Often, when looking back at history’s significant trials and tribulations, it’s an iconic photo that crystallizes the time and place better than any national headline could. A depression-assaulted Oklahoma mother’s sad distant gaze as her hungry children huddle close for comfort. A returning seaman planting a smooch on a woman as both celebrate peace. A naked, napalm-burned Vietnamese child running from hell. These are the vivid images that will come back again and again even as time inevitably dulls our recollections.
Two photos, one actually taken, the other a critically missed opportunity, would serve nicely to define the chaotic cruelty Trumpism has brought forth from the genie’s lamp. One is an elevated shot of a fenced off holding area stuffed to the gills with tired and desperate Latino men, whose sole crime was the now villainized belief America offers a better life. Dirty, exhausted and worried, the men beseech a cadre of white, Khaki-clad Republicans, led by VP Mike Pence and ever-reliable supplicant Sen. Lindsey Graham, who look right through the suffering group with less connection than they’d afford iguanas in the reptile house at the National Zoo.
The other picture we will never see would have captured Kurt Brockway hovering over a convulsing 13-year old he had just slammed to the ground for the offense of not removing his hat during the national anthem at a Missoula, Montana rodeo. Doubtless a timely photo would have caught the vacant malice in Brockway’s eyes as he carried out his personal interpretation of MAGA’s civic requirements. Perhaps the caption would note Brockway’s assault coincided in chronology with a mass murderer in El Paso, Texas, carrying out his own idea of those obligations.
The boy, who Brockway pile drove into the ground suffered a fractured skull, easily diagnosed as he was airlifted to Spokane, Washington due to the relentless stream of blood coming out his ear. Brockway, who nine years earlier received a ten-year suspended sentence for gun violence, made clear from the outset the victim deserved what he got for disrespecting the flag. Whether or not the judge who arraigned him after he was arrested agreed is sadly not clear, since he released Brockway on his own recognizance. No, that is not a typo.
Fox News Facebook threads provide clarity of the rot MAGA’s wretched core germinates on a daily basis. Regarding the Montana outrage the common theme between the bookends of “this criminal needs to be locked up” and “I bet that kid will take his hat off from now on” was essentially two wrongs don’t make a right. Sure, it’s infuriating to see such disrespect but this guy was out of line. As usual with Fox threads, bots abound, plenty of stolen identities with only six friends. Yet and still, a few thousand comments effectively distillate wretched core sensibilities. The consensus view…. while such disrespect for the flag is hardly forgivable, fracturing a kid’s skull takes things too far. Good to know.
Of course it’s a sure bet few MAGA Montanans worth their A River Runs Through It salt have forgotten when a GOP candidate for Congress, subsequently a comfortable winner, carried out a near identical attack on a reporter, who had the temerity to ask questions the candidate didn’t want to answer. Moreover, Big Sky State Trumpies have been amused time and again by the President’s reliable evocation of the incident, which he always remembers fondly during his frequent Montana rallies. So really, what’s the biggie? It’s the Montana way, albeit with a tinge of immoderation.
Meanwhile, at the southern border, endless tedium, hopelessness and despair are all that is on offer, signature indignities our President promised from the start. The wretched core, like the authoritarian apostles throughout modern history, conflate imposition of atrocities with courageous determination and political will…. “promises kept” is the newspeak du jour. Thankfully, the essence of the entire disgrace has been captured for posterity and will endure to remind future generations of when we failed miserably, and what exactly that looks like on the pasty faces of the men who went to survey the results of their cruelty.
The ruin offered at the precipice America teeters on is found in the new norms, always bolstered by lies and distortions, MAGA promotes every hour. The wretched core has digested children forcibly wrested from their parents with the lie it’s nothing new. Men held indefinitely in holding areas designed for hours-long detention has been digested as collateral damage of Democratic intransigence, another bald-faced lie only a cultist would believe. Fracturing a child’s skull for not removing his hat is digested as good intentions taken too far by a code of conduct the President has hardily endorsed from the start of his candidacy.
MAGA is a package deal that, with a full-on maniac at the bully pulpit, and a 24/7 multi-media communications platform, foists itself on America in ever growing totalitarian chunks. Tucker Carlson labeled Joe Biden a “nut case” last night. What for? Biden wants to outlaw assault weapons less than a week after El Paso and Dayton. Millions of Americans are being radicalized right before us, and just because the same mantra has to keep being repeated doesn’t make it any less relevant to the current situation: the degree to which we allow their sliding sensibilities the credibility normalization provides will determine our fate as a nation. Sometimes a picture really does speak a thousand words! BC