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Ancient

925 Silver Collection

The Abominati Hit the Ground Running

by Mark Van Proyen

February 1, 2025

Still from the 1922 movie, “Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror,” directed by F.W. Murnau.

Buoyed by the holiday spirit, I spent Christmas night at a packed TCL (originally Grauman’s) Chinese Theatre watching Robert Eggers’ new “Nosferatu,” a brilliant and stylish reimagining of the similarly titled films from1922 and 1979. It is far and away the scariest vampire movie ever made. Bill Skarsgard’s portrayal of Count Orlock, the bloodsucking avatar of ancient malice reborn, reminded me that each decade puts its own spin on the archetypal theme of the vampire narrative. This time around it’s much darker, uglier, and more horrific than those of the recent past. Judging from the January 20 inaugural festivities and subsequent Senate confirmation hearings for Cabinet positions, Eggers’ film represents the perfect cinematic companion for what is now under way. Unlike the outgoing Democratic administration, Donald Trump knows that time is not something to be wasted, meaning that he is working very hard to line up his neo-fascist ducks in advance of the 2026 mid-term elections. In other words, the abominati have arrived because the voters have a given them what they pretend is a mandate.


Linder, “What I Do To Please You I Do,” 1981, print from original negative on photographic paper, 52 x 37”.
Courtesy Modern Art, London.

The fact that the inaugural festivities took place on the Dr. Martin Luther King holiday added insult to the many injuries that are already being done to the promise and plain text of the Constitution. For example, one of the many Day One executive orders repealed Birthright Citizenship, even though it is explicitly enshrined in the 14th Amendment. This sets up an interesting legal test that will very likely move up the judicial chain to the Supreme Court, where we will find out if the high court will further shred our founding document and sanction the order. On January 23, the order was temporarily squelched by District Court Judge John Coughenoun, who said it was the most blatant violation of the Constitution that he had ever seen. It comes as no surprise that an appeal is already underway. But even if it fails at the Supreme Court, the idea of a Presidential order taking precedence over the Constitution has taken a frightening step toward normalization. The decedents of Japanese Americans who were sent to internment camps in the early 1940s will remember what we all need to know about such orders, as do many generations of Native Americans who were excluded from Constitutional jurisdiction. At the very least, the political groundwork for a partial repeal of the 14th Amendment has been put into place, which may also portend other changes to the Constitution should an Article V Convention take place. That may be the real point of the Executive Order. Of the 34 states required to call for such a convention, 28 have signed off on it.


Peter Kennard, “Reading Room,” mixed media. Courtesy of the artist.

Watching, Donald J. Trump swear an oath to the Constitution that he has no intention of upholding was dispiriting, as were the arrogant non-responses of would-be Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Attorney General designee Pam Bondi. The armed services committee’s interview with Hegseth was particularly telling when questions of his alcohol abuse and compulsive womanizing were raised. He promised to quit drinking if he were confirmed to the position, which is the most alcoholic thing any federal official has ever said. When committee chair Roger Wicker (R-Louisiana) cast the deciding vote to forward Hegseth’s nomination to the full Senate, he lauded Hegseth as “a man of faith” who deserved a second chance, begging the question of what Hegseth’s two ex-wives would think about this profession of piety. On January 24, Vice-President J.D. Vance cast the tie-breaking vote to confirm Hegseth.


In the cases of Bondi and Hegseth, both swore to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, at least until actual yes or no questions were asked. Then came deflections claiming that the questions could not be answered because they were “hypothetical.” Those refusals to answer spoke volumes, especially when the two were asked if they would obey illegal orders from the Oval Office. Let’s think this through. When we factor in the confirmation of Kristi Noem as Secretary of Homeland Security and the likelihood of Kash Patel becoming the director of the FBI, we ask: what do those four agencies have in common? Answer: their close cooperation would be instrumental enforcing an executive branch suspension of the Constitution on the grounds of a “national emergency.” In other words, a federal imposition of martial law.


Nicholas Galanin, “White Noise, American Prayer Rug,” 2020, wool and cotton, 60 x 96”.
Courtesy of Quint Gallery, La Jolla.

Now that serial rapist Matt Gaetz has been sacrificed to the gods of common sense, it is very likely that all of Trump’s other Cabinet picks will be confirmed by the Senate, despite mostly glaring absences of qualification. Look at it this way: when little Marco Rubio comes across as the adult in the room, problems will soon follow. His bid to become Secretary of State was confirmed by the Senate 99-0, with no objection voiced by any Democrat. After all, he has been on the Senate’s foreign relations sub-committee for the past eight years. Three years from now, it may well be that Little Marco will run against J.D. Vance for the Republican presidential nomination, assuming that the 2028 elections are not canceled.


Immediately after his confirmation vote, Rubio was off to Panama on his first trip abroad as Secretary of State. The relinquishment of the Panama Canal by the Carter Administration has always been a topic of right-wing hysteria that Trump has latched onto, and Rubio’s hasty visit there reflects that. It might also be related to other still unimaginable things, but the fact that he is making the trip so soon warrants suspicious concern. The right-wing complaint has always been that the canal was built by Americans, so it therefore must be owned by America. But the fact was that it was originally built under the auspices of a 99-year lease, which was renegotiated in 1977 and concluded at the end of 1999. Trump’s claim that the Chinese have taken over the canal is hooey, as is his lie that U.S. flagged vessels and US Navy ships pay more to use the canal than do the ships of other countries. Also, the canal is not wide or deep enough for super tankers, or large aircraft carriers, to squeeze through its passages. Nor would any navy use it to transit submarines for fear of exposing them to satellite detection, meaning that the canal’s geostrategic value is not what it was when the original treaty was signed in 1903, or when its construction was completed in 1913.


Pieter Bruegel the Elder, “Parable of the Blind,” 1568, tempera on canvas, 33 3/4 x 60 5/8”.
Courtesy of the National Museum of Capodimonte, Naples.

What are the Democrats doing about this march to folly? So far, very little. On February 1, they met to chose a new leader of the Democratic National Committee. Nine candidates sought the position, with Chair of the Minnesota Democratic Party Ken Martin winning the prize. Martin is not an old-school Labor Democrat, meaning that the National party will very likely continue with the politics of Clintonian triangulation that has dominated the party’s thinking for the past three decades. This seems like a recipe for another electoral loss in 2028. Still, there is opportunity lurking in the electorate. In 2024, Trump beat Harris by a little less than two and a half million votes, but the thing neither party wants to address is that there were another 88 million eligible voters who didn’t vote, presumably because they felt that neither party had any interest in their concerns or any solutions for their problems. That needs to change. 


Mark Van Proyen has written commentaries emphasize the tragic consequences of blind faith placed in economies of narcissistic reward. In 2020, he retired from the faculty of the San Francisco Art Institute, where he taught Painting and Art History. From 2003 to 2018, he was a corresponding editor for Art in America. 
Photo credit: Mary Ijichi
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