Deeply Weird People

 Part one of the Clarence Thomas Taking A Bunch Of Gifts story was about how Supreme Court justices have no hard and fast ethics rules and how Thomas is basically a wholly owned subsidiary of Harlan Crow. It was the five hundredth iteration of why Clarence Thomas should never have been a Supreme Court justice, as he is - fundamentally - an immoral person, whether it's his obseiance to great wealth or his sexual harassment of Anita Hill.

Part two of the story...whooo Nelly. Basically, Harlan Crow is one of those weird-ass rich people who does weird-ass shit. He has paintings by Hitler and a signed copy of Mein Kampf and a statue garden of some of the worst dictators of the 20th century. What's striking is how just about every conservative commentator has rushed to Crow's defense, because who doesn't have a bunch of Hitler memorabilia in their home?

The defense, to me, take two forms. The first is pretty straightforward. All these people have taken money and trips and sinecures from Harlan Crow. The Conservative Ecosystem is hermetically sealed and Crow pumps in the atmosphere. This is why conservatives around the country all harp about CRT at the same time. There is no diversity of thought. When the wealthy donor says jump, you say how high.

The second part is that conservativism is - by its very nature - is hierarchical, and wealthy weirdos like Crow sit at the top of those hierarchies. Not as high as the even weirder Donald Trump, but he's been there longer. Odious shitbag Marc Thiessen points out that Crow has a statue of Stalin. Thiessen argues that this proves that Crow doesn't love Hitler, because Stalin is a communist. (This contradicts decades of conservative nonsense about how Hitler is a leftist because it was called the National Socialist Party, but consistency isn't his strong suit.)

OK, so Crow has statues of Hitler, Stalin and Mao, because...he hates them? I know he's got boatloads of money, but why build a garden full of statues of people that you hate? That's just profoundly perverse. 

However, if we go back to the fact that conservatism is basically about hierarchies and deference to power...suddenly Stalin, Hitler and Mao have something in common. 

It was always weird to me how many little kids like Darth Vader or the Hulk. Vader is the bad guy and the Hulk is chaos. However, if you understand their attraction to Vader and the Hulk as an attraction to power, then you can see how that connects to Superman or Captain America (and, yes, it's mostly boys). Power is attractive. Men like Crow and all of his defenders are soaking in it. They love the trappings of power. It's why they can so easily let themselves be captured by the essence of Trumpism.

A six year old loves Darth Vader, because the world is scary and big and Vader is powerful and strong. Harlan Crow loves Hitler and Stalin because they were imminently powerful. Their complete power over life and death is like an intoxicating whisper from the past. Their order was built on fear and death, but it was their order, and that is at the root of conservatism: order that binds others and frees "me".

Is Harlan Crow a Nazi? An anti-Semite? Maybe not, I don't know. 

But it's pretty clear he's enraptured by power in ways that should disturb people living in a democracy. Especially given how he has been able to accrue power without democratic accountability.