There are no undressing women, no sexual puns, no virgin girls harassed by scoundrels. But there is plenty of political pornography and farce, seasoned with crass dialogue. Welcome to the total mess that the US House of Representatives has become under the tenuous control of the Republican Party.
The ongoing fiasco in the election for President of the House, the third person in the line of succession of the US – unprecedented in the last hundred years – paralyzes work and prevents the inauguration of elected deputies in November. The shock of those who follow from abroad is natural, but it is also a denial of reality to be surprised by the intentional riot of the Trumpist fringe, that is, the most radical group among those who support the former president.
It doesn’t matter the outcome of the impasse for choosing a leader who can start the legislative year, it doesn’t matter who is summoned to the role; the position has already been disfigured by a series of concessions made by the candidate in front, congressman Kevin McCarthy, and will not concentrate the power exercised by the formidable Democrat Nancy Pelosi – who lost the presidency with the capture of the majority by the republicans, but remains a deputy.
Negotiating with your nose covered is routine in politics, as shown by the revelation in Brazil that the chosen one for Minister of Tourism and head of Marcelo Freixo, the brave investigator of the carioca militias, is a fan girl of a murderous militiaman. But it is one thing to negotiate with the devil; the belzebub has clout. It’s another to sell your soul to Donald Trump, as McCarthy did. Ask the decrepit, black-tie-snubbed patriarch of Mar-a-Lago, sluggishly dipped in KFC fried chicken in Orlando on New Year’s Eve.
While the term “troll” has recently been associated with Trumpanaros in the north and south, it has a much older origin—both in the English vernacular and in the history of the American right. “To troll” was used, in the 14th century, for “walking aimlessly in search of game”. The performance of agents of chaos that marked the recent autocratic emergence, in Washington and Brasília, appeared in the republican lineage before Trump descended the escalator to announce his candidacy, in June 2015.
For the American right, trolling and scratching is just the beginning. None other than the well-off future icon of the conservative movement, William F. Buckley, dressed up as a bohemian, at age 21, to troll a progressive pre-candidate, in the 1948 election, won by Democrat Harry Truman. Buckley carried a sign that read: “Let’s prove we want peace and deliver the atomic bomb to Russia.”
In the 1960s, amid the civil rights movement and anti-segregation struggle, racist Republicans in Louisiana offered cash rewards to black prisoners to board buses and take up residence in the abolitionist north that emerged victorious in the Civil War.
The current antics of the tiny ubertrumpist minority that will hold the Chamber hostage for the next two years are just nihilism on steroids. The difference between Buckley troll-inspired conservatives and the Trump cult is that the current crop has no plan to govern or formal political agenda other than to set the circus on fire.
With a wealth of experience honed over 4+ years in journalism, I bring a seasoned voice to the world of news. Currently, I work as a freelance writer and editor, always seeking new opportunities to tell compelling stories in the field of world news.
