Why Nothing Persuades: A Cult of Vengeance and Vindication with a Dose of Addiction

I need to know, or at least think I know, why people do what they do. I study religion. I'm used to people believing all kinds of ridiculous things. They say things they know aren't true, couldn't be true. But that doesn't matter. Mouthing words, professing memes, saying nonsense because it makes them feel good, without the slightest need to think about what they believe, without the least ability to consider seriously or critically what they are saying or doing, this is the norm.

I understand how important it is for so many to be in the group, accepted by the tribe, to feel like they belong and are in good standing. You want to believe that facts or events that get some traction in this slippery world, or even arguments made kindly and rationally might work if only you could present the case, the truth. None of this matters much when it comes to understanding a cult, its needs, and its addictions.

I used to ask too: What’s it going to take? When will Republican leaders and millions of Trump voters finally get it. I used to this was about politics, a certain kind of reality that is not quite the same as religion, particularly cult religion. The appeal as also moral: How can they support such venality? But this fails the same way religions that profess love make cruelty or abuse into part of the sale.

Now the generals have spoken, including John Kelly, albeit in interviews taped to promote book sales. They all could have spoken clearly and loudly in public. Their code is beyond me because I could not have done what they did: swear an oath to a country that has elected the likes of Trump and the rest. But at this point, I think it doesn't matter enough to make a difference: their voices aren't changing votes.

New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu, first a critic now another toady (once a toady means you were always a toady, it's the coward's truth) said on CNN, “With a guy like [Trump], it’s kinda baked into the vote.”

It's wasn't in the least ridiculous to believe that at some point even Trump voters would get it. But I was wrong. I didn't consider how MAGA functions like religious cult with all of its needs, addictions, and pathologies.

This latest revelation of generals declaring Trump a fascist and Harris agreeing on CNN is making us uncomfortable because we know it's true. When MAGA hears the Trump would like Hitler's generals they can at once dismiss it (it's just him, after all) and they know how outrageous that makes us feel, how scared and threatened people feel. That's what they want.

Our discomfort is what Trump voters want, what they like, so the more loudly, plainly, and convincingly we make our points, the more they dig in and dig what they hear.

We've been hoping for nine years that as Trump reveals himself as such an obvious, existential threat to the republic that even the most partisan R voters would get the message and come out of their darkness.

The reason this has always been mistaken is almost too simple to accept. Every day that Trump desecrates, horrifies, threatens, or violates is not an offense to MAGA voters but a reassurance. Trump being more awful every day is a need, it's like a drug and the fix is vengeance and vindication.

You see, we will be so sickened if he wins and appalled by their behavior that they will revel in our response. They want the hurt, the cruelty, the infliction we bring upon ourselves because it makes them feel good. Any Trump "policy" about taxes or prices is not enough. They prefer the violent threats to immigrants and political opponents, which would include any of us who are their neighbors.

What they want is social revenge. It's not any particular Harris proposal taken seriously to which they object---that is the province of their tech bro billionaires who pay to feed them the red meat on the propaganda channels.

The only thing left to ask is why half of America is apparently so sick and so happy with their toxcity. Anger is an addiction, it works like an opiate---it doesn't remove the pain, it masks the deeper malady that cannot be cured. Social resentment, a sense of lost entitlement, the projection of their own losses and failures on others, lets MAGA believe that we the liberals look down on them while the undeserving get all their benefits. This means that whatever punishes us and those other to them---especially if they aren't white---feeds their beast. Seeing us miserable levels their field because their misery is our fault. Who's the one to make this happen? Why it's that guy. The lies don't matter, the grift is no big deal, what they like is the cruelty. It's their mana.

Rage is an addiction easy to feed because it doesn't need facts or focus. All it needs is a conservative media that every day stokes and repeats endlessly the memes that fuel their need.

We should expect Trump not to temper any comments in these last two weeks---that would be precisely what does not serve his supporters. The toned down Trump is either boring or betraying, it's not enough of the drug. Addicts don't admit they have a problem, this is not a denial of the truth problem for MAGA.

Their nihilism is real and the way most cannot express why they support Trump except in the vaguest Fox memes provides just enough excuse to get their next hit of cruelty and depravity. Remember that what the like about that is what it does to us and what it will do to those undeserving others who will likely face violent reprisal after a Trump victory.

What does this mean? Well, there are a lot of white people in seven States, many of them rural, under educated, older, and poor. Harris could lose not because she didn't work for their votes or fight hard enough with the truth. She should persist, more policy, more interviews, more reach out to every group including stupit [sic] white men. But she could lose because there are just enough of these people in four or five states who don't care about any of those facts.

When you hear the mindless tropes that Democrats are communists or Marxists or some other term they don’t understand, it's just repeating Fox and they know it makes us rage. We respond, we rebutt, we react by describing their depravity, ignorance, and unfitness for modernity and democracy. But the drug they take fuels a deep, incurable insecurity, humiliation, fear, and anger. Their trauma involves losing in 2020 (which is why they deny it). They cannot admit for the shame and humility it would require that Trump lost or that the coming election is rigged if they lose.

When their heroes like Tucker, Rudy, Bannon, and the rest go to jail or are made to pay, they become projections of their own fear that we are out to get them next. Nothing can undo this disease.

So rather than any reckoning with their own mistakes or the mistake of voting for a criminal buffoon who has not one care in the world for them, actually despises them, they have instead decided that their recourse, their only recourse, is to put Trump in power because of what it would do to us and all those they want to hurt. Trump is their vindication and their vengeance.

Our situation is not hopeless since Democrats may appear in large enough number to prevent the first wave outcome. If we survive election night with what looks like a victory, expect denial, litigation, and what cannot be achieved with corruption wil be turned into violence.

I give VP Harris kudos for both seriousness and savvy. She has done brilliantly. It's Democrats who worry me: not by handwringing because that is justified. Not by a failure to knock on doors by the committed. Rather, there is a righteous indolence among those who refuse to see the peril or who use their refusal to get on board to fuel their own need for social revenge and self-justification. It's a feel vindicated drug too to piss off the rest of us who know we must hold together with compromises.

I don't think there are enough swing voters who will swing against Trump to make a difference. Do the generals get to suburban Republicans who value money over democracy? Surely it's better that Kelly calls him the fascist he is than Harris who makes no impact. If we expect conscience to sail into their hearts as kind of intervention on the way to voting, I think that ship has long sailed.

J. D. Vance called Trump “cultural heroin.” This gets right to the point. The rush MAGA gets from racism, hatred, and revenge is their vindication. The only way to stop this is to show up to vote and hope enough of this impossibly complex, unreliable coalition does too.

(Thanks to Tom Nichols and other pundits for their work, which warrants citation.)

What Your Financial Advisor Won't Tell You

  

A good friend of mine this morning had a conversation recently with her financial advisor.  She is a person of means, not only fortunate but beneficent, generous, and committed in her pursuit of character and spirit.  

Her advisor warned her that the election of Kamala Harris would be ruinous to her financial portfolio because the Democrats would instigate a radical redistribution of wealth that would not only ruin her but likely the country. 

 

She took this advice seriously, as well she should.  This financial advisor meant to look out for her interests.  He had not the slightest care for her conscience or apparently his own.  The matter of character or morality never came up and that too was telling.

That he thought it irrelevant, or worse, a matter either personal or fantastical (and therefore airy-fairy, “unrealistic,” etc.) is an important part of the story.  That finance has nothing to do with ethics as such, only the law, advantages and liabilities is the current ethos, it substitutes or supplants the need for a conscience or character.  What’s “practical” is what serves one’s interests and that suffices the soul or, at the very least, manages us to dismiss the question as to whether we have one or need one.

 

In reply to this advice I assured my friend that the wealthy will never permit any redistribution of wealth in America: at this point in our history we are a transactional oligarchy.  We have culturally internalized our greed, no longer concerned with any Weberian Protestant Ethic to keep in check the spirit of capitalism.  “Quiet luxury” instead substitutes as another attempt to make inconspicuous self-satisfaction less troublesome to one’s conscience.  It’s not that people are less generous---there’s a charity auction for nearly every cause.  Rather, it’s that we cannot as a society agree that being good can be difficult if it demands moral justice that taxes; conscience is thus reduced to neither necessity nor luxury.  To live in a reflective conscience is now simply irrelevant unless it serves an ideological need to go about life without others who are other.

 

We can in true American entrepreneurial spirit dismiss conscience as a personal matter, free just as we are in religion not to insist upon a public conversation about the good that would deprive anyone of the fruits of their labor.  Everyone need only go about their own business offering occasional salves to conscience with volunteerism and generosity when those virtues seem none too intrusive.  Taking care of each other, not just our families but our society is leap too far because it would insist leadership confront their own corruptions not just ours.

 

No doubt, Americans seem to like their Social Security and Medicare, that so many are dependent on this income and service merely to survive is not what we would like to admit. These social programs for the social good can simultaneously be demonized as “communism” with the same superficiality that makes “socialism” or  “liberal”  a near-profanity because it is at best determined to be mere naivete, and at worst a threat to personal liberty.  

I told my friend that her financial advisor is right to try to protect her finances.  Trump will protect rich guys like him (just as Romney would have though Trump may not have any such ability); they will justify their choices in the now respectable and tired claim that trickle-down economics will do its job: the rich will get richer and the middle will be satisfied with the crumbs.  As for the poor, they somehow deserve their lot.

 

I told my friend too that I understand this middle-class privilege because I’ve also been lucky: I have a job with a steady income (that did not keep up with inflation, so like all of the middle class) and have saved from day one for my retirement.  Of course, without Social Security, even when the house and cars are paid off, I will have to sell just to survive or prevent bankruptcy.  The scale down necessary to live may have to be made no matter what I do.

I try to imagine what will happen to say my pal Mike, a successful contractor who paid for his kid's college, and works hard every day---he’s my age, which is to say past the age of full Social Security.   He has no retirement savings, having been an independent entrepreneur (while I had the luxury of an institutional job) and so has no recourse but to work so long as he literally can stand.  That the Republicans have vowed openly to dismantle Social Security and the rest of our meager commie pinko safety net is not something my friend’s financial advisor would have to concern himself with.  He’s not dealing with making ends meet; he’s about securing wealth.  Mike is, as he puts it, one accident away from catastrophe but until then he’ll carry on.

Our middle class situation is in reality not different from the past when the wealthy evinced no concern for middles or bottoms.  To put it plainly, the wealthy control our means of production and our outcomes, and we live on what is left, the crumbs.  In a transactional world where there is no moral care we can elect Trump---a person so depraved, so venal and mendacious that it is beyond any dispute.

 

I wondered aloud to my friend if her financial advisor had any moral education and that was no accusation---almost no one has since Vietnam taught us the big lies and the 80s enshrined individualism without any moral determinant, to wit, caring about others doesn't qualify as a moral concern when it doesn't make "financial sense."  

 

I assured my firend that Kamala will talk a good game about reversing the wealth inequities but she will accomplish almost nothing.   The money wins, that is a lesson we would be naïve to reject as mere cynicism.  You might pay a bit more in taxes, I told my friend, but Kamala’s not coming for your stuff.   We’ll be lucky if she can stop the Republicans from eliminating the only safety nets that middle class folk have: without Social Security, Medicare, the crumbs of the Great Society, I will end up like Mikey, just an accident or malady from selling it all to survive.  That is our system.  

 

That is also the world that will not really change if Kamala Harris is elected.  If Trump wins we will have told ourselves, America, a much simpler, clearer story: that nothing matters but selfishness, that moral turpitude is excusable because we love money and need not trouble ourselves with character.  I could detest people like my friend’s financial advisor who seems to have assumed this world view but I'm still too busy trying to figure out how to manage till death without going broke---having spent an entire adult life working for a living.

 

I have no righteousness or reason for complaint because I have no belief that Kamala or anyone is going to change the course of this transactional, morally bankrupt society that calls itself free.  There's no place for me to run, no one wants an old man with modest means.  If Trump wins, I don't know what my wife and I will do, empty-nesters and living in our autumn, but I think we shall see only a more violence and a more dangerous, precarious society.  A Trump victory is a victory for a failed democracy if democracy ever meant something like the greater good.

 

We are as a society incapable of asking who we want to be because that would tax our moral character and our pocketbooks.  The wealthy will find out that their choice ruined the world but not likely their finances: they will survive Trump though I doubt they will profit as much as they think.    As for the survival of society, that is not in question so much as what kind of society we become.  

I am not hopeful or joyful like Mrs Harris nor do I have any notion that arch of justice bends towards goodness.  I will live as if those things could be true because despair won’t help and cynicism defeats every future.  Everyday may America will prove with another Trump presidency that it is not worthy of its ideals. 

I should like to live and die with ideals, the rest may be just survival.  But as I said at the outset, I see no near end and that for now is the blessing.  I think my plans, well-made as they have been, may pull us through to the end but for America I see a road already taken I am grateful I will not live to see.  The future from where I sit looks far more dangerous than ever, no matter what happens to the likes of me.

 

A New Possibility--- Harris Offers the Alternative to Ignite a New Electorate

Harris rides in with an enthusiasm and possibility that we have not seen since Obama in '08. Had she gone through a grueling primary or if she were facing, say, Nicky Haley the contrast would still be important but this situation is noteworthy.

A few weeks ago she was not thinking of running for president. To take up this task now must be emotionally and intellectually challenging. Her honest loyalty and commitment to the Biden Administration made her one of his most stalwart and committed supporters. She was doing her job. Now her job is to rally the base and, quite possibily, bring new voters into this debate and conversation. She'll need help from those who can reach into that world---our media is siloed and sequestered as it has never been before. And she will need to help herself.

So far she has, at least in my humble opinion, been nothing short of brilliant. What we need to see the same maturity, thoughtfulness, and seriousness that she's so clearly shown since President Biden passed the torch. This will demonstrate vividly, unambiguously the kind of difference that will win Republican women, Never Trumpers, and others whose tribal loyalties influence their choices. But at the same time there is the opportunity to reach a generation of younger voters who have been disaffected and lamenting their choices. Well, the choice now could not be clearer. Keep dancing, laughing, being yourself, Ms Vice President: it's fetching, authentic, and convincing across the electorate.

We must not underestimate the vicious, shameless vitriol that will come from MAGA world. Those voters are, at least as I see it, unreachable. But they are also unnecessary to create a viable path to convincing victory. Harris simply will not appeal to the majority of those voters whose grievance entitlements, anger, latent and shameless racism are plain for all to see. The good news is that there are fewer of these voters than ever. How does Trump win new voters when Harris offers a serious, inviting alternative? I would expect the vaunted surge in minority men turning MAGA to flail.

Trump represents the past, both in the worst ways we have ever been Americans and in the more tangible and recent iterations. The current issues that Harris will highlight will not be lost on all voters but especially women who understand the threat that MAGA poses to their rights and the future---shall we add climate change, foreign policy, civil rights? Wherever we look the contrast in choices could not be more palpable or more stark.

The task is reach the majority, the solid 53+ or more percent of Americans who do not want the chaos and madness of another Trump Administration. Every day VP Harris and her cohort need to remind Americans of that derangement and delusion, the violence and incoherence of Trump. Do people really want to wake up everyday worrying what he will do next? What the next obscenity, stupidity, or impulse will create in our lives? VP Harris can be vital, a vision of the future that is at once stable, substantial, and reliable.

It is also possible to make this, as Obama did, a referendum on the future. We need a future emerging from a coherent present, an America that embraces change and offers perdurable truth and decency. This will appeal to those voters we must rally in the swing States. The message must draw out this contrast.

Do we really want to continue the ugly, pointless, mendacious, and chaotic conversations of the recent past? More about the phony stolen election? More about COVID and vaccines and injecting bleach? "Good people on both sides" when that means Nazi-esque nationalists?

VP Harris has a real opportunity not only to take us from this ugly past but to chart a future, a vision for all and for the middle class who she must champion to win.

I am admittedly surprised by the D establishment's solid, sober collective effort to unite and commit to a winning process. If VP Harris's performance continues as we just saw in Milwaukee and if she continues to win the battle of memes that will energize young voters, then there is a real chance. We must expect MAGA to be energized to answer to their cult leader. They will vote. Will we?

The election results could be decisive should a broad coalition of voters commit to the future and turn out. (Call me skeptical still because I prefer working the streets to wishful thinking.) We could really use such a decisive, unambiguous result. We know that the MAGA cult will accept no result but their victory, which is why a clear result for Harris in those Blue Wall States would be vital for our nation and our future.

With Biden in office, Harris the President-Elect, the next Jan 6th will be far harder to pull off---and that is not inconsequential. I think we can expect MAGA to incite violence every step of the way because that is what they have done in the past and have said they will do should they not be handed power.

But that is the future, albeit near and to be taken seriously. What is immediate is raising this threshold of enthusiasm to new levels. It is to take away the dread and despair that has, at least for me, been palpable and disabling. I confess that in recent weeks I simply could not stand the news. My tangible dread wore into my soul. I don't think I was alone in those feelings. Now, with real possibility and work to do, there is time to turn things around.

We need to put our collective best foot forward and do the right thing, day after day for the next hundred and some days. We will find out what America is about and even if that result is disaster, we will know something important, honest, real. We must rally to goodness, each of us, no matter how small it may seem. What we can do together is not small, it is a call to greatness and to a real future. To be frank, we know the alternative is ruinous, and that must not be allowed to happen. It is time to rally.

The Choice Before Us Made Clear

It's amazing what a pause and some paws can do for an aching heart. I had a long day and a longer night following Sunday afternoon's announcement that Biden was stepping down. I felt wearied, despairing, relieved too but wondering what comes next. I dove into pictures of the pup when all seemed lost.  But even that was not enough.  When feeling disconcerted, balled up, and woolly, I do my best to reengage reason. I think we need to be discerning.  Ask the hard questions.   This is no time to clutch pearls or form the circular firing squad.

We humans often need rage and the entire complexity of emotion to find our core but we always need calm to reveal its meaning. Let me be clear, I'm deeply, genuinely worried about our collective fate as a nation. I think there is also a plan unfolding for Democrats.

 

Since the debate I have not believed President Biden was in position to win reelection despite my belief that his presidency has been among the most effective and beneficial terms in our history. Not the least of his accomplishments has been to keep, as far as possible, the barbarians at the gate. This is no ordinary political opposition we face but instead a dangerous, likely existential threat to democracy and decency itself. 

 

But now is the time to draw out the important real differences and choices that people need to understand. As usual, I need write to clarify in my own head what the heart feels when the turmoil is real. Sometimes a dark night of the soul and the very early morning need to meet for a good conversation.

 

By deciding not to run for his office in 2024, Joe Biden joins the most honorable politicians of our history. He has put country before himself and before party as a clear and unambiguous choice. This is not merely because he has been facing the very real prospect of a loss. Rather, it is because the president sees Donald Trump as a threat to American democracy.  He has not been wrong about this.

I think we all agree to the latter point: I have been nothing less than distraught for our future. Biden did what he could to make his case, to recover but he has always been a savvy politician. Now all will know beyond any doubt he is both a wise and decent person. Republican responses will be as predictable as they are disingenuous but the facts speak plainly: Biden has done what is right thing, not the politically expedient or self-aggrandizing thing.

 

Republican responses will be as predictable as they are disingenuous but the facts speak plainly: Biden has done what is right thing, not the politically expedient or self-aggrandizing thing. 

 

If the political calculation was that we were facing 2016 again, this time we know none of the supposed adults in the room who guided Trump during his tenure would be present. A next Trump administration would be staffed as such by the worst opportunists, cranks, and extremists. This possibility has not diminished one bit in the last 24 hours nor will it unless Trump is defeated. The courts are well-positioned to support a new, worse Trumpism. The corrupt conservative majority on the Supreme Court has already invited Trump to rule as king---or worse as dictator. This is what is directly before us. 

Biden faced with this nightmare scenario, which he understood plainly in 2020, did the most courageous thing he could have done again. But this time he ended his candidacy rather than decided to begin it. How hard must that have been for him?

 

Faced with what he sees as a nightmare scenario both for his party and his nation, President Biden decided to end his candidacy.

 

I too hope never to become a defensive, brittle old man who cannot hear the concerned and rational voices of those around him. But I have no such burden as Joe Biden. We all must come to grips with the facts and in Biden's case that was the fact that he was the Democrat least likely to defeat Trump. Understanding this hard truth, he listened, understood, and made what is certainly a personally painful decision. (When my time comes, I hope too to hear the voices of reason and love coincide to reach the best choice.) 

 

I don't know whether Biden’s replacement will fare better in November.  But I do think there is now an actual replacement.  That unknowing her fate is not mere cynicism but rather I think another fact. Having given this a lot more thought, I think Biden again made the best and wisest political choice. Rather than a repeat of 1968 he quickly and unequivocally endorsed his vice president. Democrats must coalesce to have a chance to win and Vice President Harris is not only the logical political choice but eminently qualified for the office.

 

What we need is a fighting chance, not a fight amongst ourselves that will leave us further fractured and incapable of rallying when our time to decide is short and requires communication and comity.

 

Recently, Biden said he was eager to get back to the campaign trail but now with Harris leading the ticket this kind of barnstorming and the vital messaging of policy and fact can be undertaken wholly, entirely. We know she can do this. So much will depend on how well she does over these next 100 or so days. She must project the clarity, stability, and competence we know she possesses as an experienced politician and as a person. She must be keenly aware that any stumble or gaffe will be used to declare her unfit while Trump bungles and speaks with typical incoherence. I do not underestimate her task because misogyny, racism, and history also speak plainly in America.

We should expect Republicans not only to go into culture-war overdrive but to exploit every fear, anxiety, and grievance their voters harbor. They will couch much of their criticism in typical rhetoric saying she is too Californian, too liberal while simultaneously claiming that as a former prosecutor, she is too conservative. In every breath they will imply that she is too female and too Black though they won't say that out loud---or maybe they will. Nothing is beneath them. 

 

But be prepared for all of the dog whistles and gratuitous fakes that amp up to 11. Their constituencies will lap this up and Harris will need both to address them directly and allow important surrogates get out the message that these are wanton, indefensible attacks without merit. We're not facing anything like an ordinary election's usual vitriol. This one will be different because Kamala Harris is different in ways America must address as a feature of our history. The fate of the country is before us. Biden understood this. Harris does too and will have the determination to make clear the stakes.

 

Trump knows only narcissism and a personal vanity that makes him incapable of making such choices. What he does possess is an animal instinct to prey upon fear, anger, and hatred. It will take keen political skills in communication to break through such veils of delusion and disinformation. Trump has whole propoganda networks and billionaire support to shore up his base and amplify the lies. 

 

But from today the difference between Democrats and Republicans could not be clearer. Biden's age is no longer a factor. Instead, it is unmasking Trump's increasing disabilities. Further Democrats must make clear that their younger, more vibrant, capable, and coherent candidate is not a party of one. Democrats are not a cult of personality driven by a bellowing, muddled raving lunatic. Only one political party has brought the adults to the room while the other proposes a would-be dictator. This message can reach voters in key swing states if it is presented plainly and honestly.

 

 

Virtually no Republicans called out Trump when he insulted veterans repeatedly or called the nation's war dead "losers." He has been found liable for sexual abuse, which according to a federal judge was tantamount to rape. He has been convicted of business fraud and has hoarded government secrets when he wasn't offering them up to our enemies. When he lost the election, he sent a mob to attempt a coup. Show those pictures again and again and again.

 

Trump is a pestilence, not a candidate for the nation's highest office. There is nothing "normal" here and that must not be understated. With Biden stepping down all false equivalency can end. Biden is not only a good man but has a record of accomplishment. That record can and must be run on, voiced with conviction for all the genuine good that it has produced. The contrast could not be plainer: Trump's presidency was an incompetent disaster led by an ignorant and selfish man---one who cost the country millions of lives when faced with pandemic. What would Trump do next time? Matters at home must be attended to before it is too late. 

 

The choice is now between a 78-year-old habitual liar whose life offers records of shame and failure and a 59-year-old woman who has served honorably as an effective attorney general of the country's most populous State, a senator, and now vice president of the United States. The contrast could not be clearer.

I see Harris as vulnerable for reasons Americans do not like to discuss openly or honestly. But I would also not refrain from assessing her record with sober skepticism, as we must of any other politician. She may be the "natural" next in line---as of this morning nearly every one of her serious opponents has thrown their support to her---but in the end she a candidate that must rise to the occasion to win. She can draw the contrast between one who understands the gravity of the presidency and all it entails and Trump who simply does not. Let us hope for several debates. 

Anyone who has been flustered or despaired an election between two old white men now has no excuses for indecision. Vice President Harris will be an experienced and capable candidate. Republicans in a fever-dream of delusions are fielding Trump. Will young people, women, veterans, people of color, all citizens of America understand the difference and the choice? That is the task of the 106 days before our election. The task is mighty and so much can happen. Let us make this happen.

 

The Cliches of Hope and Faith in Our Slow Walk to Catastrophe

When a cliche is true it's not mere repetition that makes it so. It's said Democrats fall in love, Republicans fall in line. The new "falling in line" is a cultic sycophancy that threatens democracy itself. The pursuit of power and radical ideology has brought the former R-Party to surrender to a criminal, a liar whose shamelessness is matched only by his incompetence and idiocy.

I think the vast majority of Not Trump voters know the danger we face as a nation. That there are people undecided, both-sides-ing, making equivalence, or indifferent tells us how much peril we face should he gain power. I think the nation as we know it will not survive more Trump, to say nothing of the nihilism and religious fanaticism of Project 2025. Trump is their dupe even as his dupes and the clueless American public hide inside their vacant souls.

Our problem is that Joe's decline is manifest and to deny makes the future even more precarious. We who love and admire him are in a quandary because we neither want to humiliate nor demean his good work. I have not fallen out of love, to use the cliche. I have awoken to the fact that there are no good choices before us, that the path to victory which was always narrow looks to be closing down.

In this media environment (siloed, tribal, bothsides-ism, etc.) with its inattentive and civicly illiterate electorate locked into a system that favors minority rule, I think we see no easy way through and no clear alternatives. We cannot coronate VP Harris and there are no clear or well-recognized candidates, all seem to have electoral liabilities.

The real politick lies in this question: who can sustain the Blue Wall, win enough "swing states" to prevent the catastrophe that awaits us if we do not. This is not Reagan or W or some other R with bad ideas. This is the end of democracy, handing power to a fool so inept and dangerous that we know national survival is at stake.

I think Democrats do have a way forward if Joe steps down. And that is to engage a full on media blitz as candidates come forward. Then the convention becomes the will of the people. What is more likely is internecine warfare, a party that is hopelessly driven into corners, interest groups lost in ideological contests that stand no chance of winning those swing states. But I think we have no choice and there may be a chance.

The chance lies in the fact that Americans love new, shiny things. They love drama more than content. They prefer contest to conversation and the superficial to the serious. We must play on exactly those traits: Americans may be unfit for the real tasks of democracy but IF you can get their attention, you can get out a message.

Who has the chops, the charisma, who is the shiny object candidate with just enough gravitas to get this electorate's attention and convince them of their competence? Running against Trump to save democracy will provide 98% of the 47% needed to win. Someone has to grab those last few points in WI, MI, PA, and somewheres else. Who has that kind of presence?

That we don't see that person among the potential candidates, the ones mentioned again as real contenders makes me shudder. and vainly conceal my despair. This can't be a pipe dream or a delusion of ideological grandeur. It has to be someone who can win the midwest and the suburbs: that has to be the plain objective of the D-party. Will that be clear when every candidate ambitious enough to be president is surrounded by people who want to be near power?

I'm not just worried about these facts. I'm downright distraught. And Joe, as far as I can tell, has mistaken being stalwart and steady with stubborn and unaware. It's not fair but Ruth Bader Ginsburg did the same thing: she stayed so long that we could not act before it was too late. And now look where we are.

Hope is what you have when you have nothing else, no real options. Hope is desperation's consoling fantasy. I dislike and distrust hope as much as "have faith"---and saying that wins me fewer friends and is frankly bad for business. But we're going to need hope because we are at an end of sane choices and we're going to have to have faith that those voters who will decide for the majority come to their senses. Fat chance. But it's what you have when your chances are dimmer by the day. Time for someone to step up. Maybe Obama and the wise can mobilize this America? If we lose, we will live to see our end and with that much of the world too will fall to chaos and authoritarianism.

Sally Forth

Sorting Out Time, Personal Secrets, Gotta Have Some Lucky

June 6, 2024

This morning I woke up thinking about June 6, 1944. But I will leave that for another time. It's summer here. At last.

I've been sorting out time, summers are short and beautiful here in the north country. I am lucky to carve out enough to do a few worthwhile things---helping with the garden though Susan does the real work, riding the bike because age and bones are real, spending time in my study with the gods and the dead. How lucky. University life is still necessary, likely good for me since I might otherwise see no actual living beings other than the postman, but at this point the college steals time I would spend otherwise. There are five enrolled in a class that once had hundreds. Who has changed?

How can we really live when all we do is work? The American way, late stage capitalism is truly, utterly soulless. Who could we be if we had some time to sort that out?

For now, I am able to find a few hours to swivel back and forth between the work----the Sansrkit and Tamil I need for Camp and fall Rajanaka offerings, this is largely a pleasure---and the Bard who is now always a pleasure.

It is a life goal that I should have more than one complete, slow reading of Shakespeare. This takes time. At least for me. I didn't read much as a kid. But I've not been alone: Harold Bloom makes it a joy, such erudition and clarity. Dozens of his lectures are free on YouTube. Professor Bloom, thank you. Why did I not go to Yale and make this my life? Bloom has far too narrow a view of greatness---clearly he knows nothing of Kalidasa, Chomei, Dogen, Bhavabhuti, Tu Fu or Li Po. But he sure knows his Bard.

I read Romeo and Juliet first at 14. I remember so vividly. We had this school book that made the noble effort of comparing R&J with West Side Story. Of course this had never occurred to me. I loved West Side Story, who could not? Now to be told it had come from Shakespeare? I don't think my parents knew any of that, they were once Broadway but never Globe. By the time I came along all of that past of theirs had vanished or had to be foregone just to survive.

Bernstein premiered WSS on Broadway in 1957, the film came in '61, I had seen it every time it came on TV, black&white in our house. I wanted to dance like that. I'd seen Astaire and Kelly too. That was music I have never stopped loving. (I'm on an AmSongbook/Standards bender as I write.)

But I never learned to do those things. I wanted to play music with that kind of soul and wit and attitude. But I was too busy playing sports, being a kid outside, chasing rock n' roll and girls as soon as I knew there were girls. It was considered---and I hope you will forgive me this language---you were called a "sissy" if you dug those things. How stupid and horrid and ignorant that was---but such was the age.

I grew up with these artists and musicians as my literal neighbors. Now I have learned more, that my father had done some of these things, but things he never spoke about---recently found out that he had jobs as a Broadway show rehearsal pianist, playing at night and did some Tin Pan Alley work as song-plugger, and then there were under study roles as a dancer. Why didn't he tell me any of this? Why didn't he ask me if I wanted those lessons when all I knew was Little League? We don't know until we're lucky enough to learn.

Then at 16 I was taken to see Othello. I had been brought into NYC culture by a church choir mistress who had a full time job at Riverside and a part time job at the church I attended alone, without my family's slightest interest. What kind of kid sends himself to church? But it's true. It took a long time to learn that the theology is just lies, manipulation, and an endless dose of existential fear in pursuit of certainty (another lie). But what I had fallen into were people not much interested in any of that stuff---but who had realized how religion held together culture and art, and how "church" meant civil rights, changing the world, ending the war.

So in this world I learned what my parents knew little about: Lincoln Center culture, literature, The New Yorker, a world of museums and Chinese food and the civil rights movement. Those last two years before college I was just lucky: adults showed me another kind of world and then the late nights I created alone (or with a few select pals) downtown for jazz at The Vanguard, Seventh Ave South, The Blue Note. I would catch the last bus across the bridge, never be found missing in the mornings, my parents none the wiser.

My parents who did not approve any of those "church people" but I think they saw correctly that the priest was abuser or at least more than a little sketchy. I was spared because my "church people" had warned me of him and spoke diffidently about religion itself.

But the parents could not object to what they did not know. My secrets were best left in vagaries, "Oh the Church people are taking me to the ballet..." But those folks---bless them---not much interested in religion as such, thank goodness, only music and art, poetry and theatre. I learned how pipe organs are built and that it was okay to play jazz if it was in the undercroft after hours.

Now when I listen to Professor Bloom lecture on the Bard I am able to follow, read with love not struggle just to understand what is merely being said. And I think about being lucky and about how we're just born to the worlds, to the parents, to the life we are without consent but---again if we are very lucky---with choices. I think there are a few more to make. But ya' gotta have some of The Lucky.

Enter Rajanaka Fire: Repost from Facebook Group January 2024

"My Fellow Americans..." I've Changed the Name of the Group, Again.

Many of you can still hear Richard Nixon's voice here. It sends shivers down my spine. That of course is when we thought the worse thing that could happen to America was Nixon. Oh my, were we wrong. Reagan. Bush. And now this. Because last night some 164,000+ people thought that Trump should be president again. You mean the sheer chaos, menace, and con game wasn't enough the first time?

Part of me wants to bury my head in the sand until I come out to vote in November. Another me wants to sneak into Canada far enough north never to be discovered, simply disappear with polar bears. Suz and I talk about leaving but who wants these old folks? I would like to think he'll get trounced but I was wrong in 2016, which leads me back to these 164THOUSAND people. I feel ashamed, bewildered, angry, maddened, provoked, downright splenetic when I think these are actual voters, real people this corrupt, stupid, beguiled, or actually as vile. To think we have 10 months more before, no matter the result of a free and fair election, he rejects any result that does not confer upon him absolute power. Anyone paying 20 seconds of attention can hear sane people shouting from the rafters, genuinely alarmed, pleading with people to see the danger and the depravity. But no. This is Amur'ka where stupitwhitepeople and even some others are determined to live in an alternative reality as ruinous and deluded as we know them to be.

So what do we do? Hold our breath? Endless pranayama? Resort to the utter bullshit that It's All One and there is nothing to worry about? Say hopeful nonsense that soothes, dismisses, and mitigates? This situation is enough to make me read the Yoga Sutras as if that inane, escapist palaver were possible. You know, sort out your prakrti and enter into realization of purusa that is immune, disinfected, and forever unsusceptible to the real world. The alternative? I dunno, some Tantric claim to grandiosity, unanswerable authority, and personal prepotency that claims nothing can affect me? Good luck with that. And if you need that kinda' guru, I know just where to look. We could sing Hari Krsna all night not just cause we (might) think it's fun (please, go knock yerself out, I'll be waiting in the hall with my headphones locked into Coltrane), but because we think there is a Mystical, Divine, Blissful state that can relieve us or, better yet, save us. I'm not going to rain on your kirtan (at least not more than I just have) but I don't think that's gonna make this mess better once the hari wears off yer krsna. So what next?

Not every Eagles song sucks because we learn that every form of refuge has its price. I'm gonna need to work on my own personal Peaceful Easy Feeling, no doubt. And it's my own fault that I thought it couldn't get worse than Nixon (or maybe Reagan) and that Obama's election really did mean something. Well, what it meant was I underestimated our fellow citizens for whom I have no more f**ks to give except that that is not an option. Should we give up, not care, ignore, deny, or retreat, the villains will ruin not just me and you but people waaaaaay more vulnerable. We cannot abdicate or fail to act somehow.

I have never been on Joe's case 'cause I think he's the most consequential president in my lifetime---in terms of meaningful legislation actually passed, to say nothing of having paused utter catastrophe. But maybe we stop hating the gub'mint and start being citizens.

A student yesterday came to my office hours. He said, "I can't possibily assimilate the amount of information you offer in a lecture. Can you tell me what the important points are?" I replied, "You're not in college for me to tell you what I think is important since clearly I think it's all important. You're in college to figure out what you think is important. Sorting that out is why you are here, the information is just...information. What's important will will require tat you learn how to think." We're going to need to sort things out.

Thanks for Joseph for the suggestion. I think he nailed it. The world is on fire. We'd better sort this out before it really is too late.

Trump's Immunity Tells the Story and Democracy Itself at Stake

It's mid January 2024 and I ask where shall we be one year from now, no matter the clear outcome of the coming election? Let's take a nearer look to offer some future predictions.

I shan't go on about the despicable behavior we witnessed again yesterday in the NY Federal Court. Suffice it to say, Trump proved himself again above the law by acting in ways that would not be tolerated by any other defendant. There are many reasons why this behavior will further bolster his support with the R-MAGA Party, which is now the entire R-Party. (You've likely taken note of endorsements this week from Rubio, Cruz, et.al. The rest will fall in line, be assured.)

Why does this fascism appeal? Let us leave aside the religious machinations that form the psychopathy of Christian Evangelicals. (To say that these people are "not real Christians" is, btw, utter nonsense. To suggest that there are other Christians offended by them is merely to repeat the common historical fact that religious identity is itself disputatious. People are who they say they are, always start there. Then sort out who's who and why they think as much. This is critical thinking 101.) The simplest (not the only) explanation is that all of his behavior can be summarized in one word: immunity. Immunity means that whatever he does or says is utterly beyond consequence and that any suggestion otherwise will be met with violent threats and retribution. So again, why is this appealing to so many? For those terrified, insecure, aggrieved, entitled, and convicted of their own victimization, such claims to certainty, impunity, violence, and immunity from consequence is their own greatest aspiration. That Trump does it, means he emulates their own depraved ambition and yearning. That this will result in vindictive cruelties or demand mendacity, conspiracy, denial of fact, rejection of law, civility, or decency is not as important as the power this enjoins. Their aim is to gain such power by any means and sustain it however possible, including violence. None of this is speculation: we have a proven record given their use of the Big Lie, insurrection, etc. None of these behaviors depend on their beliefs. It matters not whether they actually believe Trump's lies or make them their own. They may repeat all of his claims but this has little to do with conviction, belief, or even faith. Rather, saying whatever will provide the emotional satisfaction and fuel their deeper need to experience the "immunity or else" effect is all that is required. To keep asking whether MAGAs believe this or that claim is to misunderstand their agenda. Beliefs are always a cover for deeper needs, hopes, aspirations, and wants. Pull away this cover and the pleasure, the feeling that MAGAs get from being aggrieved, angry, fearful, certain, and immune is more important than any stated belief or idea.

Once immunity has become the most important feature of one's deeper motivations and actions then virtually anything is possible. There are literally no longer rules except those that can be imposed on others. The mob may turn on itself or any individual, paranoia and loyalty are its most operative functions. Each can claim to be acting, as their God does, with impunity because they have the power and power itself is righteous justification. (This is not an unfair reading of the God of Job's claim over Job.) Fascism is its own religion, Trump is their savior, they want the same power he has to be beyond any reach of accountability, to do as they please, claim any prerogative, impose any behavior, punish any objectors without due process, and above all scapegoat their "others". To compare MAGA with Nazi fascism is no longer a disqualifying exaggeration. To fail to compare MAGA with these precedents of history will prove fatal to democracy. My real concern is not that the majority of Americans agree with this kind of racist, fascist politics. Rather, it is that the majority is either too naive to understand that this is the only matter that must be considered come November or too indifferent to notice. Personal resignation and nihilism are now ordinary features of the American psyche.

"Progressives" may not want to vote for Biden, the young may be too aggrieved and refuse to see the danger their third party vote poses. Many will be too preoccupied, indifferent, or estranged to appreciate how the blessings of a pluralist democracy will vanish and what that means for their lives. Will the Dobbs decision have electoral effects? Will folks care about the facts rather than their feelings and perceptions of the economy, the effect on international relations, the loss of freedom across the world? As America goes so goes the world, only for worse. It can yet be worse as the planet burns and the forces of totalitarianism and religious fanaticism bring more death and devastation. None of this is predictive. I do think Trump can win and I despair that recognition because it tells me who my neighbors and fellow Americans really are. I am not only appalled by the fact that this will be a close election, I cannot even respect those who abdicate our broken politics when faced with this emergency before us. This is duty's arena. Those who can endorse Trump are beyond the pale and persuasion---they have had years to see what it before us, no matter what they chose in the past. Those who sit this out are not friends to decency, neither intellectually or morally fit for citizenship in a democracy. It's going to be a long 11 months and then no matter the outcome of the election, the Immune will not admit defeat. Is violence inevitable even in the face of a crushing defeat? Of course it is. Those who cannot admit to any fact but their own certainty to rule will not hesitate to do anything to regain power. I'm going to change the name of this Group again. We started as Rajanaka Storm and changed to Sky when Trump lost. It's time we raise the alarms again. Suggestions welcome.