There has been a Trump-shaped hole in the Republican soul for as long as I can remember. And, more importantly, this vicious darkness at the center of the party has been plainly evident all along to anyone whose job didn't rely on pretending it wasn't there.
Party elites tried to fill that with Bushes and Romneys and McCains, but what the meatheads have always wanted was Rush Limbaugh with the nuclear codes.
Trump's rise was an extended "Yes, and..." exercise between him and the Republican base. Regurgitating back to them the lexicon of bigotry, grievance, rage and paranoia in which they had already been soaking for decades. A vocabulary of arrogant ignorance and hate which the Republican party absolutely relied on to win elections, but were always careful to keep at arm's length for the sake of the sensibilities of the Sunday Shows and the New York Times editorial board.
Fire 'em up for elections and stuff 'em back into the basement after.
But Trump was willing to close the distance between candidate and the language of Hate Radio to zero. He loudly amplified the bits that brought the meatheads to their feet, and quietly dialed down the bits that weren't crowd-pleasers. In this way he acoustically measured the size and shape of the Republican soul, and won their fealty by feeding them a steady diet of whatever they most wanted to hear.
Which is why, once the GOP turned to Gingrich-style slash-and-burn politics and Limbaugh-style speech and no one objected strongly enough to smash that poisoned chalice and run its practitioners out of the party, the road to a monster like Trump was made straight. And now that the base has finally, finally gotten a pure, uncut taste of what it's wanted all along, injected every day directly into the pleasure center of their brains, there is no coming back from this.
And once Trump is gone, that Trump-shaped hole in the Republican soul will remain. Except that's not quite right. By now that Trump-shaped hole has become the entire party, and once Trump is no more, once the base weeps and rages and rampages over it, inventing one wild conspiracy after another about how their Dear Leader was stolen from them by the Deep State and the Radical Commie Left and, I dunno, Greenland, they will emerge furiously dope-sick for someone -- anyone -- who promised to feed their addiction.
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Once Trump is gone, and the quivering Qlan masses hooting Qanon theories about his imminent resurrection and the communists darkies that took him from them, the Sulzberger family shall raise a scribe whose job it is to write tales of a hooting, conspiracy-sick Left.
'And now that the base has finally, finally gotten a pure, uncut taste of what it's wanted all along, injected every day directly into the pleasure center of their brains, there is no coming back from this. '
AA has many problems but identification of the problem is not one of them. the idea that a brain has been trained to love a substance so deeply that life itself is less attractive than the substance.
i had a dea license for decades and part of the re-licensure was taking courses from pros in that field. addicts, real addicts don't see addiction as a problem...they see life and all its requirements and duties as potential impediments to their only real love, their addiction.
the rewards of feeding the beast outweigh any other motivation and fear is the expectation of pain. it is the erasure of 'self', in their words 'cancel culture' that creates that fear because they will be reduced to nothing in thoughts and deeds if they see themselves as wrong.
that is the substance. that is why the only sin in the gop is admitting they were wrong the biggest taboo...the real problem with AA is how seldom it works.....
first AI google: 'There's no single, official AA success rate due to anonymity and varied definitions, but research suggests long-term abstinence rates of 5-15%, similar to quitting alone, though some find it highly effective with consistent attendance (70% abstinent at 16 years in one study). Success heavily depends on engagement, with regular meetings and sponsor involvement boosting outcomes, while high dropout rates are common'
The word, "hooting" was used. And in my mind's eye, this is all I ear and see. The MAGA nutters hooting and whooping like a tribe of chimpanzees. Throwing their crap at a each other, baring their teeth. (maga is gop and gop is maga)
This is splendid writing! Above all else, Limbaugh trained Republican voters to demand performative street theater over leadership, governance, and competence. Limbaugh convinced his listeners of the promise of the scraps that might fall from the Reagan and Bush family plates. Limbaugh dies, and these same listeners now turn their eyes longingly to the Trump scraps. Even they know all they will ever get is the "Gulf of America" and the only promise Trump will keep--racism.
Many come to AA thinking once they stop drinking the job is done. Confronted with the fact that, no, the real work has only just begun, and BTW this is a lifelong project, they balk. Thus begins a relentless process of drying out that inexorably leads back to the only solution left to deal with their unexamined selves.
Hopefully this is not a double post!
Many come to AA thinking once they stop drinking all is done. When informed that the real work has only just begun they balk. Thus begins a period of drying out that almost inevitably progresses to a return to the one solution to the problem of an unexamined life they know. Sobriety takes work, constant work.
This is what bothers me about a lot of the public and leftist conversation. As if Trump is anything but a representation of extreme conservatives that have been a force for shit for a long time. When Trump is gone it's going to be yet another permutation of horrific right wing garbage repackaged. It makes me realize that the Nuremberg trials were something anomalous and uniquely special. Actually holding fascism responsible for its inhumanity. I doubt we'll ever see anything like it again.
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