De Niro is in his Grandpa Simpson era...oh, and American democracy is collapsing

On Trump's felonious paperwork, his new multi-racial base and the rich liberal Boomers who made it all happen.

Someone needs to have a word with America’s liberal Boomers before they destroy American democracy. I say this with no pleasure, because I was raised by liberal American Boomers. But when you watch the unravelling of the American body politic, how can you come to any other conclusion? Other than they have completely lost sight of reality and exist solely in a cloud of privilege.

In a way, who can blame them? These are the middle class kids who avoided Vietnam, who partied and discovered themselves, achieved professional success and rode property and stock market tsunamis to great wealth. They were the most free, rich, and healthy generation to ever exist — it is not surprising that they should think the party will never end. So accustomed are they to their own high position, they simply cannot see that the ground underneath them has shifted.

Well, the party has clearly ended for Robert de Niro. Ok, sure, he’s just fathered a child and is worth oodles of money — but that speech he gave outside Trump’s trial earlier this week shows that he thinks he’s still got it in terms of being able to deliver a convincing acting performance. But his ability to rouse a crowd is clearly behind him.

“For weeks and for months now we’ve seen the ramblings of an unhinged, power-hungry, self-centred man.” De Niro actually stood at a microphone and said those words — as if he wasn’t himself wasn’t an unhinged, power-hungry, self-centred man. It was comedic in its lack of self-awareness.

Of course Donald Trump’s conviction on Thursday of 34 counts of, I believe the official term is felony paperwork, was a travesty of justice the likes of which the United States had not yet seen. It was a momentous event.

By contrast, De Niro’s performance was pathetic, and if remembered at all will be merely a humiliating footnote in a time of High Cringe. The once great TriBeCa Bobby was channeling Grandpa Simpson. But it is indicative of the decrepit gerontocracy that still has its grip on the levers of power in America. 

The division in American society right now cuts in multiple different ways — young and disenfranchised versus old and rich; working class vs elite; left vs right; city vs country. 

But just as important is the divide in perception. I was recently in the States and met up with lots of people who remain firmly in the liberal camp. These are good people, decent people — but they are being given a set of entirely different information to the those of us who no longer trust the mainstream media.

So I have come to realise that these liberals are not aware of the legal manipulations and shenanigans that went into convicting Trump. They are not aware of the depths of corruption in the corporate-government complex. They are not aware that working class people are moderate and open-minded. They are not aware that their trusted media figures are lying through their teeth. They may be about to have a very rude awakening. 

As one wag on X put it, “Congrats Dems, you have reached the “Find Out” phase of democracy.”

One major white pill in this last week has been the evidence I have seen of a multi-ethnic, lower middle and working class base coalesce around Trump. And not only that — but just how cogent and well-informed that base is. (And for any readers who might get the mistaken impression I am a Trump fan, when I was in New York I also was talking to a person with very close knowledge of all the times Trump tried to screw over the little guy in his business dealings. So I’m not saying the guy is perfect and blameless in all his affairs. This is very much a case of, he’s not as bad as the rest of them.)

Just contrast the pitiful performance by De Niro with this tour de force of calm, articulate, and forceful analysis. (Click on this link to watch the five minute video on X.)

The juxtaposition between the warm welcome Trump received in the Bronx earlier in the week, and the vituperative treatment meted out to him by Manhattan’s legal and media elite could not be starker.

The American war on its working class has been going on covertly for decades. But the conviction on the flimsiest charges of a man who is a hero to millions of working class Americans, has brought that war out into the open. It calls to mind the early 20th century battles between the bosses and the union men, with Trump their very unlikely Joe Hill — rich, brash, capitalist, native born son of New York City, not an itinerant working man — but poised on the brink of martyrdom nonetheless.

Leftists and well paid labour bosses may gasp at my comparison to one of their folk heroes, but what do they know, any more, of justice? The American Boomer left climbed the socio-economic ladder into power, and immediately chose lifestyle over class. Then Trump came along and stole their base, and they’ve been bent on revenge ever since. I know they are pretty old, but they should remember the old playground taunt: what goes around, comes around.