They obey the call
How many times have “Twilight Zone” references popped into your head lately? These times are as surreal as they are threatening. Except there’s no Rod Serling to offer a pithy observation on the human condition or to offer a moral coda to each day’s news. For those among the uninfected, there is only a collective shaking of heads, a silent prayer, at the behavior of MAGA millions, titans of industry, and newsies genuflecting before the Great Orange Oz.
Witnessing this “Great Capitulation,” Michelle Goldberg writes:
Different people have different reasons for falling in line. Some may simply lack the stomach for a fight or feel, not unreasonably, that it’s futile. Our tech overlords, however liberal they once appeared, seem to welcome the new order. Many hated wokeness, resented the demands of newly uppity employees and chafed at attempts by Joe Biden’s administration to regulate crypto and A.I., two industries with the potential to cause deep and lasting social harm. There are C.E.O.s who got where they are by riding the zeitgeist; they can pivot easily from mouthing platitudes about racial equity to slapping on a red MAGA hat.
Are they really falling at his feet driven by calculated, economic self-interest? Or are they entranced by power, like the Eloi by the Morlocks’ sirens? Since the launch of this republic there have been among us those who wish to rule and freedom-and-liberty types who in their hearts yearn to be subjects. In Trumpism, both are having a moment. The situation is, at minimum, a dark signal of what lies ahead until (and if) American good sense resurfaces.
Goldberg sees it too:
Collectively, all these elite decisions to bow to Trump make it feel like the air is going out of the old liberal order. In its place will be something more ruthless and Nietzschean.
Gary Legum of Wonkette watched a Trump press conference on Monday and marvels at the reporters filing into Trump’s gilded lair (like the Eloi or ABC News) to be eaten:
Which brings us back to our original thought as we watched the media let Trump steamroll over it as he has for a decade. And that is how absurd it is that reporters still, still, after all this time, troop into these rooms with Trump like a bunch of lemmings, knowing they will be lied to, knowing they will be berated and threatened and insulted, and dutifully write it all down without standing up for themselves and their profession.
[…]
We watched four years of such scenes during Trump’s first term, and we find it unreal that we will be watching the same sorts of spectacles for another four. We can’t believe we get another four years of White House reporters scribbling down Trump’s rambling horseshit without noting that Trump has always rambled through every press conference and interview, and that 95 percent of the stuff he promises never happens.
Imagine if you will — and you won’t strain doing it — little Donny standing before the class, bullshitting his way through another oral report on a book he hasn’t read. He boldly utters vague generalities disconnected from the novel in his stubby fingers and, with the long experience of moneyed privilege, expects everyone listening to buy it like Trump Bibles or Eau de Trump.
Thank you sharing this Sanctuary of Sanity with us each day.
Happy Hollandaise!