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'Send her back!' is as bad as everyone is saying, but the rule she broke is not being brown, or a woman but being brown and a woman 'looking down on us', that is, on Trump, for which it stands, and by extension, white men, for whom he stands. That is, the US. 1/
It's not 'don't tread on me' but 'don't look down on me'. In fact it's 'look up to me'. It's thumocracy. A politics of race-and-gender-based regard. The US is based on everyone unquestioningly respecting the white man. That's it, that's the whole of the law. 2/
That's conservatism. So add that in, for circular effect. Conservatism is the politics of no one, who is not a conservative, being permitted not to respect conservatives. But it's crucial that 'respect' is ambiguous. 3/
It could be politics of equal respect. Well, this isn't that. It could be the politics of obligatory deference, of 'looking up to'. It's that - oh, it's that. The left is largely a coalition of groups demanding equal respect (after having lacked it for so long.) 4/
The right is one group demanding that it stay, not just more powerful, but absolutely more respected. But since, in the US, you can't just say 'my group gets more respect no matter what', this bogus demand for more respect proceeds by way of bogus complaints of disrespect. 5/
In a country where everyone is entitled to equal respect, those who do not respect that norm - i.e. conservatives, e.g. Trump every day - are themselves on the hook for some serious disrespect, for seriously disrespecting that equal respect norm. 6/
Every day, Trump goes out of his way to disrespect loads of people. Since that isn't what the President is supposed to do all day, he gets a huge load of abuse and disrespect for being a bad President and a bad man. Which he is. 7/
And then, instead of mending their ways, conservatives - and Trump - flip it, like they are the victims here. Their illegitimate demand for more respect, for the right to 'look down' with impunity, gets disguised as a complaint that they aren't getting even equal respect. 8/
Everyone is looking down on THEMN for looking down on others. So who is the REAL looker-downer, galaxy brain? Obviously it's not the white guy. He's just doing what he's always done, minding his own business, only now people won't let him. It couldn't be him. It must be Omar. 9/
This is a bloodlessly dialectical way to express what just happened at that Trump rally, but it expresses the common denominator between the awful raw Trump is doing and milder conservative cultural resentment stuff. 10/
Like Rod Dreher not being able to get a Randy Newman song. Even after listening to a whole podcast about it. But never mind about that. /11
Trump is making it all about this one short circuit: every criticism from the left, every demand for equal rights and respect from the left = 'Looking down on US'. The limit of his appeal is the size of the set that buys that bogus, thumocratic equation. /12
OK, one last. Randy Newman sings about politics and he sings about domestic abusers. And often the songs are the same. Like "Shame". Which could be the anthem of the Republican party.
