Big Daddy Returns
By DeWitt Cheng
MAGA Second Coming
Trump’s return to power is seen by MAGA Republicans fearful of change as akin to Warren G. Harding’s “return to normalcy” after the tribulations of The Great War and the Spanish Flu pandemic. All will be well in an isolationist, deregulated America controlled by a merchant aristocracy of white Christian males. They echo Calvin Coolidge’s dictum that “The chief business of America is business.” Normalcy was also cited to praise Joe Biden’s traditionalism and institutionalism after the chaotic Crazytown of Trump’s first four years. Now Trump is back, and far more dangerous, with a master plan in the form of right-wing think-tank document Project 2025. Despite his bizarre cabinet picks, there are more MAGA loyalists at his beck and call, including evangelical Christian nationalists full of apocalypse fantasies. This Second Coming will not be one informed by philosopher-kings Plato and Aristotle as painted by Raphael. Rather, it will be sinister and horrific, with an absurd, carnivalesque January 6 aspect, as described in William Butler Yeats’ 1920 poem, “The Second Coming”:
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world …
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Big Daddy is Home
Tucker Carlson’s absurd comparison of Donald Trump to the pater patriae, Father of the Nation, may have been meant ironically — with a nod to an Adam Sandler movie — but it also reveals Carlson’s lowbrow mentality (almost on a par with Don and Don, Jr.) and his belief in the Punitive Father model of child-rearing, long known to be a mainstay of political and cultural conservatism: conformity and obedience. After the catastrophe of Election Day, many liberals who had been shouting about fighting went embarrassingly silent, hence the naughty boy ready to take his spanking (with Stormy Daniels’ rolled-up magazine no less) and never again stray from the straight-and-narrow.
Brain Trust Brain Food
The amazing photograph of Trump and cronies aboard Trump Force One, chowing down on McDonalds fast food. Notably included is the health-food fanatic Bobby, Jr., who no doubt had to do 50 pushups’ penance after landing. A dead bear cub accompanies the main course, and Kristi Noem, again back in favor, adds feminine grace to the proceedings, and no doubt elevates the normal informal locker-room talk and towel snapping.
Dictators’ Day Rally
The upraised-fist photo from the Butler, PA assassination attempt was almost instantly transformed into NFTs and other Trump merchandise. It really deserves a monumental statue around which MAGA crowds could rally on world holidays. Former Press Secretary Sean Spicer could organize the record-breaking event, now aided by Photoshop, AI, and CGI.
Emperor 2
The red cloak that Roman emperors wore during Triumphs and Superman’s red cape combine in this paean to power and — now that “Gladiator 2” has just hit the movie theaters — vengeance: “I am your retribution.” The little gilded Trump statue made for the Conservative Political Action Conference a couple of years ago stands a mute witness to American imperium.
Freedom of Speech
White male Christian capitalist overlords are free to do what they want any old time without hindrance from Deep State Marxists in mainstream media. The rules against fact-checking will now truly be enforced.
I’m a Uniter, Too, not a Divider
In case voters have forgotten, the idea of the Unitary Executive, i.e., a president that dominates the Legislative and Judicial branches, has been around at least since the George W. “I am the Decider” Bush administration. George H.W. Bush and Dick Cheney (who made a proper babysitter for W) get some credit for the restoration of monarchy. It took the Supreme Court to finally make it official and complete the pre-Constitutional restoration.
Planet of the Alphas
Democracy and self-rule are now endangered around the world, thanks to “indispensable” (to use Madeline Albright’s sadly over-optimistic term) America. Will the ultra-alphas succeed in mining earth’s resources so that a precious sacred remnant of humanity, genetic offspring of financial perfecti, can escape to a terraformed Earth 2? A peaceable kingdom of mastodons, pteranodons, iguanodons and megalodons? Of a colonization effort that will require hundreds of thousands of dispensable parts?
