re: #8 Shropshire Slasher

Trump is an Outlaw.

I find this construction interesting because you have to step over how many institutions and individuals who hold actual power provide the support structure that sustains Trump to characterize him as an “outlaw,” but also ignore how all his “outlaw” behavior is just the behavioral norms of people with power and/or people who firmly believe themselves entitled to abuse power because of more diaphenous entitlements.

This is the behavior of the wife of the local second-generation car dealership when pulled over for traffic violations genuinely treated as some kind of revolutionary will.

I don’t think it can be stressed enough how Trumpism is an emotional reaction of people who have it pretty good but are miserable because they imagine themselves owed everything in a way that points back to the darkest moments in US history, and that their sense of “rebellion” is deliberately shallow…an aesthetic…to cover how they expect all the existing institutions to fall into line and do all the work to make the future they envisions themselves deserving. They’re not just little kings, but the stupidest, saddest, King-John version of that thing.

They will never be capable of more than indignant flailing while demanding more deference and more obedience, and no one would take them seriously if money were not the coercive force we’ve allowed it to become.