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Friday, March 16, 2018

The Storm And The Bad News

Will Sommer's expose or explainer or whatever such things are called these days, of the ongoing still-amplifying right-wing conspiracy super-convergence denominated "The Storm" was not amusing to me as I suspect I am meant to be amused by it: Deplorables being deplorable are too predictable and gross to be anything but demoralizing to me at this point, and I am far from denying the damage reactionary ("neo" and otherwise) conspiracists can do online even with the most obviously outlandish and disgusting nonsense in the terrain of libertechbrotarian attention-hoarding platform monopolists... But, still, it is intriguing indeed to see that the catastrophe of Trumpism is clearly sufficiently palpable even to many Trump boosters at this point that they are indulging in frankly undeniable wish-fulfillment fantasizing at this point. This passage from the piece is pretty typical: "After months, the conspiracy theory has come to encompass Pizzagate, the Seth Rich murder, the Clinton Foundation, MS-13, and many more right-wing touchstones. Despite The Storm’s vastness, though, the message is simple: Trump is pulling off a string of victories over his enemies, but in secret; and everything that looks like it’s bad news for Trump is actually, secretly, good news." I suppose the realization that queers like me aren't just going back into the closet and a nation of immigrants isn't going to transform instantly and spontaneously into the grinning-skull cishet whiteness of a 1950s Micky Mouse Club episode and climate change denialism isn't going to dis-invent the reality of climate change itself and so on is yielding something like a freakout in certain stale, pale, male, deplorable circles of the country gamed by dis-enfranchisement and mis-education and corporate fraud into the lethal but unstable reactionary force that keeps electing Republicans to public offices they abuse to the ruin of us all. For the conspiracists of the Storm all the bad news of Trump disapproval rates, unprecedented turmoil and firings and recriminations, court decisions against ill-thought bans and policy sabotage, incoherent and inevitably broken campaign promises, special election set-backs and retirements and signs of upcoming blue waves, accumulating indictments and guilty pleas, plummeting international relations and respect, and on and on and on may be evidence of good news, reeeally, seeecretly, eveeentually, suuurely, but, well, soon enough the bad news is going to be bad news for somebody for real you know...

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