Dictator chic, a public display of power

A week ago Kerry Eleveld of Daily Kos wrote about Chris Christie’s campaign kickoff. He’s now entered the race for the Republican candidate for president. Much of that kickoff was an attack on the nasty guy. Well, first he attacked the Pandemic Prince and Princess (who have made themselves rather scarce as Daddy’s legal troubles increase). Christie said the only reason they got $2 billion from the Saudis was because they were sitting next to the nasty guy for four years. Christie said the nasty guy would eliminate the national debt in eight years. He added $3 trillion in four. Christie said the nasty guy would end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours – by handing the country to Putin. As for politics Christie said of Biden, “He wouldn't be in office if it wasn't for Trump.” And...

Christie also added a touch of humor at his own expense, but not without a jab at Trump first. "Beware of the leader in this country, who you have handed leadership to, who has never made a mistake, who has never done anything wrong, who when something goes wrong it's always someone else's fault, and who has never lost," Christie said, then paused as the crowd giggled at his oblique reference to Trump's persistent election fraud lies. "I've lost," Christie continued earnestly, before pointing around the room and dropping a pitch-perfect delivery: "You people did that to me in 2016."

Greg Dworkin, in a pundit roundup for Kos, included a chart created by the Associated Press of the 37 indictments against the nasty guy. The first 31 are the willful retention of national defense documents. Then there is one each of conspiracy to obstruct justice, concealing documents in a federal investigation, withholding a document, a scheme to conceal, corruptly concealing a document, and false statements. Kos of Kos reported since the indictment there has been a big increase in right wing social media calling for armed resistance to protect their cult leader. Kos included a chart of the deaths by ideology since the 9/11 attacks. Those numbers look quite low. Maybe they represent killings where the ideology is known? What the chart shows is far right ideology has killed more than any other category, even higher than jihadists. And the number killed by far left ideology: 1. Kos included a statement by Kari Lake, who ran for governor of Arizona, lost by only 17K votes, and took quite a while to run out of court cases. Lake said:

If you want to get to Trump, you’re going to have to go through me, and 75 million Americans just like me. And most of us are card carrying members of the NRA. That’s not a threat, that’s a public service announcement.

Others refer to “rPOTUS” as in the “real president of the United State” as in not Joe Biden. They are also calling for armed insurrection. Laura Clawson of Kos also wrote about MAGA sympathizers talking about violence. Well, the arraignment happened and there was a crowd outside the courthouse with both protesters and supporters. And there was no violence. So were these reports of impending violence there to keep us on edge for some reason? Or is the threat still out there, but as single people or small cells rather than a large crowd? With the number of mass shootings we’re dealing with, would we be able to see a difference if these cells shoot someone? An AP article posted on Kos has a timeline of the whole thing, including what the nasty guy and his minions did and what the various government people did in response. One detail caught my attention – there were originally 80 boxes of documents. I’m pretty sure the government hasn’t gotten them all yet. Tristan Snell, a lawyer who had prosecuted Trump University, tweeted a list of all of America’s former presidents and the number of felony counts against them. All have a zero beside their name, except the nasty guy who has 71. There are two former presidents with asterisks. Nixon was pardoned before he could be indicted and Harding died before he could be. As for Clinton and Andrew Johnson, they were impeached, not indicted. So out of 45 former presidents 42 of them served crime free. Jen tweeted a cartoon by Mike Luckovich. The nasty guy says to a golf buddy, “I wanna discuss Hunter Biden’s laptop. Pull up a box...” Chris Evans, a black woman, tweeted a short video of herself dancing on her way to the courthouse to volunteer for jury duty when the nasty guy’s trial comes up. She wasn’t the only one offering their services. Yes, I know how likely she will be dismissed from the jury. Monty Wolverton tweeted a cartoon of what would have happened if the FBI hadn’t raided Mar-a-Lago. There would be a big sign out front:

The Donald’s Emporium New & Used, Foreign & Domestic Top Secret Documents Top quality secrets at reasonable prices! Trade-ins accepted!

In my father’s house the small bathroom off the master bedroom was jokingly referred to as the library. My dad usually had a few magazines, maybe a book or two, so he could read while he sat. Sometimes when I visited I also took some time to sit in the library and read whatever Dad had there. Dad wasn’t the only one. I have reading material in my own bathroom. I’ve seen magazine racks designed for the bathroom and books with short sections the could be read in one sitting. I mention that because the nasty guy’s indictment includes a photo of boxes stacked in a bathroom with more hidden behind a tacky shower curtain. And, of course, there are now lots of memes about the presidential library with people sitting there reading. That includes one by commenter exlrrp in one of Chitown Kev’s pundit roundup for Kos that includes a Saudi as one of the readers. This set of memes includes a dialog between the nasty guy and Biden with the words:

I want to see Biden in prison. Why does Trump think I would visit him in prison?

Clawson also wrote about what that photo of the bathroom says about the nasty guy. Of course, the post includes the photo.

The details of the bathroom have drawn attention, too. We’re looking at a chandelier worthy of a formal dining room, a crystal (or crystal-like) wall sconce, marble floors and sink, the edge of an ornate gilded mirror frame … and a cheap-looking shower curtain on a tension rod, which appears to be hiding more stacks of boxes. That’s the shower curtain and tension rod you get when you’ve moved into a new rental apartment and, realizing there’s no shower curtain, run to Target so you can wash off the sweat and dust of having unloaded your own Uhaul.

Peter York published a book about the design and décor of the homes of 16 despots – Serbia’s Slobodan Milosevic, Romania’s Nicolae Ceausescu, Libya’s Muammar Qadhafi, and others. York says the nasty guy’s style fits right in.

In dictator chic, York writes, “There is no subtlety or understatement, let alone irony.” A dictator’s house is not a home meant for private living, but a public display of power. The Mar-a-Lago bathroom is an attempt at dictator chic that fails on the aesthetic merits—that shower curtain!—while the fact that it was where his staff ultimately resorted to storing documents in their attempts to find space for all the things he was hiding from the government shows the limits of his efforts to be an authoritarian leader in the United States. It makes visible the fact that Trump is a wannabe on multiple levels.

Caroline Orr Bueno, a social behavior scientist, tweeted a thread that fits the nasty guy:

Today is a good day to learn about DARVO, an acronym that “describes the typical response of a guilty person when they’ve been accused of bad behavior.” It stands for: Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender. It’s also a form of abuse. One of the aspects of DARVO that makes it so uniquely sadistic and harmful is that the tactics not only inflict (further) psychological harm on the victim, but they also often undermine victims’ support systems — leaving them both traumatized *and* isolated.

Bueno then describes some of the tactics the attacker may use to undermine the victim’s support network.