Public Lion, Private Mutton

 

The side-by-side comparison of Josh Hawley showing a power fist to the 1/6 protesters and later his madcap, long-legged flight from the same folks, is perhaps as genius a representation of the performative "tough guy" attitude of Trump World as you could want to see. It shouldn't be forgotten that Hawley was the first US Senator out of the gate indicating that he would protest the certification of Biden's election, which at the time struck me as a pure cynical stunt bound for tears. 

But it also struck me that Hawley was far from the only one who would have been likely to do such a thing, because being a massive troll is the rage (literally) in GOP politics. Whether it's dressing up one's finest Army/Navy store gear to go watch immigrants at the border and take a goofy little boat ride or taking holiday family photographs with everyone from the pater familias on down kitted out for a replay of Ruby Ridge or the Waco stand-off, signifying militancy and even the desire to overthrow the government is treated as quite normal. 

It's what they've pulled the discourse down to. Take the endless 2nd Amendment signifying about citizens taking up arms against their own government (you know, the government that our elected officials are representatives of) that Rep. Jamie Raskin had to patiently explain was...well, horseshit. 

And of course, a lot of these gunslingers just want to get strapped up so they can feel safe at the Chipotle or to menace random POCs or as a form of conspicuous consumption. Overthrowing the government might be something they vaguely support, but not in a whole life-disruption kind of way.

Hawley's shameless dash from the violent insurrectionists he definitely was insisting shortly thereafter were no such thing* can be compared to Steve Bannon's desire to "go medieval" regarding his "misdemeanor from Hell". Other than as a possible personal hygiene pledge, I'm not sure what he meant by that, but other than running his mouth after the hearing (where he was found guilty on both counts), it's hard to say what he means to do, other than possible appeal. 

But what's funny is his claim that it's the members of the 1/6 Committee that are "gutless" for not coming to his contempt hearing when he was the one who couldn't even be bothered to go to them, even to take the Fifth or flip them off or whatever actual confrontation could have been made. It's political theater--he's being performatively defiant, but it boils down to name-calling. 

It's possible that it's Bannon who has the best grasp of this ethos in his grubby way--after all, he made a bit of money off of homo ludens, He knows very well that people will pay real money for fake things because they love the thrill of sport and the sense of getting over. They will pay money for a wall that doesn't materialize. They'll wear tricorn hats and knickers and talk up a game about how they want to storm the castle. Shit. they will even sit in a medieval monastery (maybe) and train to be New World Order Knights.  It's all an amazing LARP--

It's just one where people can die. Trump World people have been living a fantasy. They still want to run away from the real world results. They swarmed behind Trump like sheep--but it's beginning to smell like mutton in here. 

*UPDATE: Oh my word, I totally forgot this chiclet-head had written in favor of Timothy McVeigh and the militia movement when he was a little 15-year-old spud. He learned exactly not one grown-up thing in the interim. Not one.