Be careful what you wish for, MAGA
“Where do we go from here?” Digby asks this morning. She doesn’t know. Nor do I. Just as I don’t know how she had the emotional stamina to write it.
All this time, I told friends last night, it seemed as if observers of the MAGA cult were studying the grotesque creatures of Looking Glass World. People such as Stephen Miller, Steve Bannon, and RFK Jr. Facing a second Donald Trump presidency, with J.D. Vance as heir apparent and a Supreme Court MAGAfied for the rest of my lifetime, it feels this morning as if Looking Glass World was, in fact, studying us. Except the image that came to mind wasn’t from Lewis Carroll, but Rod Serling.
IMDB summarizes “Eye of the Beholder” from “The Twilight Zone”:
Janet Tyler is in hospital having undergone treatment to make her look normal. It’s her 11th trip to the hospital for treatment and she is desperate to look like everyone else. Some of her earliest childhood memories are of people looking away, horrified by her appearance. Her bandages will soon come off and she can only hope that this, her last treatment, will have done the trick. If not, her doctor has told she will be segregated with a colony of similar looking people.
It is a place where Janet can find acceptance among her “own kind.” Banishment is how her society deals with its grotesques. Serling reflects in the episode’s coda, “On this planet or wherever there is human life, perhaps out amongst the stars. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Lesson to be learned – in The Twilight Zone.”
Except Trump is not known for being that compassionate. He’ll want to impress the strongmen of the world, hoping that finally the Vladimir Putins and Viktor Orbáns will admit him as a member of their version of Mar-a-Lago. There will be banishment for immigrants, segregation for minorities, self-segregation, either within the U.S. or abroad, for those with the means and their remaining strength to resist.
“For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law.” Our system of law and order has always been capricious in this country. One system for the rich and another for the rest. Trump will use the power of the presidency to quash federal prosecution of his own crimes and pressure states to drop theirs. He’s promised to use law enforcement to exact retribution against his enemies, to unleash federal and local police against those he deems thugs, including Americans exercising their First Amendment rights, protesters and press included.
Trump has abused that de facto dual system his entire life to avoid consequences for his own criminality. With sheer doggedness and deep pockets, he’s learned he can, if not defeat opponents, stall them, wear them down until they go away.
This morning, exhausted after years of pushing back, I wonder how much I’ve got left.
We won all our in-county races here in Buncombe County (as we do) despite Hurricane Helene’s ravages. Josh Stein defeated the “Black Nazi” running for N.C. governor. But it looks like a mixed bag on the rest of our state races, including judicial ones. Democrats defeated the author of the “bathroom bill” running for attorney general, and the home-schooling conspiracist who would be superintendent of public instruction. I haven’t had time to score the legislative balance.
The world must be shuddering this morning. Ukraine especially, along with NATO. Trump’s supporters soon may find the protections they thought the Constitution afforded them are as worthless under Trump and Project 2025 as Trump NFTs.
A second aphorism comes to mind as I close. Be careful what you wish for, MAGA.