Marcus on Breitbart and Other Observations on Trump Regime

I. Ruth Marcus on Breitbart
"No, no, no. The notion that Breitbart is 'just a publication' like The New York Times but just several notches to the right is untrue and unacceptable." We're going to hear the word 'normalize' a lot during the Trump administration, and the risk is going to be exactly that, unfortunately. Trump says and does so many outrageous things that it will be tempting for us to tire of calling them, and him, out."

"So, Breitbart is misogynist." "Breitbart is all-around offensive and irresponsible. "Gabby Giffords, the gun-control movement's human shield." "Hanna Abedin 'Most Likely a Saudi Spy, with Deep, Inarguable Connections to Global Terrorist Entity.' "

"This is a man who has advocated for creation of a 'white others-state on the North American continent' "

"Breitbart isn't just a publication. It's a pestilence -- one whose repugnant views Trump has invited into his White House." [1]

II. Trump and Berlusconi Have Similarities
Director Franiesca Comencini has pointed out that Trump and Berlusconi (Italy's leader for nearly two decades) have  a lot in common. They both amassed fortunes in real estate through questionable business practices. They share a taste for marble, extreme tans, and strongmen: Trump is impressed by Vladimir Putin and Saddam Hussein; Berlusconi was chummy with Muammar Qaddifi. Both have a murky rasp on the concept of consent.

"American women are just at the beginning of their time with the Pussy Grabber-in-Chief. The advice is not to feel you have lost... you have to walk like a winner." [2]

III. Hostility Toward Immigrants
"Yet the argument for states' rights began in the early years of the republic in an effort to confront exactly the type of threat to non-citizens that the incoming administration poses. Trump's hostility toward immigration has taken various iterations, but the common theme is to rid the country of foreign residents deemed dangerous and to prohibit the entry of people from hostile nations. It would appear that, two hundred and eighteen years later, the principle of the Alien and Sedition Acts have sprung, with surprising vigor, from their resting place in history." [3]

IV. Post-Truth World
Playwright Steve Tesich says: "We are rapidly  becoming prototypes of a people that totalitarian monsters could only dream about in their dreams. All the dictators up to now have had to work hard at suppressing the truth. We, by our actions,are saying that this is no longer necessary... in a very fundamental way we, as a free people, have freely decided that we want to live in some post-truth world." [4]

V. Repressing Women
"There are dozens of reasons why Trump won, but misogyny was a big part of it." "As Vox reported, one of the biggest predictors of Trump support was 'hostile sexism." "Those white women, like the rest of us, now live in a country where the public humiliation of women have the White House seal of approval." "Repressing women in the name of purifying a decadent culture is always part of this package, as it was in the fascist sates of the 1930s." [5]

Footnotes
[1] Ruth Marcus, "Right-wing Breitbart is not 'just a publication,' " The Albuquerque Journal, November 26, 2016.

[2] Ariel Levy, "The Women," The New Yorker, November 28, 2016.

[3] Jelani Cobb, "States vs. Trump," The New Yorker, November 28, 2016.

[4] Richard Kreitner, "Post-Truth and Its Consequences," The Nation, December 19/26, 2016.

[5] Katha Pollitt, "They're With Him," The Nation, December 5/12, 2016.