When Robert Mueller comes out with the results of his investigation, it won’t matter if the number of indictments is five counts or five figures: Trump won’t pay any attention. He’ll just call it fake news and his treasonous, rubledrunk, lickspittle minions in the Republican party will shuffle along behind him, along with all the rapture-ready racists, tea-party troglodytes and Fox-fueled fuckwits that constitute his base. I have no idea what awaits us after that, but if we have the rule of law and justice on our side, and all they have is lies, bullying and ridicule, trust me: we’re goners. I like taking the high road as much as the next guy, but we’re dealing with fascists now, and historically the only place the high road takes you is the staging area where they load you onto boxcars.
Even before Michael Dukakis hopped into a tank and rode off into history, ridicule has been an irresistible weapon for Republicans, and we’ve allowed them to use it to devastating effect. The Clinton Impeachment wasn’t about lying under oath, the dignity of the office, morality, or even sex. The Clinton Impeachment was about making damn good and sure the evening news was as chock-full of the President’s penis as it could be for as long as possible. Sexual revelations that would be all but forgotten after two and a half days with the current President, they managed to stretch into almost every news cycle for two and a half years.
The transgression, when there even is one, is immaterial. What’s important is what can be added, insinuated or purposefully misconstrued in order to keep people talking, and mocking. Howard Dean’s presidential bid wasn’t ruined from screaming in front of a microphone. It was ruined by a nation of shock-jocks and morning zoo crews playing it over and over again, mocking him as insane and pronouncing his career to be over with no indication they were ever going to stop. Laughable as things like the tan suit and dijon “scandals” of Obama may seem, the Republicans would’ve gladly impeached Obama over the color of his suit or choice of mustard if they thought they could get away with it. They would’ve done it as if these were the most egregious crimes imaginable, and that impeaching him for it was the most natural thing in the world. If you don’t believe me, consider the suspension of disbelief required to still claim to trust and support Donald Trump.
We all have different ideas about where everything started going wrong. Older Democrats might point to Nixon’s dirty tricksters, while Republicans insist it was the Bork nomination. While the Clinton impeachment made plenty of milestones in terms of it’s relentlessness, hypocrisy, the nakedness of its partisanship and weaponization of humiliation, at its core it was still just old school character assassination. Bringing the nation to a halt for more than two years probably shattered every record there was in making mountains out of molehills, but at least the catalyst was real, even if the molehills were only blowjobs.
For my money the real paradigm shift occurred about a year later, with Rush Limbaugh’s invention of Al Gore’s invention of the internet. It may seem insignificant in the grand scheme of things but I believe it marked the beginning of a whole new era of politics. To refresh your memory, what Al Gore said was that he’d been a member of the Senate subcommittee that released the funds that formed the genesis of the internet, which may have been taking a shade more credit than was due, but was not by any stretch of the imagination saying he’d “invented the internet.”
Purposefully misquoting Gore was originally just a fun little dig for Rush, misquoting for little more than the sake of mockery and to insinuate that Gore had “trouble with the truth.” It was quickly picked up by the rest of conservative radio, where it transformed quickly from a jokey sort of mockery into an increasingly disturbing truth. Within 48 hours or so Al Gore had become the most shameless of liars attributed variously to mental illness, “Just because he’s a liar,” and “Because he’s a liar who hates the common person and must think we’re awfully stupid...”
What made this initial wave of the false narrative so disturbing was 1) how obviously either false or totally out of context it was and 2) how little that seemed to matter. “Al Gore said he invented the internet” would normally be considered akin to “Al Gore said he was the Queen of England.” or “Al Gore said he walked on the moon.” The possibilities being that Al Gore was mad as a hatter, or the person relaying the information was either lying or wrong. Far and away the least likely possibility was that Al Gore, Senator from Tennessee who was running for President of the United States, was trying to take credit for personally inventing the internet hoping nobody would bother to check. Under any normal circumstances you would have to be insane to think that was the case, but within 72 hours or so, that’s precisely what millions of Americans either believed or claimed to.
At some point Al Gore should’ve asked what Rush was smoking in his cigars, or explained how phenomenally stupid someone would have to be to think or repeat such a thing. But Al Gore, like the rest of us, chose to ignore what was obvious foolishness, and I’m afraid we did so very much to our peril. Because the thing we were ignoring was a new social phenomenon - a sort of voluntary mass-hallucination where people gleefully repeated as true something they knew was entirely false en masse for no other reason than ridicule, and for some reason they weren’t the assholes, you were. Lies are as old as language itself - they may in fact be the reason language was invented - and masses of people all parroting things they know are not true is as old as religion. But Al Gore inventing the internet was the first instance I can think of where a prima facie lie was spread for no other reason beyond ridicule, and may have been the moment where conservatives got that first addictive taste of those sweet, sweet liberal tears.
So whether he’s facing indictment, or even impeachment - Trump ain’t going nowhere and his traitorous supporters aren’t going anywhere either. Bush V. Gore taught the Republicans 1) there’s no punishment for stealing an election and 2) if things are at all close they can lie, cheat and bully their way to victory, because there’s no punishment for that either. By now we should already know that things like reason, precedent and the rule of law are meaningless to them, and on the off chance that ten or twenty million of us marching for a day or two doesn’t do the trick, I suggest a complete economic boycott of everything. Don’t buy anything, sell anything, and if you absolutely have to show up for work, don’t do anything. A week of this, maybe ten days, and the Aeroflot departures desks will be mobbed with fleeing Republican lawmakers.
And if you can’t pull that off, just remember the cornerstone of authoritarianism is what they call “respect.” Not the real kind mind you - respect willfully given based on character or accomplishment. I’m talking about the fake kind of respect that bullies and authoritarians need to fill the hole where demonstrable love and nurturing from their fathers is supposed to be: respect based on status or rank. Fascists never, ever give up power, and so long as staying in power means they’re “winning,” nothing’s gonna get the bastards out. But if the price of “winning” is relentless humiliation, I think you’ll be amazed at how quickly they’ll tire of it. When this whole sorry chapter of our nation’s history comes to a head, I’m certain that the power of ridicule and weaponization of humiliation will be the key deciding factors, and whoever controls them will be the victor. Few things are more effective against fascists than laughter.