus years in office because that investigation was a distraction.”  

What’s that?  I was watching Hulu…