MAGA is the American Nightmare. A Dark Deja Vu.
MAGA is a dagger through the heart of the American Dream.
Trump’s slogan, Make America Great Again resonates with his frothy base. It’s irksome to the rest of us.
America has always been about forward momentum, leading the world, guiding the world past the sins of history to some sort of shinning city on a hill thing. Okay, over-romantic, but the feels worked for me for most of my life. I felt proud to be an American.
Honestly, that proud has been chipped at quite a bit over the years. 500,000 dead in Iraq. Heavy on my heart. Vietnam. Ugh. Black people shot by cops. Hang my head. But you drag your patriotic heart out of the sludge and keep moving forward because American Dream, right? You know how it goes. We’re not there yet but we’re getting there. It’s just ahead. It’s close. It’s better than before.
And then suddenly — MAGA!
MAGA is like a dagger through the heart of the American Dream. MAGA is the American Nightmare.
There’s no ‘again’ in the American Dream. If we go back we have to relive all our sins. There’s no forgivness. There’s like an endless Groundhog Day of Carnage to relive again and again.
Let’s drop another Atom Bomb on the Japanese. Let’s smallpox the Native Americans. Let’s break out the slave chains.
For Trump that’s a beautiful thing. Chaos is a ladder, right? Isn’t that what Littlefinger said on Game of Thrones?
Immigration? No solutions just chaos. Climate Change? No solutions just chaos. Iran deal? No solutions just chaos. Trade? No solutions just chaos. North Korea? No solutions just chaos. Chaos chaos chaos. Trump’s American Dream.
But make no mistake. There’s nothing new here. Republicans have been working toward this Dark Deja Vu for many years, long before MAGA infected the body politic like zombie maggots with roid rage.
In her excellent book, Democracy In Chains, author Nancy McClean neatly encapsulates the 20th Century goal of the 21st Century Republican Party.
“It would like to reinstate the kind of political economy that prevailed in America at the beginning of the 20th Century, when the mass disinfranceisment of voters and the legal treatment of labor unions as illegitimate enabled large corporations and wealthy individuals to dominate Congress and most state government alike, and to feel secure that the nation’s courts would not interfere with their reign.” Nancy McClean
MAGA. Dark Deja Vu indeed.
