Normal
This story spoke to me about the challenges to peoples minds with the re-election of Trump to Presidency.I'm happy to share it with anyone left on ASF who isn't rooting with the rooter.Don’t Let Donald Trump Take Your Soul, TooWe’ve seen it happen before.[ATTACH=full]188971[/ATTACH]Tim MillerDec 07, 2024Hey guys. I’m subbing in for JVL today—and, fair warning: I get into my feelings a little bit in this one. But it’s been that sort of month. –Tim[ATTACH=full]188972[/ATTACH]1. The Temptation of LOLNMRThere was a phrase in vogue during the Pleistocene Trump years that became a rallying cry for professional Republican types who at the time were still trying to work through their comfort level with the party’s new overlord. It shielded them from having to really grapple with the moral compromises of their new station. If you were a Twitter addict, you will likely recall it:LOL Nothing Matters.In the chapter of Why We Did It in which I sketched out the different phenotypes of Trumpian enablers, I described these Republicans this way:Sure the LOLNMR ideology was morally bankrupt and childish, but there’s no doubt why it was appealing. If a manifestly unfit Barnum & Bailey confidence man like Trump could become president, then why are the rest of us out here minding our p’s and q’s? **** it. Get the bag.The case for such a mindset is, if anything, even stronger today than it was then. If Trump can win again? After all the scandals? After attempting the second-stupidest coup of the decade? At times it feels like not giving way to nihilism is the crazy reaction.So I can’t exactly say that it was a surprise over the past week when I began to hear a lot of familiar-sounding notes from my anti-Trump friends. Many of them were now coming to the conclusion that nothing matters. That our cold, new world is Hobbesian, with everyone out to get theirs.That mindset was reflected in the starkest manner in the reaction to President Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter. Will Saletan catalogued examples of the reactions he saw on social media in an article earlier this week:Again, I get the sentiment. An adjudicated rapist felon who stored our national secrets next to his shitter is going back to the Oval Office, there are no rules!In the days after the Hunter pardon I was inundated with variations on this theme. If I had a quarter for everyone who sent a tweet/email/DM upbraiding me for daring to even utter the word “norms,” well, I’d have a few Norms! six-packs at the very least. The notion that the Democrats need to stop caring about niceties and traditions and laws and respect was quickly catching on.The old world where that stuff mattered is gone, they said.Or as one friend texted, “There is no justice. Democrats were ******* morons for ever believing ‘when they go low, we go high.’ New plan: ‘when they go low, we go high—yeah, eyes, throat, nose.’”But as disquieting as this widespread desire for retribution was, the LOL Nothing Matters sentiment was most dispiriting when it came from a place not of bloodlust but earnest sadness.As we were watching the LSU/Oklahoma game at a bar last Saturday, one of my buddies told me that a colleague of his had begun listening to The Bulwark Podcast since the election to try to help process the dark thoughts that she was having. She is a doctor, a nice person, the kind whose whole life has been oriented toward helping others. But her resolve had been shaken. The election was a brutal intrusion signaling that people simply didn’t value being “nice,” that the country was somehow darker than she had ever really contemplated.This listener was the epitome of that floundering “best” person that Jon Lovett described recently: “The worst people are vindicated and believe their worldview has been validated by this and the best people are uncertain and scared and angry and confused.” And so for many of these people, the fear and anger has led to a sort of surrender. A hardening of the heart. Accepting a new reality. One where the things they once thought were virtuous are not only disrespected but even harmful to progress.And in that world, why should anyone care about any of this.[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.thebulwark.com/p/dont-let-donald-trump-take-your-soul-lolnmr-integrity?publication_id=87281&post_id=152669862&isFreemail=false&r=21at6c&triedRedirect=true[/URL]
This story spoke to me about the challenges to peoples minds with the re-election of Trump to Presidency.
I'm happy to share it with anyone left on ASF who isn't rooting with the rooter.
[ATTACH=full]188971[/ATTACH]
Tim Miller
Dec 07, 2024
Hey guys. I’m subbing in for JVL today—and, fair warning: I get into my feelings a little bit in this one. But it’s been that sort of month. –Tim
[ATTACH=full]188972[/ATTACH]
There was a phrase in vogue during the Pleistocene Trump years that became a rallying cry for professional Republican types who at the time were still trying to work through their comfort level with the party’s new overlord. It shielded them from having to really grapple with the moral compromises of their new station. If you were a Twitter addict, you will likely recall it:
LOL Nothing Matters.
In the chapter of Why We Did It in which I sketched out the different phenotypes of Trumpian enablers, I described these Republicans this way:
Sure the LOLNMR ideology was morally bankrupt and childish, but there’s no doubt why it was appealing. If a manifestly unfit Barnum & Bailey confidence man like Trump could become president, then why are the rest of us out here minding our p’s and q’s? **** it. Get the bag.
The case for such a mindset is, if anything, even stronger today than it was then. If Trump can win again? After all the scandals? After attempting the second-stupidest coup of the decade? At times it feels like not giving way to nihilism is the crazy reaction.
So I can’t exactly say that it was a surprise over the past week when I began to hear a lot of familiar-sounding notes from my anti-Trump friends. Many of them were now coming to the conclusion that nothing matters. That our cold, new world is Hobbesian, with everyone out to get theirs.
That mindset was reflected in the starkest manner in the reaction to President Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter. Will Saletan catalogued examples of the reactions he saw on social media in an article earlier this week:
Again, I get the sentiment. An adjudicated rapist felon who stored our national secrets next to his shitter is going back to the Oval Office, there are no rules!
In the days after the Hunter pardon I was inundated with variations on this theme. If I had a quarter for everyone who sent a tweet/email/DM upbraiding me for daring to even utter the word “norms,” well, I’d have a few Norms! six-packs at the very least. The notion that the Democrats need to stop caring about niceties and traditions and laws and respect was quickly catching on.
The old world where that stuff mattered is gone, they said.
Or as one friend texted, “There is no justice. Democrats were ******* morons for ever believing ‘when they go low, we go high.’ New plan: ‘when they go low, we go high—yeah, eyes, throat, nose.’”
But as disquieting as this widespread desire for retribution was, the LOL Nothing Matters sentiment was most dispiriting when it came from a place not of bloodlust but earnest sadness.
As we were watching the LSU/Oklahoma game at a bar last Saturday, one of my buddies told me that a colleague of his had begun listening to The Bulwark Podcast since the election to try to help process the dark thoughts that she was having. She is a doctor, a nice person, the kind whose whole life has been oriented toward helping others. But her resolve had been shaken. The election was a brutal intrusion signaling that people simply didn’t value being “nice,” that the country was somehow darker than she had ever really contemplated.
This listener was the epitome of that floundering “best” person that Jon Lovett described recently: “The worst people are vindicated and believe their worldview has been validated by this and the best people are uncertain and scared and angry and confused.” And so for many of these people, the fear and anger has led to a sort of surrender. A hardening of the heart. Accepting a new reality. One where the things they once thought were virtuous are not only disrespected but even harmful to progress.
And in that world, why should anyone care about any of this.
[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.thebulwark.com/p/dont-let-donald-trump-take-your-soul-lolnmr-integrity?publication_id=87281&post_id=152669862&isFreemail=false&r=21at6c&triedRedirect=true[/URL]
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