"...Trump never really developed intellectually and clings to ideas that came to him 40 to 60 years ago. Some fragment he learned in high school or a segment he watched on Larry King in 1989 form the entire basis of his understanding of how the world works.
"But I think it’s clear that as president he’s developed a shorthand for making decisions which simply comes down to: whatever they did, I will do the opposite. It’s the laziest possible way to make decisions and perfect for someone with a mind like Trump’s — all ego, no intellect.
"The good news for him is that his henchmen and accomplices in 2.0 have long wanted to do exactly what he’s doing — reverse everything Democrats have done for the past 80 years or so. (And quite a bit of what Republicans have done as well.) But they have a real vision for the future as well, something that Trump only vaguely sees as a restoration of some Leave it to Beaver fantasy.
"There are the tech-bros wanting to create an AI Valhalla on earth, the racist hatemongers wanting to rid the country of immigrants and put Black Americans back in the back of the bus, the 'Christians' who want to dominate the country with their throwback, fundamentalist, patriarchy just to name a few examples. What they all have in common is a belief that the nation as we’ve known it must be blown to smithereens so that their enemies can never rebuild it the way it was.
"That’s the project. Trump is just their tool. As he babbles about 'the golden age of Trump' and fiddles with the White House rose garden, his minions hand him the royal edicts to sign that will make their dreams come true." -- Heather Digby Parton, Hullabaloo, on "Putting America Into Reverse." Parton elaborates on a column by the NYT's Peter Baker, which posits similar reasons for why the Malignant Fascist's strategy is to simply (literally) reverse everything his political enemies accomplished or stood for, and how it's being advanced by his far more sophisticated, ultra-reactionary minions.
The current example of this is the rescission package being jammed through the MAGAt Republican Senate, which would claw back $9.4 billion in funding agreed upon in March for global health programs, peacekeeping efforts, and PBS and NPR, among other activities and programs. It also would undercut any future faith in making deals if agreements can be reneged upon before the ink is barely dry. Good times!
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