We know the awful, the stupid, the cruel goes on, but we're heartened by the birth of "a new unified theory of American reality" to help explain the darkness. It's called, "Everyone is twelve now." Suddenly, we get it: the right's puerile idiocy, pointless vengeful assaults on law and decency, poop-bombing and racism, staggeringly simplistic solutions to issues like, "Let's arrest everyone" and "Why don't we just blow them up?" At 12, they learned to slap nasty names on anything they didn't like; now, they still do.
What one grateful patriot calls "the most important political thread of our time" came from one Patrick Cosmos, a musician and frequent Bluesky user who goes by @veryimportant.lawyer. All we know about him is that his moment of snarky political clarity swiftly spread across much of social media - an irony unto itself given that many attribute the current Infantilization of right-wing discourse, at least in part, to a scattershot Internet that gives an instant platform to the most vicious and pea-brained among us. Still, many argue the notion those in power never got past being 12-year-old, emotionally stunted losers deeply resonates in a grim cultural moment of conservative ascendance that feeds on ignorance, bullying, fear and lack of critical thinking.
Opening the door to this moment of unashamed intellectual regression was, of course, the orange cretin who rode down his fake golden escalator and into our nightmares by proclaiming the way to solve the complex, longtime, political and moral issue of illegal immigration was to build a big wall across the southern border of an entire country - a dumb, mean, juvenile, sadistic "solution" on a par with last week's video abomination in which, ever more demented despite his glorious "person, woman, man, camera, TV" recitation, he acted out dropping a planeload of shit on millions of Americans who oppose him, because he's a sociopathic 8-year-old, not yet 12, whose only response to any challenge is to sneer, "Oh yeah? I want to. Watch this."
In an America where "the only two speeds are gun and burger," his knee-jerk, self-serving response was appealing, especially to a frustrated, ill-educated base who'd long been told they had to grow up already. They could say, Cosmos noted, "I’m strong and I want to have like fifty kids and a farm." "Of course you do," he notes. "You're twelve." They could say, "Potatoes are the only vegetables I'll eat, I like guns and I'll cry if you take them away, I want a robot that can draw Star Wars pictures and do my homework, if there's crime we should just send the army, I don't like needles so I'm not getting shots, I want ice cream for dinner which RFK Jr. says is healthy, and I don't wanna watch a Super Bowl where in the middle a guy sings in a different language.
For some, "Everyone is 12" is the explainer, the "cruelty is the point" for Trump 2.0. In our raunchy, Trumpy-world, they no longer had to ditch their worst instincts. They were back in mean-mouthed middle school. They could say nigger or fag, put down women, make fun of disabled people, be consistently wrong but insist by dint of loudness or citing Jesus they were right. They could argue they deserve something and whine about it till they got it. They could trash a girl who doesn't want to go out with them and vow to destroy her life when one day they were powerful. They could remember when they were 12 they learned the word "fascist" or "lib-tard" or "woke" and mindlessly persist in applying the words to anything that threatened or confused them.
Trump lit the flame, offering his base dumb, simple solutions - and visible scapegoats - for big, scary problems. Other factors kept it burning. The deterioration of public education has dumbed down voters, turning them into frightened, ignorant victims vulnerable to misinformation; the National Literacy Institute reports over half of US adults read at a below-sixth-grade level. The democratization of media feeds agitprop, the more sensational, the more fast-spreading, from Hitler's, Mussolini's, Eva Peron's radio broadcasts to Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck to Fox News in every airport and of course the deep dark corners of the Internet, where everyone gets to throw their tantrums and have their malignant say.
Led, still, by the lying Showman-In-Chief. Now in Japan, faced with reality, he's still frantically raving. He won "THREE Elections, BY A LOT." He's "getting the best Polling Numbers...People see how strong the Economy is...Ending 8 wars in eight months, no men playing in women’s sports, no transgender for everyone, rapidly falling Energy prices." NOT. And the "Radical Left Losers are taking fake ads, not showing REAL Polls...saying I’m Polling at low levels...These ads...are FAKE!" The stupid and the lies keep coming, echoes of former V.P. Dan Quayle: "What a waste it is to lose one's mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is." Also, "I have made good judgements in the past. I have made good judgements in the future."
The king's jesters, his band of faithful, petty 12-year-olds, do his grade-school dirty work to keep the fictions afloat. Crazed Kash Patel, the alleged head of the FBI, is giving out "challenge coins." Press Barbie, asked who made the bad choice of Budapest for a meeting, retorts, "Your mom did." Pam Bondi, refusing to answer questions about troops headed to Chicago, sneers they're going to protect you. RFK Jr. spews insane claims for autism - Tylenol! Circumcision! - and the gang members nod. A new White House timeline seeking support for the Epstein ballroom stuck in puerile crap - Bill Clinton's blowjob, Obama's turban. After Trump put up the image of an auto-pen in lieu of a Biden portrait, his clowns took and posted leering photos, praising his "sense of humor."
But nobody follows the ditsy, malevolent pied piper as loyally as OG mean girl ICE Barbie and her accomplices, who've been using agitprop, fear-mongering and white supremacist imagery so relentlessly in recruitment efforts that the Dept. of Homeland Security website reads like "a white nationalist content mill, churning out bigoted, jingoistic schlock." According to extremism watchdog Hatewatch, the sources for their mainstreaming of white supremacy include the racist work of a white Christian nationalist published by neo-Nazis - "Report All Foreign Invaders" - and rabid dog-whistles - "INVASION,” “CULTURAL DECLINE,” “HOMELAND”- all imbued with a childish, nostalgic glow: Coke bottle, big red car, the plea, "America is worth fighting for."
Their latest kitschy mess features knights - you know, American knights in medieval times - wielding swords at each other, urging "Defend your hearth and home" against "the enemies at the gate," like all those brown gardeners. Savage responses: "The enemies are at the doors of the ballroom. My neighbors are not enemies. You mean the Gravy Seals? Is the enemy in this room? Did you run this by a focus group or kindergarten class? Do Notsee any enemies here." Many referenced Monty Python or Charlie Kirk circle jerks, noted dudes' swords are aimed at each other, asked, "Is this satire or fascism?" and suggested, "Say we are turning into 1930’s Germany without saying we are turning into 1930’s Germany." Proving, "Everyone is 12 theory remains undefeated."
