Thursday, January 4, 2018

Rule of Trump Thumb

Clearly when Trump sticks his thumb in the air he's up to something. I think it's only symbolic and unconsciously at that, a small assertion of erectness. Hence the "rule of Trump thumb," an informal measure of macho effect and persevering mojo. 

Is he ready for adulthood? It appears not. My argument is that the "Trump thumb" has been the hidden measure of Republicanism at least since Nixon. Nixon wasn't a normal person, another trend in Republicanism, but that's a separate issue. 

We must reevaluate everything Republican in relation to Trump. He is the culmination of years of burgeoning and blooming incompetence. Reagan and the Bushes can now be understood as stooges for the larger forces of deconstruction.

Good government was never a goal. It all looks different with this in mind. Individually the perpetrators are working on their own problems of insecurity in their masculinity and fitness as heirs and worth as successors of the "greatest generation."

Worthy they are not and so compensation kicks in, Trump being an unfathomably extreme example, needing to always reassure himself of his existential (non-net) worth which is, presumably, nothing. There's another rule of thumb at work. 

Behind the scenes there are forces craving power whose only limit is the bureaucratic structures and collective action of citizens represented by the government. Yes, I am saying that the government and its bureaucracy are a good thing. 

They're there for a reason and buffer us against incursions of minority rule--insurance against oligarchy. We are now ruled by a minority. The structures are still functioning, but fragile. If these fail and fall to the thumbists we are lost forever.

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