Random Reflections After the RNC
I watched approximately thirty seconds of the Republican National Convention live on the internet. The first fifteen of those seconds were devoted to a careful examination of the first half of a sentence by Donald Trump’s former press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders. The second fifteen second block was my intensive study of the vice presidential nomination speech of J. D. Vance, which only further solidified my previous assessment, which I learned from Ben Shapiro, that Vance is “super, super smart” and “so articulate at articulating” any random puffball talking point that he has agreed to adopt this month in order to ingratiate himself to Trump for the sake of personal advancement. Think of Vance — or for that matter, most of the sycophants who have made their careers as Trump’s shoeshine boys and manicure girls over the past eight years — as the less violent flipside of Thomas Matthew Crooks. Less physically violent, that is, though arguably far more destructive on a grander scale than anything a lonely kid with a rifle could ever hope to do.
Ukraine knows today, right now, that it cannot win its war against Vladimir Putin’s army of endlessly replaceable cannon fodder. Not for the reasons Putin’s Western propagandists (some of whom had prominent speaking engagements in Milwaukee this week) would have you believe, but rather for the reason those propagandists have been angling for two years to bring to fruition, namely that a second Trump administration would, from a foreign policy point of view, be a second Putin administration in Washington, and everyone knows it — although of course no one is allowed to say it, since if there is one rule governing American politics, it is that no truth must ever be uttered, and the more obvious the truth the greater the requisite silence.
Nick Fuentes, who, in our age of politics by popular trend and collectivist conformity, is what is called an “influencer,” and who is also a prominent and unapologetic admirer of Vladimir Putin, antisemitism, racial identity politics, and fame, has made his feelings known regarding the prospect of another Trump presidency. Another Thomas Crooks, we might say, although, once again, a potentially far more dangerous one because he does not act alone, is more ideologically motivated, and has prominent allies to help him legitimize his childish outcries.
In any case, I see that Fuentes has publicly stated (does such a person even exist non-publicly?) that after watching the RNC — presumably more than the thirty seconds total that I watched — he cannot support Donald Trump. As he remarks, pointedly:
I don’t even really care. I’m not energetic, I’m not enthusiastic…I’m not leaving my house to vote. Vote for what? For JD Vance and Usha. I’m not voting for this, I’m not lending my credibility to this.
Right, is he supposed to vote for “JD Vance and Usha”? Usha? Seriously? I mean she’s not even an American — except in the trivial sense of having been born and raised in America. And of course Fuentes is too much of a real man to even think women should ever be desirable at all, let alone one of those foreigner women (if San Diego is another country)! So, quite understandably, he is refusing to “lend his credibility” to this. After all, if Nick Fuentes won’t stand up for Nick Fuentes’ credibility, then who will?
The final evening of the RNC included performances by Kid Rock, whom I know only from pictures, which, as we all know, are worth a thousand words (though in this case a thousand words not worth saying); Hulk Hogan, an icon of fakeness from the professional wrestling world of yesteryear; and Donald Trump, an icon of fakeness from the reality TV world of both yesteryear and, sadly, this year. Kid Rock (not his real name, obviously) apparently performed a “song” called “American Badass,” in a noble but presumably failed attempt to elevate the tone of the proceedings. Hulk Hogan (not his real name, obviously) ripped his shirt off to reveal a Trump/Vance election T-shirt, which I guess was supposed to tell everyone that he supports the Trump/Vance ticket, in case they hadn’t assumed that.
One is inclined to think — one, that is, who is still capable of inclinations to think — that vulgar showmanship of the sort represented by Kid Rock and Hulk Hogan has no place on the big stage of real American politics, and that nothing could be more disqualifying than presenting one’s party or presidential candidate in such a garish, immoral, and anti-rational light. But then, given the party and candidate being presented, one must also wonder whether Kid Rock and Hulk Hogan are the problem, or whether on the contrary the worlds of mindless popular music and grotesque fake sport ought not to be the embarrassed ones — embarrassed to be associated with the likes of Donald Trump and his shameless cult of idol worshippers.
Oh well, “the second time as farce,” as Marx said.
