If there are visible signs of light amid this dark winter in America, they emanate from two obvious sources: The Trump administration is becoming increasingly desperate, and both the mainstream media and its “normie” consumers are no longer kidding themselves. If that sounds a little too much like Jean-Paul Marat during the French Revolution, who argued that violence and chaos were necessary to destroy the complacency of the privileged classes and bring down the established order, I plead about half-guilty. Violence is never cleansing or beneficial, but it can certainly render hidden truths more visible.
Donald Trump and his minions have stopped even pretending not to be shameless hypocrites. If anything, they have embraced the blatant hypocrisy and doublethink of the MAGA movement as a positive good, much as the Nazi Party and similar fascist or ultra-nationalist movements once did. Last Tuesday, the president posted to Truth Social about the street protests against the repressive regime in Iran and then, about an hour later, about the street protests against the federal invasion or occupation of Minneapolis. I hardly need to tell you that the tone and content were quite different, a fact that Peter Baker of the New York Times — a reporter previously derided by leftists as a regime-friendly stenographer — noted in acrid detail.
