Dateline: LOS ANGELES—Thousands of Americans, who resist Donald
Trump’s presidency on the grounds that he is literally a psychopath, have
formed a religious group calling for praise of God for supplying the psychopath
Donald Trump with a self-destruct button.
The group is called Small Mercies and was founded in Los
Angeles, by Joey Garbanzo. Members of the group call themselves The Thankful, thus
fulfilling the phrase, being “thankful for small mercies.”
According to Garbanzo, “President Trump’s grotesque antics were
on full display while he was campaigning for the presidency and they only got
worse after he took office. But viewers should be twice astonished by Trump’s
lunacy, as we The Thankful are.”
First, American viewers should be “grief-stricken to learn that
a country with an alleged manifest destiny could award such a psycho clown with
control of the White House. Was it our God-given destiny to be mocked all over the
world for the travesty of Trump’s presidency?”
The second shock, however, “should be in noticing that every
time Trump acts so bizarrely, he pushes a red button on his palm that’s clearly
labeled ‘Self-Destruct.’”
Reporters also noticed the red button and attempted to
normalize it, comparing it to a red-button that was allegedly located on Bill
Clinton’s hip, which Clinton pushed during his intimate relations with Monica
Lewinski; to the red button allegedly found above Barack Obama’s left ankle,
which Obama pushed while picking his neoliberal cabinet members and advisors;
and to the red button allegedly hidden behind George W. Bush’s right ear, which
Bush pressed every time he opened his mouth in public.
“All modern American presidents have self-destruct buttons
attached to their persons,” said one news anchor. “There’s nothing untoward
about that.”
But Trump’s red button is located on his right palm, which
is, of course, readily seen by viewers and which is a frequently-used part of
the body. This has led The Thankful to theorize that Trump is compelled to push
his self-destruct button more often than past presidents pushed theirs. The
more frantically the button is pushed, the greater the psychopathy that must be
crying out for escape.
Chief psychologist of Small Mercies, Laura Littlebitty, explains
that psychopaths are “evil robots cleverly disguised as people,” and as such,
each is outfitted with a self-destruct button. “I mean, would you want to be an
evil robot, getting into all sorts of waywardness and utterly unable to learn
from your mistakes or to fit into normal society and be happy? No, of course
not, and neither would the psycho robot.”
The psychopath therefore invariably sabotages his “sham of a
life,” to escape “his private hell built on glibness, high intelligence,
inability to learn from experience, pathological self-centeredness, incapacity
to love, callousness, shamelessness, impulsivity, recklessness, grandiose sense
of self-worth, manipulation, juvenile delinquency, and pathological lying.”
The “small mercy” of President Trump’s “big, honking red self-destruct
button right there on his palm where he can’t avoid pushing it is that the
existence of this button is perhaps the greatest proof that God loves us after
all,” said Garbanzo.
“Yes, God cursed us with the psychopaths in the first place.
But the Creator was evidently careful to install a self-destruct button on each
and every otherwise-unbearable monster he sent our way. That’s why as loathsome
as a psychopath like Donald Trump is, we’re blessed with the saving grace of
getting to watch him flame out like the Hindenburg.
“It might look merely like Trump is doing this to himself,
because he knows he’s in way over his head, he can’t stand being so abominable,
and he’s unconsciously looking to get caught for his atrocious sins, like the
serial killer who keeps writing the cops letters bearing cryptic clues to his
whereabouts. However, we The Thankful see the hand of Providence in the fact
that Trump can’t help but spoil his inhuman schemes, by being the way-over-the-top
psycho that he is.”
Critics question why Trump’s presidency hasn’t yet ended in
ignominious failure if Trump has been so repeatedly trying to destroy himself.
“Sure, it’s obvious Trump has a flaming-red self-destruct
button attached to his hand,” said one Trump supporter. “And sure, he couldn’t
help but push that button over and over again, just by going about his daily
activities. But what if the wiring were cut or the mechanism were otherwise
disabled? In that case, Trump could keep acting like the monster we on the alt
right want him to be, and nothing could stop him.”
Others blame the mass media for inadvertently propping up the dead weight of Trump’s presidency, by showering him with the kind of
titillating news coverage that only adds to his infamy, making him an exception
to ordinary rules of conduct. In return, Trump supplies the infotainment
industry with an enormous ratings boost.
Small Mercies maintains that there’s a mathematical
relationship between the number of button-pushes needed to bring down the
monstrosity in question, and the scale of that psychopathy. “The more hideous
the psychopathy, that is, the older and more settled in his grievous outlook is
the psychopath, the more times he must tap his self-destruct button for that
outlet for his despair to have any effect.”
You say you aren't a leftist, and you're not a conservative. What are your political leanings?
ReplyDeleteWell, I have criticized both liberalism and conservatism, although I don't know whether I've come out and said I'm not a left- or a right-winger. Indeed, though, I'd resist either label.
DeleteOn this blog I'm in the process of thinking through a radical alternative to the left/right-wing continuum. If you're asking specifically about my political leanings rather than where I stand on social issues (like abortion or gay rights), then the question might be what form of government I prefer: democracy, monarchy, etc. The answer I've given on this blog is that the differences between the forms that are expressed in the language of so-called political science are only superficial. All such forms revert to an underlying, biology-based structure. This is to say that oligarchy (rule by the few) is the universal form of government. Over time, a democracy lapses into an oligarchy. That is, the majority loses its real political power, and that power is seized by a minority who rule in secret, as in the present American stealth plutocracy.
The differences between the forms of government have to do more with the propaganda used to conceal the superficiality of those differences. A monarchy or a totalitarian state is proud of its inequality and is propped up by a bold cult of personality, whereas a democracy apologizes for the social inequalities that tend to reoccur, with a typically weak civic religion (like the official religion of the ancient Roman Republic) or with a strong economic myth/distraction such as consumerism.
If you're asking whether I agree with liberal or conservative principles, I've likewise criticized both for being propagandistic. For example, the issue of whether the government should be large or small is really about whether the government functions as a useful tool for oligarchs or whether the big businesses suffice to express their will. Either way, there's a revolving door between the public and private sectors. In practice, libertarians oppose a large government because they fear it will trample on the oligarchs’ rights (with regulations, etc), rather than serve their interests (protect or increase their private property). Liberals say they want a large government, fuelled by higher taxes, to protect the common welfare, not just the oligarchs. But in practice, all large, powerful countries put the interests of the rich above those of the poor masses, regardless of the form of government. The reasons are biological: the social ranks in the dominance hierarchy must be clarified and preserved, as in social dominance theory. There are small European countries that are more egalitarian, and indeed for some decades the US was egalitarian, thanks to the New Deal (e.g. business leaders didn’t always make hundreds of times more than blue-collar workers). But these are exceptions that prove the rule. Egalitarian societies are highly artificial and eventually give way to the biological default in which inequalities (between alphas, betas, omegas, etc) are reinforced and become obvious. The collapse of the Soviet Union is a classic case in point.
That point about biology is probably a conservative idea, but I don’t rationalize it with talk of natural rights or of the divine right of kings. That’s all propaganda, not philosophy. I’m open to creative alternatives to the natural default of oligarchy, but it would have to be inspired rather than insipid. It would be a work of art in the form of a social organization; it would be highly artificial and would have to be sustained by public faith. The problem is that it’s hard to admire a work of art that pretends to be inspired and original when it’s really something older and cliched (e.g. a stealth oligarchy or “republic” disguised as a progressive democracy).
If you're asking, rather, whether I vote for liberal or conservative parties, I vote differently based on the candidate. But I live in Canada and I've never been enthusiastic about voting for a Canadian politician. None is heroic in the sense I'm looking for, at least not as far as I'm aware, since I don't follow Canadian politics closely. If I were American, would I have voted for Hillary or Trump? That choice would have been entirely strategic. It would have been the choice between neoliberalism and the radical alt right, the latter amounting to chaos based on incompetence or on closet anarchism. So should the American status quo be continued or should it be shaken up to prepare for a more competent revolution in the future? Plus, if Hillary won, her hands would have been tied, because Congress would have opposed her. As it turned out, Trump’s hands are likewise tied, because of his scandals and the divisions between Republicans. Anyway, for me the choice between them would have been strategic rather than philosophical. It wouldn’t have been a left-wing/right-wing issue, but more a roll of the dice.
DeleteBasically, I'm some sort of political radical, but I'm still working out what the alternative to the conventional forms should look like.
How many radical leftists do you think have read Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals?
DeleteI'd resist calling any radical a left-winger or a right-winger. Radicals should be treated as being off the spectrum. Nietzsche was radical, although his naturalism is more consistent with conservatism (contrary to the illusion that conservatives are especially religious and thus supernaturalists). Certainly, the SJW type of leftists wouldn't approve of Nietzsche's sociology. (By the way, I'll be writing a dialogue soon about SJW liberalism.)
DeleteAnyway, how would I know how many have read that book? The main connection between leftists and Nietzsche is atheism, so they might be drawn to Nietzsche for that reason. But being secular humanists, leftists have religious faith in human nature, whereas Nietzsche was radical in wanting to crush that faith. Nietzsche thought we should trust only in certain power elites. Thus, he glorifies (or rationalizes?) the natural dominance hierarchy.
How silly of me.
Deletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far-left_politics
Are you suggesting I haven't heard of the phrase "far-left politics"?
DeleteYeah, pretty silly of you.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory
If you have a point to make, you might consider actually making it.