Revenge on the Revenge of the “Unmoored”

NEW BLOG PHOTO_edited- 3Prior to Tuesday night’s results, which all but officially certified a Donald Trump v. Hillary Clinton smackfest  … for the next seven and a half months … the news item I found most heartening was the anarchist/prankster/hacker group Anonymous announcing it would be devoting its full energy to derailing The Trump Express, a mission it described in terms fever-eyed missionaries used to use for smoting the Prince of Darkness.

“We have been watching you for a long time and what we’ve seen is deeply disturbing. You don’t stand for anything but your personal greed and power. This is a call to arms. Shut down his websites, research and expose what he doesn’t want the public to know. We need you to dismantle his campaign and sabotage his brand.”

The thing of it is, the Anonymous folks will not be alone. Far, far from it. Given the relentless, exponential growth of social media, with hundreds of new, mocking, guerrilla videos being posted every day, any two characters running for president in 2016 would be targets for an unprecedented bombardment of ridicule. But with Trump, a Twitter-addicted, internet-trolling, infomercial-like charlatan taking control of … The Party of Lincoln … we are about to witness an astonishing convulsion of high(er) tech sabotage and satirical mockery.

The atmosphere, with a candidate as ludicrous (and dangerous) as Trump has never — ever — been so ripe for an open competition of can-you-top-this pranks, righteously dirty tricks and street theater. It is already well beyond anything that we could have imagined nine months ago, when we were convinced this was going to be yet another dusty, deadly dull Bush v. Clinton affair. And, as the treacly old song goes, “We’ve only just begun.”

So … I want to be on record saying how genuinely wonderful and entirely appropriate all this is going to be.

Trump likes to say he’s shaking up the game, and he is. He has. But, [full Trump voice here], I absolutely guarantee you, he is not prepared for the cosmic bombardment of derision that will rain down on him from now until election day.

The number of low-information authoritarians throwing themselves at his feet seems impressive in the current GOP primary vacuum. But those “angry” folks are neither a majority or among the country’s shall we say most facile wits. Even Trump himself, for all his show biz theatrics, strikes me as fundamentally literal-minded, with a very limited feel or patience for satire, especially at his expense, especially when it comes in the form of a million daggers puncturing his phoniness and bigotry.

One of this country’s most reassuring resources is our vast, fathomless pool of pomposity-mocking skeptics, professional comedians, satirists now multiplied by an uncharted universe of amateur snarks and miscreants; each of them eager and capable of claiming 15 minutes of fame by sticking the day’s most viral knife in a character — The Donald — who is an absurdist comic’s wet dream.

This assault is already well underway, but will explode now that Trump is a 99% certainty. The barrage — I guarantee — will also make collateral damage of Trump’s brawling, chanting, sucker-punching, saluting masses. They may be proud now of their association with a “movement” that has lifted up such a “strong leader”. But they too are about to endure/suffer an intensity of social shaming and disapprobation far beyond anything they’ve experienced before, no matter how badly they think they’ve already been victimized by all those “others” Trump has them rallying against.

Within a very short time their open support of Donald Trump will be the cultural equivalent of scrawling, “Kick Me, I’m a Racist Fool” on their own backs.

In the long run, this relentless shaming and ridiculing of a large chunk of people who already feel “unmoored” from fast-evolving modern society, (to use a trendy word), probably won’t go over so well. Their likely response to being constantly publicly ridiculed will be more anger, not less. It’s not hard to imagine more bare-knuckled, physical eruptions of the culture wars Republicans have been cultivating for the last quarter century.

But every haymaker-flailing goon in a “Make America Great Again” baseball cap becomes instant fodder for a 1000 comedy riffs, skits and viral videos.

Bottom line, the “unmoored” are unmoored for a reason. The “whys” and “hows” of their perceived mistreatment may be varied, but the basic fact remains they haven’t adapted to the world they’re living in. The 21st century simply moves faster and thinks faster than they do. They are people who habitually misjudge what is and isn’t in their best interests. And for that there are always social consequences … blowback that in this case will only get worse the more overt they get about who they’ve foolishly put their faith in this time around.

Along with The Donald they are about to experience a hellfire of ridicule and scorn beyond anything they thought possible.

2 thoughts on “Revenge on the Revenge of the “Unmoored”

  1. I’m not as convinced as you that Mr. Trump will lose big chunks of his current primary election base over the next seven months of ridiculing. His supporters socialize together, so I’m guessing they’ll keep propping each other up with bro bromides: “I don’t agree with everything, but he’s a straight talker, Hillary is a criminal and we need to shake things up to keep her and other politicians from ruining America.”

    But in November, it’s going to be difficult for Trump to attract sufficient numbers of non-base voters with all that ridiculing happening. He already has two-thirds of Independents saying they couldn’t vote for him. That makes the general election math very challenging.

  2. I hope you are right.

    I do believe there may be some valid reasons for the anger driving Trump’s base, as they are finally finding out that the GOP never gave a damn about them. However, there is no excuse for hatred and threats of violence against groups of people they perceive as “other.” There are some behaviors that should indeed be shamed, and they have crossed that line.

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