After a while at ground zero in the emerging culture war, I appreciated returning home to Vermont in 2010. But Arizona certainly did provide a preview of the weirdness to come — purportedly normal people buying into a warped “counter narrative” in which the President (Obama) was an illegal alien and an egomaniacal sheriff running inhuman “tent cities” was a folk hero and potential governor. In other words, there were early warnings that basic values — even assumed facts — were changing.
Around that time I began posting more actively on social media. Since some platforms keep everything we offer, a benefit is that it is possible to go back and reflect, rethink and aggregate. The experience can be confusing; after all, we live in a fragmented, short attention span world. On the other hand, it can also help to focus the mind and distill ideas.
Aiming for the latter, here is a sample of (mainly Facebook) posts, from pre-Trump to recent days. The topics range from the rise of fascism and social media’s impacts to judging presidential fitness for office, Brett Kavanaugh, Caesar, Mussolini, brute force in Helsinki, war games in Ukraine, and the nostalgia of Space Force, all reflections of our reality-challenged world. Except where indicated, these are verbatim.
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Sept. 1, 2018: After US White Nationalists defended Putin’s war to dismember Ukraine, he repaid them by using the Confederate flag as the basis for one promoted as the emblem of territory Russia occupied in southeastern Ukraine. Full text below.
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Aug 3, 2010: Arrived in Vermont after several weeks on the road, from AZ via Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, South Dakota, then across to St. Paul and down to Kentucky and Virginia before taking the Blue Ridge Parkway back to my "ancestral" home. Much to say...but not right now. Since returning I'm re-entering Burlington's social & political scene. Much to learn, and a far cry from Sheriff Joe and Arizona's sad psychic meltdown.
A year earlier, however, on Aug. 8, I’d observed... Thinking about fascism, a system and philosophy that uses racism, nationalism and suppression of opposition to achieve its ends. We may well be seeing its re-emergence in the extreme tactics of the corporate-manipulated movement to delegitimize the current US government. Can violence be far behind? It still CAN happen here...
Feb. 5, 2010: The post-modern world is turning out to be just a little chaotic. Truth has become a debatable notion, news is mainly spectacle, and self-promotion is the ultimate form of work. What's next? President Palin? Just sayin'.
April 19, 2011: A year after signing AZ's Papers Please law, Gov Jan Brewer has vetoed the state's Birther Bill. Does this mean that some on the Right see a "downside" to exploiting racism, delusion and irrational thinking for short-term gain? Maybe, but too late. The Trump's out of the bag and we're having another culture war.
It took several more years, but Trump happened and America’s culture war escalated...bigly.
Feb. 28, 2016: Trump retweets Mussolini saying "it is better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep." Asked why he smiles, "it's interesting." So, we've been warned. A bunga-bunga strongman. Sinclair Lewis nailed it.
Feb. 19, 2017: Able to serve? Even if a president has a mental disorder, that may say little about his fitness to serve. After all, Lincoln had severe depression, Theodore Roosevelt was probably bipolar, and Grant was an alcoholic. According to a study based on biographical data, 18 of America’s first 37 presidents met criteria suggesting they suffered from a psychiatric disorder during their lifetime: 24 % from depression, 8 % from anxiety, 8 % from bipolar disorder and 8 % from alcohol abuse or dependence. And 10 of those presidents showed signs of mental illness while they were in office.... You can be psychiatrically ill and perfectly competent, just as you can be mentally healthy but totally unfit... So the nation doesn’t need a shrink to help it to decide whether President Trump is fit to serve, mentally or otherwise.
Looking Back, Feb. 19, 2018: A year later we’re still grappling with the same question. The problem is that Trump supporters so identify with their leader that they view questions about his fitness or mental state as judgements about them. Thus, they project his problems onto others. It’s much easier and more comforting than admitting a mistake.
Jan. 31, 2018: Like a reality TV show, Michael Wolff’s book is basically a showcase for the crass motives and strange doings of its quirky subjects. It’s a pleasantly voyeuristic ride, as long as you don’t expect to much. Starting with convincing evidence that neither Donald Trump nor his minions actually wanted to win, Fire and Fury tracks the power dynamics pulling at this accidental president, mainly from the perspective of a Rasputin-like Steve Bannon. The other main factions are “establishment” Republicans like Reince Preibus — doomed to humiliation in this White House — and Trump’s family and friends...
March 7, 2018: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” This advice from one infamous psychopath has clearly been taken to heart by another.
March 7, 2018: Despite hybrid warfare, perception management and the painful struggle over what is or isn’t fake, most of us still share a fact-based view of reality. On the other hand, polarization is increasing around the world, right along with faster communication.
March 19, 2018: Six falsehoods in one tweet: this could be some kind of record! Also sounds like the basis for a new reality show - THE BIGGEST LIAR. People compete to see if anyone can make up more (or bigger) lies than the president. Losers are humiliated on live TV. Spoiler: Trump always wins.
March 19, 2018: Why are many Republicans abetting Trump’s fascist moves? Like Russians who see the USSR’s collapse as the nation’s great tragedy, GOP leaders recall what happened to Nixon (and afterward) and think, “Never Again!”
March 19, 2018: So, how exactly did the Trumpsters mess with American minds to seize power? The answer is emerging, but it’s not great news for 50 million users of this platform: their Facebook profiles were harvested by a UK-based academic and his company Global Science Research. Then a deal was struck to share this information with Cambridge Analytica, funded by billionaire Robert Mercer and manged by Steve Bannon on behalf of Trump. According to a whistleblower, most of this personal information was taken without authorization. Cambridge Analytica used it to build a powerful software program to predict and influence choices at the ballot box. Unfortunately, attempts have been made to keep this breach from being revealed.
March 22, 2018: Millions on Trump’s email list (not Twitter) just received a signed, high-pitched appeal: “I will not hide from the truth -- this is a WITCH HUNT,” he brays. Then accuses Nancy Pelosi of using Russia “as a political ploy to RAISE MONEY from her supporters.” How dare she, right? Ploys are his thing. But Pelosi is such a time-tested trigger word.
Then the conspiracy theory: that “the swamp” (it’s whatever you imagine) is using government as a weapon to overturn elections. Namely, his. Bad swamp! This is followed by an appeal for just one dollar. So it’s not about the money. What then? Apparently linking the “witch hunt” with his agenda — build the wall, stop immigration and no more “nation-building.” Plus an attempt to appropriate the progressive call for a “fair economy.”
March 24, 2018: Straight talk from a Nation columnist about Russia and the election. Katha Pollitt addresses some key questions and concludes, “If you’re a skeptic, ask yourself what could change your mind. If the answer is nothing, you may be in for an embarrassing time.”
April 15, 2018: Beyond social media, perceptions have been manipulated by experiments called "reality shows," most based on the assumption that competition, fame and distrust are fundamental truths. And the contestants aren’t the only subjects. So are the viewers.
May 29, 2018: Just when we thought we were moving forward, we’ve been pulled back into raw class struggle (among other challenges). Today’s big players are assorted oligarchs, a veritable international league of tyrants and crooks that ignore all the laws and norms they can get away with. And they’re playing for keeps.
July 8, 2018: Two years ago, while reading this rich and revealing history of Italy under fascist rule, it was already hard not to be reminded of Donald Trump. As R.J.B. Bosworth shows in Mussolini’s Italy, Mussolini's brand of fascism was also powered more by charisma than policies, and drew from a widespread sense of victimhood that fueled aggression, authoritarian quick fixes, and a desperate yearning to recapture a glorious, yet mythical past. It’s all too familiar. World War II ended the Duce's tyranny, but clearly did not excise fascism's totalitarian approach and mindset. Unfortunately, traces and echoes can be found today in many democracies and a league of crypto-fascist states may well be in formation.
July 10, 2018: Here’s Francis Boyle, law professor and Federalist Society critic, on Trump’s Supreme Court nominee. “Kavanaugh drafted portions of the Starr report, a political hit job. Perhaps more importantly, he drafted parts of the Ken Starr 'referral' to the U.S. Congress recommending that Bill Clinton be impeached for a blowjob and lying about a blowjob. Kavanaugh worked for then-Republican nominee George W. Bush in Bush v. Gore, which effectively robbed the American people of the presidency.
"The fact that if Kavanaugh gets through, the entire Supreme Court will have gone to Harvard or Yale is terrible for the country. And I say that as having graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law.”
July 17, 2018: Moments before the (Helsinki) Putin-Trump presser Sam Husseini, who was covering it for The Nation, was sitting on the US side when he held up a sign reading "Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty." That was enough to draw security men, who questioned him briefly before opting for removal. As Sam struggled with guards, at one point waving the sign but mainly trying to keep it out of one man's hands, other journalists pulled out phones and started recording the incident. No press outrage, however, and no word yet on how he was treated afterward.
July 22, 2018: This just In: Trump just admitted he misspoke when declaring himself a “stable genius.” Meant to say “evil genius,” arguing that things are going “precisely as unplanned.” Asking to comment, Rudy Guliani noted, “That proves he’s at least half right.” #RudyAndTheBeast
Aug. 4, 2018: It turns out Trump has built a wall...of tweets, a barrier of lies “so big and strong it is impenetrable to criticism, logic or reason.” And we’re all going to pay for it. Quote from the Daily Show’s Presidential Twitter Library.
Aug. 9, 2018: During Nixon’s time it sometimes felt like Rome. It’s feeling that way again. In 44 BC, Julius Caesar became dictator of the world's most powerful empire. But his "vulgar scheming for the tawdriest mockeries of personal worship", as H.G. Wells put it, became a shameful record. The air buzzed with talk of democracy and the proletariat. But the popular "comitia," the gathering of tribes for public votes, didn’t reflect the feelings of the masses. The sham forced the cheated and suppressed to use strikes and insurrection. And it didn’t end well, for Caesar, Rome or Nixon.
Aug. 10, 2018: Here we go again! Space Force, the president’s latest weapon of mass distraction, is nothing new. About 20 years ago, there were already big plans. As the Space Command said in a slick Vision for 2020 brochure, "Control of space is the ability to assure access to space, freedom of operations within the space medium, and an ability to deny others the use of space if required." As usual they were shooting for “dominance.” In other words, the past is calling and they want their empty rhetoric back. This story made it to the censored top ten, which is probably why the idea can be recycled to “low information” people (aka uninformed and deluded).
Aug. 15, 2018: TrumpWorld sometimes looks like a modern kitsch version of Dante’s hell, a land of perverted desire — desire even for Hell itself. Filled with people who know their greed and excess will destroy them, yet choose to binge anyway. It’s a state of mind that spurs leaders to pursue war and destruction for its own sake. Rather than feeling fear, Trump and his disciples seem driven by insatiable appetites.
Aug. 28, 2018: Now it’s been a full decade since McCain faced Obama, Palin got her close up, and reality began to blur. Soon the economy collapsed and conspiracy theorists went mainstream.
Sept. 1, 2018: In our “schizofascist” world, Russia is supposedly antifascist. But really the opposite. One clue is that many of its allies, like US White Nationalists Richard Spencer and David Duke, are openly fascist. They defended Putin’s war to dismember and absorb Ukraine. And he repaid them for the support by using the Confederate battle flag as the basis for a new one promoted as the emblem of Novorossiia, the territory Russia occupied in southeastern Ukraine. That made them allies with fascist parties and factions in Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, Italy and elsewhere that took Russia’s side. The war became a training field for 21st century terrorism. The Serbian who attempted a coup in Montenegro in 2016 has admitted that he was recruited by Russian nationalists and trained in Ukraine.
September 2, 2018: Simultaneously engaging and deeply disturbing, (The Road to Unfreedom) should feature a warning: Abandon your illusions, since they aren’t likely to survive. Building on ideas introduced in his pocket guide, On Tyranny, Timothy Synder describes the last six years as a period of shattering change that has led Russia, America and parts of Europe into what he calls “schizofascism,” or, in Trump’s case, possibly “sado-populism.” A core concept is the shift — with strategic nudges by the Putin gang — from the politics of inevitability to the politics of eternity. Inevitability politicians argue that specifics of the past are ultimately irrelevant, merely grist for progress; Eternity politicians see endless cycles of threat, victimhood, and restoration, and have a penchant for supressing facts, dismissing reality, and creating political fiction.
“Americans were vulnerable to the politics of eternity,” Snyder explains, “because their own experiences had already weakened inevitability. Trump’s proposal to ‘make America great again’ resonated with people who believed, along with him, that the American dream was dead. Russia had reached the politics of eternity first, and so Russians knew the techniques that would push Americans in the same direction.”
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