The Brownnose Brigade
The army of Donald Trump un-conditionals, who justify everything he says and does no matter how bigoted, cruel and plain false, is as despicable as Donald Trump himself, only twice as pathetic.
Through all 360 degrees of Trump’s twists and turns, the brownnose brigade cheers and applauds Tyrannous Rex, the bigot in chief, the wannabe Fuhrer so ridiculous that he comes across like the Charlie Chaplin satire of Hitler (in the classic movie The Great Dictator).
Apologists paid and unpaid, opportunists, liars, obfuscators, contortionists who twist and turn as Trump says one thing, then turns around, and reverses himself again as they continue to cheer.
What a sorry bunch. Kelley Ann Conway, communications maven and official apologist, reflexive liar, smear artist.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnel, the opportunist politician who seems forever on the verge of moving an inch away from the lockstep Republican march behind Trump but never falls out of line.
Kevin McCarthy, the House Minority Leader, a see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil Trump toady.
And that is a tiny sample of the Brownnose Brigade.
The ignominy of these people reminds me of an anecdote about an exchange between Mexican Dictator General Porfirio Diaz and an aide-de-camp. Diaz: “What time is it?” Aide-de-camp: “Whatever time you want, my General.”
So many people have been complicit, in one way or another, in Trump’s immigration chamber of horrors that one would need a big database and a killer algorithm to assign degree of blame. The raving xenophobes like Jeff Sessions and Stephen Miller are not a hard call. The Greeks would exile then to a distant island. But then you have the case of former Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, not a zealot like Miller but a rank opportunist who went along with the family separation policy to keep a job for which she was not qualified, a job she got because the zealots knew that being way over her head she was in no position to resist “the program.”
Among those who never had any dignity, and the ones who checked whatever they had at the door that admitted them into the circle of leading lackeys of Donald Trump, one stands out. He has slithered the furthest, down from the relatively high ground (for a Republican) on which he once stood to the circle of hell where the sycophants reside: the screeching, hissing, lisping, ass-kissing Lindsey Graham.
Before Trump became president, beloved by the many racist reactionary Republicans in Graham’s South Carolina, Graham warned that the GOP unrelenting anti-immigrant campaign spelled political doom for Republicans as the country’s demographics changed. During Trump’s 2016 primary campaign, Graham spoke the truth about Trump, calling him a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot.
That was then. But after Trump became president and showed that with a tweet he could help elect or sink a Southern politician, Graham revolved 180 degrees around. Graham now is one of the most abject members of the Brownnose Brigade. Lindsey Graham has developed a compulsion to allow no space between his nose and Trump’s derriere.
What Trump has done to Lindsey Graham is what Kafka did to his character in the Metamorphosis: “As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.”
Lindsey Graham’s metamorphosis represents the zenith of abjection. He is hardly alone. Take a page from John F. Kennedy’s famous book, turn the title on its head, and you have nearly the entirety of Congressional Republicans: “Portraits in Cowardice.”
The Brownnose Brigade are Trump’s elite troops willing to charge headlong into the strongest rampart of truth to defend Trump’s lies. These shock troops have grown into an entire brownnose army with an air wing commanded by Sean Hannity and others at Fox “News,” and other virulent right-wing media outlets.
Some pure souls would say that the harsh word and ugly images I have used in this column are “uncivil” or “over the top.”
What is uncivil is keeping people in cages.
What is over the top is the zero-tolerance policy designed to create overcrowded, unsanitary detention camps.
What is uncivil is separating kids from parents.
What is over the top is depriving detainees of beds, showers, soap and other necessities.
What is uncivil is unleashing vile personal attacks on four members of Congress, treating them as if they were not U.S, citizens because of their color and opinions, demonizing them to stoke a rabble chanting “send them home,” working up the crowd into a dangerous rage. What is over the top is basking in the hate for an interminable number of seconds. What is uncivil is to call this lynch patriotic. What is over the top is carrying out an immigration policy crafted by White House aide Stephen Miller, the immigrant-basher-in-chief. a policy founded on a racist world view.
Some will call my words obscene. I say the administration’s policies and actions are the real obscenity. They hurt flesh-and blood people. They make a mockery of professed American values. They represent grievous violations of international and U.S. law. They bring disrepute onto the United States. They invite comparison with the most heinous regimes in human history.
My words won’t even hurt the sensitivity of the Trumps and Millers of this world. They have no human sensitivity. My words are harsh by design, but they are just and deserved.
