"Under Pressure": Marco Rubio's secret relationship with Vanilla Ice!!
Thanks for visiting Narrative Nation! Some of the material I post in this column will be incorporated into the book I’m developing with the working title “Loads of Heresy”: Far Right Revisions of the American Narrative.
Like the endless, oxygen-stealing dialogue of a verbally abusive parent, Trump’s campaign was a running combination of terrifying threats, baseless promises, and disorienting reversals of the facts.
One of Trump’s many assurances was ending the war in Ukraine “within 24 hours.” Below is one of the numerous televised interviews and town halls where he made this boast. The comments he made in various venues were all quite similar.
If I were president, and I say this, I will end that war in one day. It will take 24 hours. . . . 100%. It would be easy. That deal would be easy. . . . I would get that deal done within 24 hours.
On the first day of his presidency, Trump was questioned about this promise and cockily reminded reporters in the Oval Office that he had “half a day” left.
The next morning, newly-appointed Secretary of State Marco Rubio appeared on CBS. When asked about the Ukraine promise, one of Rubio’s qualifications for a position in this cabinet became clear: his willingness to add substance and reason to Trump’s words where none actually existed.
Rubio’s answer on Ukraine comes about 5:17 in this segment:
“the promise that the president made, if you look at it, is it’s going to be the official policy of the United States that the war in Ukraine needs to come to an end. . . . and it’s the policy of the United States that we want it to end, we want to do everything we can to help it end, we are going to engage in making it end, and in a way that is sustainable, meaning we don’t just want the conflict to end and then restart in two, three, or four years down the road.”
Rubio presumes to correct our eyes and ears with his patronizing “if you look at it.” Okay, and we’ve just checked again, and all these other words and ideas simply aren’t there. Trump’s boast fell flat, plain as that, and Rubio only makes himself look like a sleazy salesman by refusing to acknowledge it.
Of course the language of Rubio’s own general comments about “the policy of the United States” (is there one?) are potentially benign. It could be good to “engage in making it end in a way that is sustainable.” But let’s hope that “sustainability” wouldn’t equate to Ukraine being permanently annexed by Russia. Again and again in the same appearances, Trump refused to answer whether he thinks Ukraine or Russia should “win” the war. And we know what he thinks of NATO, an alliance Ukraine is trying to join, so I will wait and see what Trump intends to support.
My grievance today is more with these dishonest revisions of the narrative from Trump’s lackeys. If Trump is legitimate, everything he says should not require an explanation in different words with very different meanings to make it more palatable and then pretend it is “true now.” This is one of the new variations on the truth we’re expected to accept—it’s not strictly true, but if you give someone like Rubio time enough to say it in some new way on a polite media platform, it can become true now.
This takes me back to a famous moment just two days after Trump’s first inauguration in 2017. Though the phrase "alternative facts” has now been absorbed into the culture as a meme, I think the nation’s collective jaw hit the floor when we heard it from one of Trump’s top aides on NBC’s Meet the Press.
Trump’s new press secretary Sean Spicer had stepped into a press conference and told a series of lies about the crowd size. When NBC’s Chuck Todd asked Kellyanne Conway why this was allowed, she told him not to be “so overly dramatic about it” and said “you’re saying it’s a falsehood, and they’re giving . . . alternative facts to that.” Todd pushed back: “Alternative facts are not facts. They’re falsehoods”—but it was too late. The idea that public officials would be entitled to “alternative facts” and that journalists could argue until they were blue in the face with no retraction had been sanctified. The far-right disinformation campaign was so far underway by then that this component already had a name, and Conway pronounced it on TV that day so the public could start getting used to it.
While I’m enjoying the nostalgia—because I really love it when nothing has meaning—I’ll pull up this familiar and very literal attempt to make people think they heard something different than they did. But in this famous case, the clown was appropriately laughed out the door:
If you know, then you know that Robert “Vanilla Ice” Van Winkle ended his legal entanglement (but not his everlasting shame) by purchasing the rights to the Queen and David Bowie song “Under Pressure.” I’m not sure, but maybe this kind of solution could work to make Trump’s claim about ending the war become true. But would that mean asking Elon to buy Russia or Ukraine for him? And what if neither one is for sale? And now it looks like Trump has kicked Elon out of the White House into some lesser quarters, so I don’t know if he’ll do a favor.
Day Seven, news is moving fast, and my purpose here was to draw attention to another small example of the relentless spin we can expect Trump’s appointees and yes-men to put on every element of the past—even what millions of people saw a few days earlier on national broadcasts. We can’t accept summaries of the past from Trump’s own disinformation ministers. We’ll always have to stop and look back at what really happened. I know I’m hardly the first to say it, but it’s going to be exhausting.
If you’re interested in this story, click here to read about the illusions and official distortions created by another high-level Florida politician, Governor Ron DeSantis, as part of my series on the far-right attack on Florida education:
Fantastic rundown of the ridiculousness and gaslighting. So aggravating to know something and be told it isn't so, but also terrifyingly empowering to those who want to believe dangerous fictions. Thank you for ending with something nostalgic and lovely. Dancing through the news will be my way to stomach it from now on.
Bless you for invoking V. Ice - those were simpler times… :P