Pyongyang on the Hudson

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Early on in his presidency, Barack Obama made some comment about spreading the wealth around. Now, when Republicans use the trope about rising tides and floating boats, it’s to justify the idea that making the wealthy wealthier serves everyone’s interest. When a Democrat expresses the same sentiment it’s Communism.

For years we couldn’t get away from the sound and fury of Republicans trying to associate Obama and all Democrats not only with Communism, but with the traditional demons of North Korea (who payed his college tuition of course) and Russia. Posters appeared with his name in Cyrillic characters and others in the style of Soviet Realism. Some called him an Anti-Christ but Communist! That was far worse.

Communism has been the bogeyman for the last 75 years. A communist was the worst thing one could be and it didn’t take much for one to be accused of it as we saw in the Red Scare / Joe McCarthy era. Giving secrets to the Soviets was a death sentence. It’s hard to describe the anti-Communist frenzy to those who don’t remember it but as one Hollywood personality said “they’ll get you if you scratch your ass when the flag goes by.” It was true. That was then. That was before the great discontinuity called Trump.

So how do we understand a Republican president and a Republican party who defends him even when it requires transparent and humiliating lies and contradictions; how do we understand Trump praising the most vicious of all Communist dictators as a great leader who will lead his country to unprecedented prosperity? Prosperity through Communism. What president – even the least popular every could have said such a thing?

“North Korea, under the leadership of Kim Jong Un, will become a great Economic Powerhouse. He may surprise some but he won’t surprise me, because I have gotten to know him & fully understand how capable he is. North Korea will become a different kind of Rocket – an Economic one!”

….tweeted Communism’s biggest supporter on February the 8th 2019 as Republicans either covered their ears or bury themselves in their Bibles. And the rest of us, so fatigued by horror and disbelief argue about trivia, as though it was really more important to purify out thoughts about race and the plight of the working class and college loans. . .

Has the history I remember all been an illusion? Have we all died and gone to hell? February 8, 2019. Where were you on the day the last shreds of self respect, of purpose or principle or decency turned to toilet paper.