Trumpa Yaga

Slavic folklore contains a character named Baba Yaga. The tales vary, but generally speaking Baba Yaga is a form of bogeyman, used to frighten children. My first encounter with the name was way back in my teens, when I played Dungeons and Dragons. More recently, Baba Yaga was referenced in the first John Wick movie, where the gangster father of the jackass who stole John's car and killed his dog explained to him the facts of life:

Viggo Tarasov: It's not what you did, son, that angers me so. It's who you did it to.
Iosef Tarasov: Who? That f---ing nobody?
Viggo Tarasov: That "f---in' nobody"... is John Wick. He once was an associate of ours. They call him "Baba Yaga."
Iosef Tarasov: The Boogeyman?
Viggo Tarasov: Well John wasn't exactly the Boogeyman. He was the one you sent to kill the f---ing Boogeyman.

Iosef Tarasov: [stunned] Oh.

John Wick gun fu aside, we today are witnessing the latest incarnation of the Baba Yaga bogeyman scare-the-children. This version has orange hair, an apparent penchant for spray tan, says wild things that prompts bliss in his followers and paroxysms in his detractors, and wears his neckties way too long.

I speak, of course, of Donald Trump.

Who, if the Left and the legacy media (but I repeat myself) are to be believed, will single-handedly usher in a new age of jackbooted fascism and the end of democracy should he win the election in November.

No matter that nothing like that happened during his Presidency. No matter that the previous spate of doomsaying at the beginning of his tenure was all wrong.

The country "survived" the Trump Presidency, just as it did the forty four that preceded it - and in fact, survived better than some of the previous stretches. This isn't meant as high praise - the Trump years were decidedly a mixed bag - but rather as a reality check for the doomers.

The Left has proven to be the caucus of fear and hate. Its policies are largely driven by those two emotions. As one example of the former, mania for a wholesale alteration of the nation's energy economy is driven by a blind fear of global warming. As another, their stampede to mass lockdowns during the COVID pandemic. As to hate, that should be obvious. They hate Trump, they hate anyone who doesn't bend the knee, they hate success, they hate humanity, they hate people who want to be left alone to live their lives, and we have now learned that they hate Jews.

The Left's ankle-biting border collies - the legacy media, the talking heads, the string-pullers and puppet-masters - understand this, so they bestow upon Trump a mythical bogeyman status. They propagate "end of democracy" and "dictator" folderol without explaining either how he'd manage to accomplish that or why he didn't last time he was President.

That they reveal the psychological projection that underlies this is its own thing. Obama and Biden were far greater abusers of executive power than Trump was (though Trump was by no means innocent in that regard). The reveal is that Left wants the President to wield such unbridled power when that President looks to do stuff they want.

Remember Thomas Friedman's "China for a day" bit, to "authorize the right solutions?"

I do.

It's one of the great Kinsley Gaffes of modern times. It shows the true authoritarian nature of the Left. That nature is why I refuse to call that crowd "liberals" and why I draw a sharp distinction between liberalism and leftism in my writing. Such folks don't seek to govern by consent, or win policy debates with logic, facts, or reason.

Inside Every Progressive Is A Totalitarian Screaming To Get Out — David Horowitz

So, we get boundless fear-mongering about another Trump presidency rather than arguments about policy. The Orange bogeyman is going to destroy the world and ruin your life, dontchaknow!

And if the Untethered Orange Id doesn’t get destroy the nation, “his” Supreme Court will. The reaction to the Court’s ruling on presidential immunity is as non compos mentis a bit as I’ve seen in a long time. There are supposedly thinking people who are asserting that this gives Biden the power to order Seal Team Six to kill Trump.

I kid you not.

They do all this because stoking fear and hatred works on their base.

They also do this because it deflects from the policies that have actually harmed the country. The two big things on voters' minds - inflation and immigration - are the direct result of the Democrats' actions. It's hard to run on policy when you've caused the problems that are driving this election.

Finally, they do it because their candidate, the guy they’ve spent years propping up and covering up, has finally been outed as suffering a cognitive decline too obvious to hide any more. The guy that they’re now imploring to step down “for the good of the country.” No matter the harm he’s done so far, of course.