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TOM EATON | Rubio is a skid mark on the adult diapers of Trumpism

Published 1 month ago2 minute read

As Donald Trump suggests ethnic cleansing in Gaza and Cyril Ramaphosa somehow looks like a dignified world leader, it’s a confusing moment in the world. Thank heavens, then, for US foreign minister Marco Rubio, offering as a clear and bold compass to navigate by.

Of course, this in itself is fairly confusing given that Rubio changes his principles more often than he cries himself to sleep in the shower.

Back in early 2016, for instance, he told the US that Trump was a “con artist” who “runs on this idea he is fighting for the little guy, but he has spent his entire career sticking it to the little guy”.

A month later, likewise, he warned the nation that “Donald Trump is a serious threat to the future of our party, and our country”, insisting that it was “time to fight back, because [Trumpism] ... isn't just the opposite of what the Republican Party stands for, it's the opposite of what America stands for”.

When Trump was recorded by Access Hollywood boasting about sexual abuse, Rubio was horrified, saying: “Donald's comments were vulgar, egregious and impossible to justify. No-one should ever talk about any woman in those terms, even in private.”

One of these “very bad things”, according to Marco, is the expropriation of private land, a right-wing fantasy that is now being hawked by Trump fans here and in the US.

But the other was much more illuminating. South Africa, Marco claimed was planning to use the G20 to “promote ‘solidarity, equality, & sustainability’. In other words: DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] and climate change.”

And there it was. In Rubio’s own words, if you believe in solidarity, equality and sustainability, or that historically oppressed and impoverished people should be offered some way past the rigid gatekeepers of financial and social capital, or that climate change exists, then you are “anti-American”.

Thanks to Marco Rubio, I now know: I’m anti-American. How about you?

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