rd<\/sup>, 2025<\/i><\/p>\n\u201cI have trouble buying the argument that Americans have lost their moral perspective. Let\u2019s be honest\u2014who\u2019s being accused here? Isn\u2019t it true that older Americans are the backbone of Trump\u2019s support? And aren\u2019t older people the least likely to suddenly shift their values? If that\u2019s the case, then who exactly is it that supposedly \u201cchanged\u201d? Did we suddenly forget God? Start stealing from our neighbors? Did we run to the riots and loot the stores? No\u2014we didn\u2019t. Something else is going on.\u201d<\/i><\/h4>\n
A right winger who normally isn\u2019t very rational wrote that. He\u2019s one of those sorts who thinks anyone who doesn\u2019t support Trump is living in a \u201cmoral cesspool.\u201d Not that he would ever generalize, right? But he raises a good point here, I think, one that we should stop and think about.<\/p>\n
A lot of people, myself included, say things like \u201cAmerica lost its collective mind\u201d or \u201cThe US abandoned morals\u201d in electing Trump, and then electing him again. There is a built-in unfairness to that characterization, of course. Sixty-five percent of American adults did not vote for Trump in either election, and current polls show 62% of respondents think he\u2019s doing a lousy and even criminal job.<\/p>\n
And while I might seriously question the values and ethics of anyone who supports Trump, even there would be a few caveats. While a number of Trump supporters are aware of at least some of the myriad failings and nihilism of Trump, many simply disbelieve the reports, or are so low-information they have simply never heard about them.<\/p>\n
To pick a seemingly minor example: the number of people sputtering with rage and disgust at California Governor Gavin Newsom\u2019s brilliant take-down of Trump\u2019s \u2018style\u2019–the erratic, over-the-top and often nonsensical posts, and the vast library of tractor art showing a buff, tall, noble Donald Trump in a variety of heroic poses doing manly things. They honestly seem to have no idea that Trump himself had been doing exactly that for ten years now, and Newsom was parodying (and mocking) him. Given that this silliness is the beating heart of Trump\u2019s voter outreach, it seems preposterous that so many of his followers knew nothing of it, but here we are.<\/p>\n
The cognitive dissonance is encouraged by the paid liars at Faux News and Newsmacks, who feign shock and outrage that an important personage like the Governor of (shithole, failing!) California would stoop to such immature, goofy, even insane antics. After a few dozen such repetitions, their viewers manage to forget all those posts on Truth Social and the often Groucho Marxist executive orders. Trump is noble, mature, reasonable, and measured. It\u2019s that silly little Newsom who created this horrible style!<\/p>\n
The dissonance goes well beyond that. Every day, I get mail from people who declaim that California is a horrible place, overrun with drugs, homeless, gangs and \u201cillegals,\u201d and these are people who happily live in California. I always ask them why, if it\u2019s such a shithole, why they just don\u2019t move to a prosperous, well-run state such as Mississippi or Oklahoma, and they inexplicably erupt in rage. At least, the few who even try to answer that one. You should see their faces when I point out the rural California county I live in actually has a higher over-all crime rate than does Washington DC.<\/p>\n
People who cheer the locking up and\/or deportation of \u201cillegals\u201d always hate when I tell them that using that term to describe groups of humans makes them sound like goddamned Nazis. What a dehumanizing thing for me to say! Unlike Nazis, all we<\/b> want to do is defend our noble fatherland against vermin poisoning the blood of loyal patriots! They steal, they cheat, they\u2019re like rats! They dwell in their ghettos and conspire to world domination. We\u2019re nothing like the Nazis, who targeted weak groups of people to hide their corrupt Nazi deficiencies!<\/p>\n
Voltaire supposedly uttered the phrase, \u201cAnyone who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.\u201d The far right have spent billions of dollars flooding the American consciousness with absurdities and flat out lies, repeated endlessly, for years.<\/p>\n
The result is that many people who see themselves as sane and decent, and who, without the endless Nazi propaganda, would probably be sane and decent. But they have been persuaded to commit atrocities in the name of sanity and decency. People who revere their right to appear in court to contest a speeding ticket have no problem with forcibly deporting people\u2014some of whom didn\u2019t even have their papers in order\u2014to a horrific skein of concentration and death camps in places like El Salvador and Uganda. The same people appalled by a brief encounter in public between an Attorney General and a President under investigation on an airport tarmac see no problem with a criminal president and his vicious stooge of an Attorney General saying proudly that \u201cWe<\/i> are liberating American cities to crack down on crime, especially by those filthy \u2018illegals\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
They also believe in Trump and his propaganda machine, who work endlessly to convince them to excuse even the most vicious and heinous actions against their scapegoats, against their country, and even against themselves because they, and not the alien and subhuman rabble, stand for all those things.<\/p>\n
And now, the notion, rapidly growing, that the child rape allegations are made, not by over two hundred victims and rafts of evidence, but by anti-Americans, probably Newsom and illegals, to defame a noble, proud man. Why, I bet they\u2019re<\/b> the real child rapists, so there!<\/p>\n
As long as Trump and his billionaire backers can continue to mind-fuck the 30% or so of Americans who have fallen into this moral and mental abyss, that 30% will remain convinced that they are resolute and just, and those who oppose them are the ones in a moral cesspool. They don\u2019t rob, they don\u2019t steal, they believe in God, they believe in country.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a solid wall of smug, self-satisfied sanctimony, but it has a key vulnerability.<\/p>\n
When does the charm finally break? Credible reports of child rape haven\u2019t done it. History shows that it sometimes requires the deaths of millions and the destruction of entire nations to manage that.<\/p>\n
But not always. Mark Twain once said, \u201cAgainst the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.\u201d Another quote comes to mind: \u201cThe tyrant fears laughter more than the assassin\u2019s bullet.\u201d<\/p>\n
People like Gavin Newsom, Steven Colbert, South Park<\/i> and many others have found that vulnerability in the humorless wall of right wing hate and lies. And it may be what saves America from itself.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bryan Zepp Jamieson August 23rd, 2025 \u201cI have trouble buying the argument that Americans have lost their moral perspective. Let\u2019s be honest\u2014who\u2019s being accused here? Isn\u2019t it true that older Americans are the backbone of Trump\u2019s support? And aren\u2019t older people the least likely to suddenly shift their values? If that\u2019s the case, then who … <\/p>\n
Continue reading “Gavin the Grinner — He who smirks lurks, a danger to the sanctimonious”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,602,2330,617,2,3,2165],"tags":[2425,2427,197,1268,198,2426,1544,1545],"class_list":["post-1845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american-psyche","category-civil-war","category-corruption","category-history","category-humor","category-personalmisc","category-trump-second-term","tag-campaign-style","tag-cognitive-dissonance","tag-donald-trump","tag-gavin-newsom","tag-humor-2","tag-mockery","tag-parody","tag-satire"],"yoast_head":"\nGavin the Grinner -- He who smirks lurks, a danger to the sanctimonious · Zepp's Commentaries<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/zeppscommentaries.online\/?p=1845\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Gavin the Grinner -- He who smirks lurks, a danger to the sanctimonious · Zepp's Commentaries\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Bryan Zepp Jamieson August 23rd, 2025 \u201cI have trouble buying the argument that Americans have lost their moral perspective. 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