Clownshoes and Jackboots

Why are fascists so bad at running things?

It has been said that the one small blessing we have had in witnessing Trump's clown car of an administration is that in the first 100 days, we have seen a display of public incompetence that has been a feast for those who find schadenfreude spiritually nourishing. Trump's footlickers have been stumbling over each other. Embarrassing hootings and chitterings emerge from the mouths of people entrusted with enormous responsibility. Orders are given, then ungiven, then contradicted, then denied, then forgotten. Barnum had three rings and a hundred clowns. Pfft. Amateur.

It's a wonder they manage to get any fascism done. But they have, of course. Madly flailing away is bound to break a few things around you, and if your objective was to break things, that's all to the good.

For most of us, the entertainment of watching Trump and his cult of spiritual stool grooms stumble backward onto the sharp point of their consequences has not been worth the sadness of seeing what good was left in our society debased and destroyed, and the terror that comes with realizing that the law, even though it was compromised and often ineffective, is now completely deranged. There are no rules.

It's very much like watching a monkey play with a hand grenade. You know that sooner or later, there's going to be a big bang and an awful mess. Only we're in the room with the monkey, it's a very small room, and there's no way out.

Authoritarians can do fairly well, at least for awhile, by committing themselves to efficiently providing public services. It was said that Mussolini was a dictator, but at least he made the trains run on time. He didn't, that's a myth the Fascists propagated, but the idea was that rule without all the messiness of laws and personal liberties would be more efficient. One man, one nation, one law.

But it doesn't work out that way. Why? It's in the nature of how fascists come to power.

Fascists overthrow corrupt republics. That's how they come to power, that's the only way their playbook works. The lie continually. They betray, engage in treason, manipulate and commit disloyal and violent acts. They scoff at loyalty to anything but the great leader. Law doesn't matter. Compassion matters less. The idea is to create such chaos and uncertainty that a critical mass of the people will turn to them for safety.

If the playbook is followed, and the society is decadent enough, it works every time.

But having seized power, what do you do with it? And how will you do it with a group of people who are, by necessity, liars, disloyal, treasonous and manipulative? You can do a lot of harm with a psychopathic gang of bandits, but governing with them?

The wealthy class that bankrolled Trump from the golden escalator forward, knew that Trump was incapable of governing. He proved it in his first term, but the harm he did was mitigated, at least somewhat, by the “adults in the room.”

The money behind him was going to make damn sure that didn't happen again. They got their think tanks together, wrote a playbook, and put it in Trump's hands. It was a comprehensive plan to destroy the State, wreck the government's ability to do anything useful except oppress and make war, and eliminate all assistance provided to the vulnerable.

Why did they do this? They want the government discredited and dead. Drowned in Grover Norquist's bathtub. Because they know that wealth is power, but if they want to plunder and exploit freely – remember, for the greedy there is never enough – they have to debase, disable and destroy the one power that can resist the power of their wealth. The government.

There is no conspiracy. None is necessary. Their interests are so convergent that there is no need for secret plans. Not anymore. They do not fear the chaos that will ensue, their money will protect them. If your gun thugs can put you on your private jet and you can go anywhere, anytime you want, you needn't concern yourself overmuch with what's going on in any particular place.

Maybe the workers don't believe in the class war, but the rich certainly do. And they're winning it.

So, what comes next? The collection of brown-nosers and fanatics that Trump has assembled are incapable of operating the apparatus of an effective government, but they are also incapable of completing the destruction they were put in place to achieve. They're trying to do sled dog work with lap dogs. They are already beginning to rip and tear at each other, even daring to snap and bark at Trump.

It is possible that the explosion of the monkey's hand grenade will complete the work that the rich brought in the monkey to do. It could be that civil government will be so badly damaged that governance is impossible, and the tech-bro libertarian's dream of government-free utopia will come to pass – like it did in Afghanistan.

But one thing is certain. Millions will die. Not a few spongers and gang bangers, not a few thousand trans folk or drag queens, millions. They come to power as demagogues, and leave it as bloody-fisted tyrants. This is also a “feature” of fascism. In the end, it turns on itself and becomes a death cult. There are no exceptions.

This is the unfunniest clown show I've ever seen.