Tyranny always allows people the illusion that strange as things are, they will be reversed when the danger fades. Some new danger always emerges. (Yes. I have been watching The Dictator's Playbook on PBS. Do you despise Kim il-Sung, Benito Mussolini, Francisco Franco, Saddam Hussein, Manuel Noriega, and Idi Amin? (It is a six-part series, and Hitler was mentioned -- mostly for learning his tricks of his demonic trade from Mussolini). Producers of the short series saw no need to mention Hitler because his story is all-too-well-known. No living current or former dictator is mentioned, and no royals were mentioned.
Remember well -- Donald Trump is not the cause, but instead the symptom of the debasement of the American way of life. We got lulled into believing that if we acceded to the will of people who recognize responsibility toward them but none of their own toward the masses we would get unparalleled prosperity. We are seeing all that used to be good in America disintegrating because America is in thrall to people who see their own gain, indulgence, and power as the definitive good no matter how much misery such imposes.
Things used to be good -- really good -- for a lot of us. Many of us react to the decay by living in the past, enjoying our old memories and our old stores of experiential wealth like books, videos, and music while our world begins to look like an aristocratic society with the sick bonus of a Soviet-style nomenklatura determining who gets what. Survival becomes a privilege and life gets dreary.
Many of us hate the work that has devolved upon us, the communities in which we are stranded, and perhaps even worse the directive to smile to show love for our masters.
Trump is the symptom. The people who really rule us will play some legerdemain upon us. If Trump is unpopular enough he will be off the scene so that we get some election that brings someone who slows and even slightly undoes the rot. But don't worry. Those elites still have the means for buying the system in the next elections because things aren't quite perfect. There will be another Trump-like figure -- maybe someone who better knows how to gut democracy because he is less ignorant of the vulnerabilities of our political system. One step back and two steps forward is sometimes more effective than the blatant coup. Maybe it is not as swift as a coup, but it is as effective.
So that beast creates fear, finds a visible enemy against whom 'Americans' can see as an enemy. crushes dissent with violence, We wallow deeper in nostalgia, perhaps taking out the good china for dining upon coarser foods -- beans and potatoes instead of steak and seafood, trying to delude ourselves into believing that because we eat ultra-cheap food upon once-precious things that we cannot sell that we are doing better than we might. That dictator will blame some current model minority far better than the dictatorial clique for causing great pain and suffering.
Meanwhile, people start disappearing into the night. Kids know that it is wise to join a politicized youth league that praises the Leader but has little to offer (as do all fascist causes) suffering and death in return for vague promises of national greatness. Our masters, consummately ruthless, rapacious, and unfeeling, are no better than similar people who destroyed democracy elsewhere.
This may seem like tin-foil rhetoric, and I wish that I felt something different. I have been around long enough to know that if something does not feel good and cannot be explained with some compelling evidence of its necessity, it probably is bad.
Remember well -- Donald Trump is not the cause, but instead the symptom of the debasement of the American way of life. We got lulled into believing that if we acceded to the will of people who recognize responsibility toward them but none of their own toward the masses we would get unparalleled prosperity. We are seeing all that used to be good in America disintegrating because America is in thrall to people who see their own gain, indulgence, and power as the definitive good no matter how much misery such imposes.
Things used to be good -- really good -- for a lot of us. Many of us react to the decay by living in the past, enjoying our old memories and our old stores of experiential wealth like books, videos, and music while our world begins to look like an aristocratic society with the sick bonus of a Soviet-style nomenklatura determining who gets what. Survival becomes a privilege and life gets dreary.
Many of us hate the work that has devolved upon us, the communities in which we are stranded, and perhaps even worse the directive to smile to show love for our masters.
Trump is the symptom. The people who really rule us will play some legerdemain upon us. If Trump is unpopular enough he will be off the scene so that we get some election that brings someone who slows and even slightly undoes the rot. But don't worry. Those elites still have the means for buying the system in the next elections because things aren't quite perfect. There will be another Trump-like figure -- maybe someone who better knows how to gut democracy because he is less ignorant of the vulnerabilities of our political system. One step back and two steps forward is sometimes more effective than the blatant coup. Maybe it is not as swift as a coup, but it is as effective.
So that beast creates fear, finds a visible enemy against whom 'Americans' can see as an enemy. crushes dissent with violence, We wallow deeper in nostalgia, perhaps taking out the good china for dining upon coarser foods -- beans and potatoes instead of steak and seafood, trying to delude ourselves into believing that because we eat ultra-cheap food upon once-precious things that we cannot sell that we are doing better than we might. That dictator will blame some current model minority far better than the dictatorial clique for causing great pain and suffering.
Meanwhile, people start disappearing into the night. Kids know that it is wise to join a politicized youth league that praises the Leader but has little to offer (as do all fascist causes) suffering and death in return for vague promises of national greatness. Our masters, consummately ruthless, rapacious, and unfeeling, are no better than similar people who destroyed democracy elsewhere.
This may seem like tin-foil rhetoric, and I wish that I felt something different. I have been around long enough to know that if something does not feel good and cannot be explained with some compelling evidence of its necessity, it probably is bad.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.