Further

In what was dubbed a "grievance Olympics," "conference of clowns" and "Wrestlemania with Podcasters," the noxious mucky-mucks of MAGA assembled for the first time since Charlie Kirk's death at an ostensibly celebratory AmericaFest that swiftly cratered into a toxic mess of orcs hating on each other. Despite the blinding glitz, savage barbs flew: Anti-Semite! Islam whore! Epstein flack! A coward! A cancer! And nonsense-vomiting. One viewer: "Holy shit, America." The Nazi kids are not all right.

Last weekend's public, ugly, inevitable fracturing of a once-lockstep right for all to see came at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest conference at Phoenix Convention Center. Billed as "a powerful celebration of faith, freedom, and the legacy of our founder" - though others called it "brownshirts in the desert" - it had Kirk plastered everywhere. Outside, banners urged "MAKE AMERICA CHARLIE KIRK"; inside, a huge portrait proclaimed, "WE ARE ALL CHARLIE KIRK"; nearby, weirdly, a Charlie Kirk murder re-enactment tent was set up for fans to take selfies in a spot just like where he was shot and killed. Wonkette: "Normal youth conference things!" About a third of the reported 30,000 in attendance, a "wretched hive of scum and villainy," were high school and college students who evidently have yet to find a life of non-malignant purpose.

The awful keeps spewing. The latest proof there is truly, repulsively no bottom: The most broken, powerful human being on the planet has added to his crappy, gaudy, reality-show "Presidential Walk of Fame" bronze plaques below the photos denoting a boorish, revisionist "history" of each president. Inevitably, he lobs the crudest insults at his direct predecessors - "divisive" Obama, "crooked" Biden - while praising his own supreme reign. America on the fucking, endless, childish ugly of it: "This is so exhausting."

As always, there are of course more substantive horrors underway. Pam Bondi has told the FBI to create a list of domestic terrorist groups - the non-existent Antifa and anyone else who espouses “radical gender ideology, anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism or anti-Christianity” - and establish a “cash reward system” to encourage them to snitch on each other. Because what climate change/it still snows doesn't it?, Trump is also dismantling Colorado's National Center for Atmospheric Research, home to the largest federal research lab on climate change and natural disasters.

So much darkness. Along with all the rest, in quick succession, the shootings at Brown and Bondi Beach, the murder of director and activist Rob Reiner and his wife Michele, and then the responses. To the beloved Reiner's awful end, a sick man-child spewed vile, loathsome filth that "says it all" about who he is. To the hateful attack on Jews, a Muslim man stood up for humanity with selfless grace and courage, a beacon of hope. Cometh the hour, cometh the man.

Rob Reiner, 78, and his producer wife Michele Singer Reiner, 68, were found dead in their L.A. home on Sunday; their troubled son Nick, 32, was arrested and booked for murder for their gruesome deaths. Reiner was not just Hollywood aristocracy, All In the Family's pacifist "Meathead" who went on to become the buoyant director of classics like This Is Spinal Tap, Stand By Me, The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally; he was a fierce, thoughtful defender of democracy and decades-long advocate for causes he believed in - marriage equality, child development services, and taxing the rich for worthwhile goals like funding universal preschool with, brilliantly, a tobacco tax. A savvy political organizer willing to speak out "when silence was simply easier," said one friend, "Rob chose clarity. He stood for truth and accountability, unapologetically." His work featured "a deep belief in the goodness of people - and a lifelong commitment to putting that belief into action," said Barack Obama. "Together, he and his wife lived lives defined by purpose."

Improbably, the White-Nationalist-In-Chief still plunges to lower, ranker, more nakedly racist depths as he tries to deflect from his failings, lies, naps and crimes. The fake Peace President’s ugly apogee, topping murders at sea, banning migrants “non-compatible with Western Civilization,” siccing ICE dogs on innocents et al: His vicious invective against Somalis as “garbage” while his Stepford bigots stand silent before it all, complicity unbound. Ferris Bueller's hapless teacher: "Anyone? Anyone?"

Obviously the mild cluelessness of blank students facing Ben Stein's teacher in Ferris Bueller's Day Off pales before the toxic spectacle of a blithering, execrable fascist stirring up gutter-level hatred as he spews "possibly the most openly racist shit any US president has ever been caught saying." The dissonance of the furious bigotry erupting from an alleged national leader - its vitriol, animus, beyond-the-pale crudeness, the eerie silence into which it falls - also prompts a jarring, queasy sense of, "what the fuck is wrong with this picture?" even as it comes from a ghastly human whose most longstanding, foundational tenet is brutish racism (plus greed), going back to his KKK father, his deadly hatred for the Central Park Five, his snarling claim all Mexicans are criminals and rapists.