BRENDAN O’NEILL: Trump’s New York invasion exposed the MAGA madness powering him to victory.
And the expletives! I’m not coy but even I was shaken by all the swearing.
Someone had scrawled “EAT A—, TRUMP” across the sidewalk of 8th Avenue. A gang of sad-looking antifa activists waved a black-and-white flag that said “F— TRUMP”. “Get the f— out of New York City!”, Kamala fanboys yelled at Trump supporters.
The Trumpists gave as good as they got. One of them played on a loudspeaker a rap version of Trump saying “They’re eating the cats, they’re eating the dogs”, in reference to his thin claims about Haitian migrants cooking pets in Ohio.
It was at that point that I felt like I’d been transported into a farce. One side yelling about Nazis and psychopaths, the other blasting out a tinny ditty about cat-eating.
It felt like a comedy version of the American Civil War. It was a mostly pantomime clash, where the point was not to convince the other side, or even to engage with it, but just to hurl insults and make fun.
There were some surreal moments. I saw a black lady draped in a neon-pink Trump 2024 flag being called racist by a bunch of white TikTok kids. Eh? And it struck me as insensitive – to say the least – when a man holding up a “Jews for Trump” banner was told “Welcome to your Nazi rally”.
My takeaway is that both sides are a tad crazy, but the MAGA side at least has some fun with it. There was a knowingness to their provocations. Like when they played Trump saying “They’re eating the cats” – it’s not necessarily that they think Haitians are chowing down on moggies, but rather that they know this tall tale irritates the hell out of PC New Yorkers.
The Kamala camp, by contrast, seemed to be in the grip of existential dread. They really believe Trump is a psychopath who will turn this great republic into a Nazi hellhole.
Calm down? Such fretting is not only fact-lite – Trump might be annoying, but he’s not Hitler. It also can’t be good for one’s health. I worry whether “aunti-fascist” is getting any sleep.
So there, on 8th Avenue, was America’s tribal divide. Fearful Leftists pitted against mocking Right-wingers. Not one mind was changed, but it was a good day out.
If Trump wins (don’t get cocky, given the size of Kamala’s war chest), as Steve wrote for the PJM Mothership: How to Stage an Intervention on 70 Million TDS Sufferers.
Our most pressing issue is the mental health crisis affecting tens of millions of Americans, a toxic combination of persecution fantasies, narcissism, and outright delusion. Weirdly enough, neither drugs nor alcohol seem to be involved in anything more than typical amounts.
Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) began more than 20 years ago as Bush Derangement Syndrome (BDS) — remember “Bushitler” and “Darth Cheney?” But that was then and this is now. Bush is now an elder statesman who has grown respectable because he won’t endorse Trump, and Cheney — who up until recently was regularly denounced by our lefty friends as a war criminal — is now more beloved by Democrats than the son of Robert F. Kennedy.
“See? Not even HITLER would vote for HITLER!” is the rationalization currently percolating in various lefty skulls around the nation.
Earlier this month, Stephen Miller tweeted:
I thought he was only talking about the media — not half the residents of Manhattan.