Have you noticed how the liberal establishment hasn’t been nearly as emotional and outraged about Trump’s second term as they were about his first? Now that he’s the president who bombed Iran, the entire western political/media class is cool with him.
The term “Trump Derangement Syndrome” has always been used by the MAGA crowd as a blanket pejorative to protect the president from criticism, but during Trump’s first term it wasn’t entirely unfair. You’d see Democrats shrieking their lungs out over Trump doing things that other US presidents did all the time like cozying up with dictators and tyrants. They’d lose their minds over relatively sane things like Trump talking about moving troops out of Syria. The whole Russiagate thing was liberals going bat shit over a crazy conspiracy theory that caused them to push for the escalations against Russia which ultimately gave rise to the war in Ukraine.
We’re not seeing any of that in Trump’s second term. That extra layer of screeching emotionality simply isn’t there. There are no Russiagates or emotional support Maddows this time around. Democrats hate Trump, but they hate him about as much as they’d hate any Republican president. The emotional response to his second presidency is wildly, wildly different from the first.
Which is nuts, because he’s quantifiably far worse this time around. His domestic policies are much more tyrannical. He’s as evil a warmonger as the White House has ever seen. He’s so corrupt that he’s just openly admitting to being bought and owned by Zionist oligarchs while making his family a fortune using the power of his office. Now that he doesn’t have to worry about re-election, he’s being completely nakedly monstrous.
And what’s creepy is that’s why the liberal establishment is so much more mellow about him. They’re no longer worried that he’s going to promote “isolationist” foreign policy and roll back the US war machine. He went to war with Iran, so they like him now. Because they know he’s fully compliant.
I’ve had many a Trump supporter tell me that all the anti-Trump vitriol we saw from the imperial political/media class was evidence that he really was fighting the Deep State and draining the swamp, but that was never what was actually happening. As I have been arguing since Trump’s first term, the oligarchs and empire managers never opposed Trump because they believed he was opposed to them. Rather, they simply viewed him as a poor steward of the empire. They didn’t trust him to keep the imperial gears turning in the way they must turn to maintain the status quo.
Clearly that has changed. They trust him now. They know he will keep the bombs dropping, keep the capitalism chugging along, and keep the power centers where they are.
They view him as one of their own now. When he finally dies, he will be lovingly eulogized by all the same liberal institutions which called him a second Hitler during his first term. He did enough to reassure them that the presidency of the United States had not been accidentally awarded to a decent human being.
___________________
Caitlin’s Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
The best way to make sure you see everything I publish is to get on my free mailing list. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Click here for links for my social media, books, merch, and audio/video versions of each article. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.
Bitcoin donations: 1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2
Feature image via The White House (public domain).
From Caitlin’s Newsletter via This RSS Feed.
Yeah, for sure. I’ve relaxed about Trump because I’m so excited that he is burning our health care dollars and defense stock on an idiotic war. So relaxed