Dark clouds over Milwaukee

There was a time when the gathering of the two great American political parties was a cause for celebration that united all Americans in an appreciation for the great pageant of democracy. The Democratic and Republican parties are two of the three oldest political parties in the world. They are venerable institutions that have been vessels for the nation’s glories and sins, its redemptions and conscience. Both have produced some of the nation’s greatest leaders, and more than their fair share of scoundrels and reprobates.

Until now, however, neither has produced a man like Trump, and never has it been the case that an American political party turned against the cornerstone faith of the founders. Donald Trump is coming to Milwaukee, and his purpose is not to preserve the Union and strengthen her, but rather to light fires and watch things burn for the pleasure that destruction of beautiful things brings some men.

What the American people will witness is a spectacle of intolerance, meanness, casual cruelty, religious nuttery and intimations towards violence, More than anything else, they will pick up the breezy confidence of a minority faction that believes the stars have aligned to give their malignant cause political power. Many of them believe god has ordained this moment, and picked Donald Trump as his vessel. They believe that they are winning and hold the high ground. That they are measuring the drapes in the Oval Office should be no secret.

At some level, this Milwaukee gathering has been a decade in the making. Once, it was much harder to tell what precisely it was, and what it wanted to do. There is no such lack of clarity today. Fascists will convene in Milwaukee, and call themselves “Republicans,” but all loyal Americans will recoil at a pack of vandals running with desecration as their North Star and extremism as their constant bearing.

Retribution and revenge are at the center of the worst cause in America since Jim Crow, and before that, the Bund, and before that, the KKK, and before that, the Confederacy, and before that, the know-nothings. The name of that cause is MAGA.

Soon, Trump will pick his next underboss after having failed at hanging the last one at the insurrection. Whomever Trump picks, they will be a person of the lowest character with a performative streak that combines the capacities for self-righteousness, hypocrisy, servility, and bootlicking into a musk that tickles Trump’s erogenous zone. He will soon have his apprentice.

What will America get?

Something terrible is coming for sure, but we will make it through. Won’t we?

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