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.

The World is Stranger Than Religion Can Imagine

 That we make the cut and have evolved to be human is miracle enough. Usually I don't land the plane first.

I refer to the last two paragraphs from Ross Douthat, the rightwing Catholic columist for the NYTimes, in a piece entitled "Where Does Religion Come From?" Unsurprisingly, Douthat argues for supernaturalism as if it's there to be found, like UFOs. I could go on here about how he confuses different forms of the imagination and our needs but he does concede that people conjure divinity for the purposes of inidividual consolation (aka the existential crisis) for fear of death and because they seek to share a social narrative that locates them in support communities. What's interesting to me about this piece isn't Douthat's utterly lame argument for the supernatural, it's that he buys into his own need it to make himself feel better about death and community narratives. The irony is pours like motor oil off the page.

He writes also, “[T]he world is much stranger than the secular imagination thinks.”

Douthat is confused: the world is much stranger than the religious imagination can think. Religious imagination reduces reality to narrative fantasies without necessary regard for logic. We'll tell ourselves nearly anything, including conspiracies and fact denial, because it feels better. Why not prefer our imperfect human understandings of reality that demystifies as better methods and more evidence emerges.

He concludes:
"Given the existence and influence of Christianity, it makes sense that some intellectuals in a decadent post-Christian society would be drawn back toward its consolations. But why were we given Christianity in the first place? Why are we being given whatever we’re being given in the U.F.O. phenomenon?

The only definite answer is that the world is much stranger than the secular imagination thinks."

Here is what I wrote in reply in public:
People need personal consolation because mortality and death are real and they need each other for support because, well, life is hard. All of the narratives of religion about divinity are factual nonsense but at least Douthat acknowledges that people use nonsense because they need consolation. Once you dispense with the supernaturalism, you can get on with loving a life that ends with death. I'm not thrilled with extinct because I've gratitude for the miracle of experiencing mortal consciousness. I still like living. It's a "miracle" not because science and humans can't explain it but because we can.

Chop wood, fetch water as the Zen adage puts it.

Here's the Douthat link:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/15/opinion/religion-christianity-belief.html

America's Angry Children and the Real Future of Democracy

It appears that a significant number of people in my personal demographic---mostly older white folks, more of them rural than suburban, more of them much more religious than I---neither understand democracy or reject it. They may not know they reject democracy because they don't in fact understand it.

In all cases their behavior resembles that of petulant children (with apologies to real petulant children) or of authoritarians. These folks like authoritarians so long as they look like them or fuel their grievances and claims. What we are seeing while the world burns, war rages in Europe and Middle East, and the country is less than a month from closing down is not a Republican Party that is merely dysfunctional. That is far too kind and understates the problem.

 

It would be an error to think there is a mature and governing majority within the larger Republican Conference or that it is but a few raging children, like Jordan or Gaetz, who need to get out of the way. The fact of the matter is that the current R-Maga Congress was elected by their voters not to govern. The majority of these elected representatives voted overwhelmingly not to certify the last election and cannot or simply will not admit that it was legitimate. It's hard to believe anything they say because they will say anything.

 

Those who are not election deniers will resume drowning government in their bathtub of grievances, conspiracies, and fantasies because that makes their voters feel good. The point of being elected isn't to do the difficult business of democratic government, it is merely to please those who vote and give you money.

 

What we have before us as a country might be called a Cold Insurrection but in fact appears to be its own kind of Slow-Walking and Not Without Violence Civil War. Trump just said on his platform that the people have "other rights" to secure the "justice" of his First Amendment rights, which should include threats and calls to violence directed at anyone who disagrees with him. By that he clearly meant that the Second Amendment somehow gives people the right to overthrow the government should it appear that the rule of law does not suit them. 

 

Leaving aside that even this current corrupt SCOTUS could not endorse as a majority that utterly ridiculous interpretation of "the right to bear arms," it is nightly stated on Fox and Newsmax to titillate their viewers. Jim Jordan's stated aim is authoritarian rulership, that is, government not by democracy and compromise but instead absolute rule or more cynically by simply rejecting the function of any government.

 

The real problem is that Republican voters have apparently internalized every bit of the cynicism that Trump and the GOP opportunists around him use to manipulate them. They care not for any connection between national politics and the health and security of the United States. They have never known a United States that is as broken as they hope to make it, so their soothing lies and fantasies of destroying the deep state are more like the next good show on TV.

Ironically these voters, a fairly significant portion of whom, rely on the government for their very survival in the form of Social Security, Medicare, etc., must rely on everyone else (aka Democats) who they deride as the “deep state" to keep the country functioning. Wouldn't want Big Government to take away their Medicare, now would we? Unfortunately, and I say this with no glee, Republican voters are apparently that stupid.

 

That they prefer to vote for masters of performative nonsense, like Jordan and Gaetz, needs no further explanation: all of the Angriest Children and all but a few in not yet gerrymandered districts will get landslide reelections. But it matters not that these are the Angriest Children because the entire party has proven itself rotten to the core. Shall we ask Liz Cheney?

 

The MAGA voter will reelect representatives who do nothing for “forgotten” working families because it is Democrats who have somehow left them behind. Fox makes sure to stoke that grievance every day because anger secures eyeballs and makes for profit. Elected MAGA grifts on the endless narrative of discontent, conspiracy, and blame because that is more lucurative than serving their constituents with law making. Benghazi! Hunter Biden! Whatever the flavor of the day is, there's room for more soothing lies that capitalizes on ignorance and performative anger.

 

"Conservative" Never Trumpers argue that MAGA is not conservative. But this is yet more nonsense. Theirs has always been welfare for the rich and corporate profit over every other consideration: their trickledown economics, "private sector solutions" for medical care, education, the environment, even civil rights have been nothing but catastrophic folly. 

 

"Conservative" ideals---smaller government, tax relief for the rich, deregulation---have been shown time and again to produce only more economic disparities and civil injustices. They bought the Gipper's lies because it sounds great and fills the pockets of their donors. Why this isn't obvious to any who claim decency when even their own economists admit to their motives is yet another characteristic of their failure. Follow the money to figure out why they don't care. 

 

But there are no "conservatives" even of this ilk left in Congress who aren't merely MAGA. MAGA doesn't care about any of these "conservative" objectives unless it profits them and keeps them in power. The usual failed conservative policies only serve this cynical objective. And to be clear: there are no elected Republicans who are not MAGA. Trump is almost certainly their standard bearer and they will all fall in line.

 

We can reasonably ask why so many rural white voters, especially of a certain age, vote as they do for policies that don't serve their actual lives? First, like all Americans, they think this way because they have never had to live under a government that has actually been so dysfunctional as to cease operation, or has been burned down, or defunded. Jordan and the Angriest Children have made careers only out of encouraging such nihilism. This makes them unfit to govern but effective politicians because they never intended to govern.

 

They will get elected by gerrymandered majorities and if given power will only foster more chaos: it's not a quirk, it's a feature. But here's the more important point that strikes home at the real problem before us: they actually do deliver what their voters want. Peering into living rooms blasting Fox, the MAGA voter wants a good show, and that means show trials, passion plays, and, above all, confirmation of their own misery while watching other people also feel unsettled and angry. The miserable also want "those people" who are coming for their stuff to be miserable or dead: it's not merely we didn't get ours, it's that they got ours. This is the message coming out of their information silos and anything to the contrary is "fake news."

 

To admit otherwise would be to admit their own mistakes and failures and, well, that just won't do, MAGA voters are incapable of recognizing serious legislators because by definition they reject compromise. They call this recalcitrant nihilism being "principled" when in fact it is an ignorance of the democratic system itself. When democracy gets in the way of their world view and, more significantly, their tender self-esteem then that doesn't matter either.

 

You can't be committed to democracy if you don't understand it and MAGA voters are more like a case study in widespread group Dunning Kruger Effect than actual citizens of a functioning republic. Fox and elected MAGAs know to keep the circus lively and tell their viewers how smart they really are.

 

They've done the research, you know, on things like vaccines by reading stuff on the internet that proves the Deep State is trying to anniliate them. That science saved so many of them from disease and death isn't even a distant memory---that can be as soon as fifteen minutes ago given attention span---but because they never learned the truth. They were too busy listening to Republicans like DeSantis and watching Fox.

 

MAGAs have been told that Trump will win in a landslide and that their favorite representative will stand by their president. Gerrymandering likely insures that their elected representatives remain in place to take their money and grift on their grievance. But it won't matter if they lose because they will not accept the results.

We're headed either for another January 6th Insurrection or a Speakership that will not accept the Electoral College results. Any of them are capable of rejecting votes because they don't believe every American actually should get to vote. Republican "leadership" knows that they are going to need to be the vote counters to win in the crucial places and have long realized that majority elections at the presidential level are irrelevant to their rulership goals. There would be a need to burn down the government should they lose because they could not control the outcomes.

 

They are actively engaged of course in doing just that: controlling process and outcome to assert their rule, which makes them wealthy and keeps the TV appearances coming in. If this sounds too cynical, I suggest we merely consider what is in fact happening right before our eyes.

 

The threat to democracy extends to the Russians, the Chinese, the Saudis and other authoritarians who see our failures more clearly than we do. But if the hopes of the American people rest with the American people then I say we're in for much worse than we can blame on others. Is there any reason to believe this Cold Insurrection will fail? Landslide victories from Democrats and a wise Joe Biden easily elected to a second term defeating Trump who will likely already be a convicted felon is perhaps our only real hope for better. 

 

Democracy Must Save Itself

There is still media talk about a Republican reckoning, that Trump’s legal troubles will catch up with voters.  These voters loathe the notion of Democrats in power, particularly a second Biden term, but are going to finally concede to Trump’s unelectability.

The argument here is that there is more at stake than Trump himself and that the Republican Party’s political objectives are significant enough to distance from Trump.  What else could DeSantis or Tim Scott or Nikki Haley be thinking?  Thinking?  This requires the presumption that MAGA voters, the base of the party that no Republican can win without, are indeed motivated by political interests.  That they are moved by policy ideas.  Trumpism is indeed rooted in an idea but it only political inasmuch as it embodies a menacing look that means to become retribution against enemies.  Trumpism is inseparable from him, from what that mugshot means and him.

We needn't go so far as to say that MAGA voters have no politics or that politics does not inform their choices.  But it is a mistake to see their loyalty to Trump as political.  The presumption that politics determines the choice of the MAGA base is just plainly false.

 

Trump is a cult leader, not a politician because that is what MAGA loves about him. It’s not about particular policies, though cultists are often bemused by slogans (including those that appear to be policies, like "build the wall") and the sheer fun of it all.  It’s really about being part of it, and it isn’t more than what he is so long as he provides the entertainment.  What is most entertaining is the feeling, including the exhilaration and the sense of power that MAGA means you can do what you want, and particularly what you want to do to them.

It’s like going to the game.  You root for "us", for "our team" and against "them."   It’s what you do.  It’s who you are.  You don’t change fandom from week to week, much less to the opposition.  At best you might lose interest.  But that takes time, much more time than we have before the 2024 election.  MAGA will die a slow death made from its own boredom before it succumbs to truth or shame.

 

Cults often do espouse beliefs and even consistent  beliefs---but this is not a particular feature of Trumpism.  The fact that Trumpism isn’t about beliefs is a key to understanding that it is more about belonging and being one of us.  In Trumpism identifying through him is the point.  Ramaswamy out Trumping Trump makes not one iota of difference.  He is the point because he tells his followers that they need nothing but him to have everything they want.

In Trump’s mugshot you see it all: it is about defiance, about giving them what for, it's about exactly what he said: I am your revenge.  Such a base emotional commitment is more than enough to rally the fandom.  Nothing can make a Red Sox fan ever admit the Yankees are less loathsome.  But here the team isn't a cast of players or a franchise or an institution, it's him.

Cults don’t need to be religious to make devotion and heresy essential elements of identity.   Trump stands for the kind of self-identity that will not be denied, not in the fact of facts or even criminal conviction.

Without MAGA, no current R-candidate can consolidate enough votes to win the nomination and MAGA has no intention of leaving Trump no matter what he says or does.  As indictments pile up and the real threat of conviction on any number of crimes manifests, the majority of R-voters will rally around their leader. They may not like Trump any more than the evidence before them but to change teams at this point is to admit failure, a failure that pre-dates Trump's take over of their party.  These folks simply cannot vote for the D and will more than likely pull that R lever under any circumstances.  Just ask them.  There will be no such reckoning on political grounds because we are no longer dealing with a political movement.

That so-called “reasonable” Republicans, like the governors of Virginia and New Hampshire, are acting as if the politics are at stake is shameful.  Worse.  It is morally contemptible.  Continuing to say that the fate of the country is in fact a matter of politics, that is, of Democratic policies they cannot abide is more than a mere failure of imagination or political dissimulation.  It is a serious, even profound moral failure that must be assigned and repeated until their shame, conscience, and intellectual dishonesty becomes unbearable, even for the power-craven.

Nearly all elected Republicans have announced that there is nothing is more important than preventing another Democratic victory: they raise hands, like their Junior Varsity colleagues on stage at the Republican “debate”, agreeing to support whoever is the R-nominee, knowing full well that if Trump bears their standard they will have likely participated in the end of America as it has existed at least since 1864.   Apparently, the need for power and the ability to dissimulate for the sake of personal survival is more important than the fate of the republic.  

 

So the most important question isn’t whether Trumpism is a political movement but what we are going to do in face of a cult that appears powerful enough to take political power because so many are willing to deny the danger the cult leader poses to democracy itself.

To call MAGA a cult is not hyperbolic.  I think it wise in fact to avoid hyperbole just as it is to continue to address Republican voters with a certain stoic curiosity about their choices.  It’s unlikely Trump is moving any previous Biden voters.  Our partisanship is as immovable as Rs are unpersuadable from their cult mind.

 

In terms of behavior, the assimilation of information, and emotional connection, Trump has near complete control over his followers.  Information is siloed and restricted such that followers are told what to accept and what can be ignored.  Few actual beliefs or principles are at work because in this form of cultism more important is purity,  that is, that one remains inside the group.  Purity translates directly into following the next directive and sustaining the rejection of alternatives, particularly anything to do with Democrats.  Last, Trump’s emotional grip on the cult aims at their most primal self-identity: feelings themselves are a refuge because to deny him would not only admit to error, it would be to deny self.

 

This means that the facts, be they legal or logical and evidentiary, are unimportant.  Nothing can be said that the cult has not heard and dismissed before.  Any admission of error now would be tantamount to admitting they’ve been wrong all along.  Once you’ve been conned, it’s nearly impossible to admit you were conned, and it’s far more likely you’ll continue to play the game and raise the stakes.  There’s little reason to believe anything will persuade the MAGAs to alter their behavior, much less admit to error or a changed mind.   

 

We can only reasonably surmise that MAGA itself can’t be stopped and that most Republicans will refuse to acknowledge the gravity of the threat before us.  Why? Because this is exactly what has been the case for the past eight years.

There are a few voices of more recent “conversion” like Chris Christie, but to think that there is a Republican anti-Trump and pro-democracy movement of consequence that will save us is simply not realistic.  The Lincoln Project, Steve Schmidt, the Bulwark have been anti-Trump since voting against him in the last election.  Are there really more hearts and minds to be changed that haven’t already made up their minds?

Trump and Trumpism can be defeated if there is an election as free and fair as the last.  What that will take is every Democrat voting again and in truth more Democrats.  Trump won more votes in 2020 because those people were voting for him.  They will likely do as much again.  

Younger voters must turn up and if they do on the basis of issues well-articulated, political positions including women’s body sovereignty, the climate catastrophe, civil right, gun violence, and the rest, then Trump will lose again.

But it’s going to be close.  And as disheartening as that is, and as shameful as we might say are those R-voters who really do know better but fail the moral test, there is something still something worse:  Should Democrats fail to show up in significant enough numbers in the purple States and somehow Trump gains yet another minority Republican victory, we will have lost the country.  Can we please pause for a moment to consider that?

 

We must make a positive case for policy and values, for moral decency and democracy even as we make clear the real danger this cult poses to the existence of the country.  Making just the existential case for America may not be enough.  People need to vote for something that moves them and, as I see it, democracy however posed will not alone suffice to motivate folks to get out to vote.  Outside the cult, voters need policies and positions that stand for their values.  We will not defeat the cult by being cultish.  We can only defeat them with ideas that motivate a positive initiative of real political value.  Of course, we still have to hope that all the votes will be counted.

MAGA will retreat back into its bunker only when its elderly voters die.  It will take generational change to reject a cult’s influence and role in determining destinies.  The children of cult members don’t necessarily buy into the cult.  Some MAGAs may even retreat quietly, even be influenced by news, facts, and events right before their eyes and may choose not to vote.  But those folks will not vote for anyone else which means the fate of the country really does lie with voters.

The MAGAs will never admit to the conn, that’s a bridge too far, but that is not important.  What MAGA voters will latch on to next need not concern us: we live in a culture of cults, whether that means sports teams or guns, or cooking and antiquing.  People have plenty to do that isn’t MAGA.

 

MAGA is going to have to die a natural death and fail because it lost recruits and its leader is somehow out of the mix.  Trump must be absented from power by decisive electoral failure if we are to have the slightest chance and any meaningful future.  There is not going to again be normalcy until generational change occurs and that itself is contingent on the next election.

At present we have but one choice and one way to save the republic for any meaningful future: we must get out every vote and hope the system has enough integrity to count them honestly.  We did this before and, sadly, that is once again our only effective play.  Neither persuasive arguments nor convictions are going to matter much.  It won't be the courts, some brilliant interpretation of the 14th Amendment, or a magic wand that will save us from ourselves.  Democracy can only be saved by democracy.  And if it does not, it will almost certainly not get another chance.

 

 

 

Is there no virtue among us?

"Is There No Virtue Among Us?"

For me the year always begins in September. I am among the lucky few for whom the coming of school was something good, something I could understand not because it was easy but because it brought us together to learn about ourselves.

I had fears and trepidations but I thought no matter how challenging or overwhelming it all might seem, this was a place where we could grow understanding. What are our assumptions and from whence do they arise? What is the evidence, from whence and what has not been allowed? What are your reasons? How do you draw your conclusions? What are the implications of your understandings and how will they guide, inform, or fail to inform your actions?

Now I wonder how much of what matters is open for honest discussion. I'm not interested in causing a stir but no matter what our personal preferences may be, we live in perilous times where it is difficult to attempt undisguised conversation. Questions that should be matters of policy, debate, and, yes, compromise to reconcile our genuine differences have devolved to nothing less than existential matters of survival. I wish this were only hyperbole.

There are too many examples to note but a report this morning from the Washington Post tells us that we are deeply, irrevocably broken and divided on a partisan basis over the climate, and how much less the fragilities of this democracy and the relentless culture wars that threaten to ruin the last shards of decency and civil discourse. We seem incapable of sharing even the same facts, much less agree to disagree. And so very few seem committed to learning the skills of argument grounded in good faith and respect for the truth.

Truth has been reduced to performative grifts and silos of misinformation that seem impenetrable to break. You will see plenty of that if you can stomach the Republican "debate" this evening.

I came across a piece of James Madison this morning regarding Judicial Powers of the National Government, dated June 20, 1788. In this complex comment, Madison tells us that our liberty requires consideration of restrictions and principles upon which there is likely to be contrary interpretation. He is particularly keen to point out the distinct role the courts will play in framing the rule of law in a democracy. He frets over jurisdiction and gives countenance to the privilege of jury trial, and above all what he terms the "uniformity of justice."

If we cannot abide the outcomes of equal justice under the law, we will become little more than the mob or will revert to the claims of the powerful autocrats to whom the law does not apply as it does to all. We seem to be on the verge of losing democracy to the autocrats who have duped masses of people to reject democracy itself for a racist populism.

For all of Madison's own many inexcusable faults, he grasps the heart of the matter wholly germane to our current crisis---for what we face as a nation is a crisis and of existential dimensions. Those who cannot accept the results of elections are not likely to accept the rulings of the law either.

Madison asks rhetorically, "Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks--no form of government can render us secure. To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea."

So there we have it, the question plainly put: is there, will there be "any virtue in the people"? We have spent very little time in the past few decades teaching how virtue is made much less how to think, read, and write critically with respect for the facts. Madison didn't expect these skills of the people to be well-honed but he did understand that without a real sense of virtue, of knowing the difference between right and wrong and being able to act upon it, that we would not survive in this democratic experiment.  

Whatever next happens in the circus of the media, the court of public opinion, or the legal system, we will certainly fail if this current "wretched situation" finds no solution. I am more than a little worried that a significant percentage of the American people would prefer a morally flawed, proven criminal autocrat than the deliberations of the law and messy workings of this fragile democracy. If we must count on virtue then we will have to make some and not merely count on it.

I think we shall know before too long if there is the slightest hope for this country, or if our flaccid indifference, short attention span, and under developed considerations of virtue will be our end.

I for one am tired of shouting matches with those for whom there is no respect for fact (or even the notion of fact) nor a shard of decency in their hearts. No pointless debate will solve our problems until we are prepared to have the more authentic conversations that invite the difference between right and wrong.