I am in the field of psychology, and I want to nudge the focus of the perception of the type of power an authoritarian leader has over their followers. It is a form of identity grooming, extended to groups that are hungry for a positive self-identity. The self-identity offered by the authoritarian leader to their followers quickly gives them the status of being favored by a powerful person or party, of being special, and of being right. It is an intensely experienced sudden elevation of their perceived status, and contributes to their intense loyalty. They have not experienced such importance, and high regard, in their lives previously. That the extension of this positive identity is manipulative, dangerous and untrue is not visible to those who have embraced it until something happens to reveal the dishonesty of their leader. And even then, for the loyal followers, the betrayal of their loyalty is hard for them to believe. It is important to recognize, that the strong emotional bonds the follower has are not only to the leader, but also to the positive self-identity which the manipulative leader bestowed on them.
Thank you for that insight. I am reading Steven Hassan’s The Cult of Trump, published a couple years before the Jan 6 insurrection. When I read there (and again in your comments here) that part of the identity grooming involves making the follower feel special, I immediately thought of Trump’s remarks after the Capitol had been under seize for several hours, something like, “We love you, you’re very special. Go home.” Chilling. I am reading the book to try to get insight into how to counteract that influence on people in my own circles.
It was similar to his statement..."there are good people on both sides"! That chilled me too! Actually there isn't much that he ever said or still says that doesn't chill me!
Your closing sentence echos my shock over a friends disgust over ‘Biden’ said with clenched teeth! Not sure how she perceives the Jan 6 attack in the Capitol led by her amoral hero versus her loathing of ‘Biden’!
I have an ex-classmate who prides herself on her religious beliefs and I am sure also sees herself as a great patriot. To this day, she has never once mentioned January 6th. In one thread, someone wrote a threatening post to me, but guess who she chose to castigate...not him, but me. Fortunately, all I am seeing from her lately are pictures of her dog and food.
My wife and I were invited to her home for lunch. I knew she was an old school Republican, I was too shocked by her tone and confident statement that she voted for dopey don in the last election! We both left there with the same disappointment in her conversion to the cult!
I find it interesting that old Republican voters haven't seen the new Republican behaviors, words, and actions and lies as different from the old days. It is so very apparent if you are even slightly paying attention.
Sign up for his Freedom of Mind Resource Center newsletters. An email from December 5 has a link to his article in Psychology Today on that very thing. I haven’t read it yet. freedomofmind.com
You nailed it! I grew up in the Midwest and have been here visiting in my hometown for a month. As I walk around and see and hear the views, porch signs and flags and other stuff being displayed I’ve had the same thoughts. This moderate, racist undercurrent was probably here 60 years ago, but much more veiled and not given status by a national voice. Now it’s mild belligerence is more on display and to my eyes seemingly ubiquitous.
I was raised in St. Louis and went to an integrated high school in the early 60s when the South was still segregated. I never even thot about racism in MO, until I sent mom a pic of my “black woman” as she called her when she sent it back. (it took a couple of years of no communication until mom apologized to my partner Brenda.)
We were married while in the Peace Corps in Sierra Leone. My spouse's grandmother wondered if I was black. She also had plenty of derogatory things to say about Native Americans, not knowing that he had Sioux ancestry through his mother. She was his father's mother.
I grew up in northern Indiana where the racism was casual but of course, enforced through where people lived. In my county black people lived along a narrow strip south of the railroad in my town and no where else. And black people could not stay overnight in the county seat, Goshen, proudly displaying its Christianity. What I heard at home overtly was directed against Catholics and Jews.
Now thanks to death star donny everything can be in your face and it is.
I’m surprised it only took a couple of years. I’m glad your Mom came around! Brenda must have a very strong back bone and also a very large forgiving heart.
In the larger scheme of predestination, I was perhaps sent to my mom for her growth. Earlier I was the first “out” homo in the family, which she also mentioned disapprovingly in that letter. (She was in denial for 5 years about Jim my “roommate”). But, she visited me & Brenda in FL and we visited her in MO. Years later my 14-yr-old grandson and I visited mom, and I think she realized that a black teen boy is the same mess as a white one.
"moderate, racist undercurrent" moderate racist is most definitely an oxymoron.
Also
"Now it’s mild belligerence ..." I don't see it a mild. It is meant to send a specific message to blacks. It is meant to send a specific message to people who uphold the last election as valid. I believe it is meant to be threatening. The January 6 insurrection smacked the labels of power and violence on these folks. And they love that.
I understood what David was saying about “moderate racist” because my mom was not an overt, black-hating racist as seen in the openly hostile South. She was a “separate but equal” kind of racist and my falling in love with a black woman is what triggered her. Up until that reaction I didn’t see it.
"One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we've been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”
A great summary analysis. I just completed Isabel Wilkerson's "Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent". I recommend this book to everyone, and will give out copies to friends and family. While the book grows out of Wilkerson's "The Warmth of Other Suns" about the great African American migration, "Caste" is not just about racial prejudice in the US. "Caste" reviews and explains basic human behavior to create identity, power and privilege by establishing castes that elevate one group as dominant and other groups as subservient using artificial means of differentiation. Artificial because black skin could just as easily be the dominant group over white skin that could easily be the subservient group.
Ironically, those who feel they need an identity boost to reinstate a dominant position are using the same artificial means of caste that creates their impression that their position is at risk. Rather than getting an education, working hard, helping each other for a common good and finding identity in positive activities, those who rely on white supremacy or some other artificial means of identity and power, take the easy way out and identify with a bully in their own artificial self image. That's unfortunate and threatening for all of us.
David, As I read your comment an interview, which read a little while ago popped into my mind. It sounds as though you have learned a good deal from 'Caste', which I purchased but not yet read. Even though you mind may be filled with the subject, I thought to pass this morsel on to you:
“The idea that we’re always getting better keeps us from seeing those times when we’re getting worse.”
'In 1995, James Loewen set out to resolve this problem. He published a landmark book, Lies My Teacher Told Me, that went on to sell more than 2 million copies. Loewen taught race relations for two decades at the University of Vermont, and spent two years at the Smithsonian Institution, where he surveyed past American history textbooks.
The result of his research was a massive tome that pointed out all the distortions and falsehoods taught in US history classes.'
'Like Howard Zinn famously did before him, Loewen shattered myths around Christopher Columbus, the first Thanksgiving, the Civil War, Helen Keller, Abraham Lincoln, American labor history, and the roots of racial inequalities. The problem, Loewen argued, was our impulse to turn historical events and figures into “moral examples,” which usually involved whitewashing the past in order to reinforce a familiar story about American greatness.'
Sean Illing
'What’s the most consequential lie we teach?'
James Loewen
'That’s an interesting question. I’d go back to 1892, 400 years after Columbus is said to have discovered America. If you looked around the world at that time, white people dominated most of it. The big lie is our failure to ask how that came to pass. We simply assumed that we dominated because we were better, or smarter, or worked harder.
So much of what has passed as “history” since has been invested with white supremacy, even though the reasons why history unfolded the way it did are extremely complicated and have to do with luck, and geography, and all sorts of factors that aren’t captured in our oversimplified narratives.'
'We never seriously asked the question, and so white supremacy became the default answer. What could be more consequential than that?'
Sean Illing
'Is a truly authoritative version of history ever possible? Isn’t history always a self-serving narrative shaped by actors who are deeply invested in it?'
James Loewen
'Yes and no. I certainly agree that a truly authoritative version of history, as you put it, isn’t possible. And there are always more perspectives, more questions, more things to learn. At the same time, we can take this too far and lose the capacity to say that one version of history is more authoritative than another version. And then we’re in the world of “post-truth” and “alternative facts.”
'Everything is not a matter of nuance: everything is not up for grabs. It is simply true, for example, that the South seceded from the Union because of slavery, and not because of states’ rights. We know this to be true, and an alternative version of history that denies this is a lie. Period.' (VOX) Link to conversation below.
The most consequential lie taught in America is that the United States of America is the best place in the world to live with the best form of government.
Good summary of the Caste book. I have bought 5 copies in its different forms to get it into the hands of others, too. And did you know that if you are an Audible subscriber, you can share - give - a copy at no cost to other people who have an Audible subscription? A very good idea, right?
The neurobiologist/psychologist Daniel Siegel likes to talk about "name it and tame it." We can constantly remind Trumpists that they don't actually know him.
They've never had an actual conversation with him, except in their heads
He's never visited their house.
He doesn't know their children's names.
They can't call him on the phone if they're in trouble.
He doesn't know they exist
He doesn't even like them.
By calling out the truth of their imaginary relationship, we have at least brought it to light. A simple slogan like "Trump doesn't know you" on billboards might be a good place to start.
Amazing how much Trump worshippers are like evangelical Christians who claim to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, their lord and saviour.
Brilliant and insightful! Combine these elements with the “Junk Politics” factor - feeding the followers with seemingly flavorful but nutritionally toxic propaganda food that is addicting - that’s the whole picture! Junk Politicians know how to activate the reptilian brain which only reacts in extreme ways and has limited reasoning powers. A deadly stew of self importance, “feeling special” and responding like a moose in rut - ie “I’m getting what I want no matter what!”
Hi Fern, Not just empty calories, but poison to the immune system leading to slow but inevitable disease and death. “Have some kool aid - trust me it’s delicious!”
Thank you for nudging the focus of perception. It really does fit with many of the people that I know that have taken the bait of positive self-identity at the expense of their critical thinking skills.
This link is excellent. Thank you. I did not recall that Bonhoeffer was hanged just two weeks before liberation. Clearly, stupidity has overtaken a large population of the U.S.
I have been trying to understand "stupid" all my life because I was "different" (read gay). In my life I also found I had an innate abhorrence to authority. Try that combination as a midshipman at the Naval Academy, among the most ferocious of cults! I got out of there and the Navy and made my own path through life and became a better, I hope, more loving man.
Pastor Dietrich Bonhoffer's end breaks my heart, as he left an answer to my ignorance of others and some understanding. It is still beyond me why a young soul will trade their free will and be open to indoctrination of any sort. Perhaps it is:
I differentiate between stupid and ignorant. I do not blame people for being ignorant. I do blame people for being stupid. Unpacking those two disparate thoughts requires more time than I will engage in here.
As to being gay, I came to terms with that two years after my Honorable from USAF. I recall my dad telling me one time that his dad, my grandpappy, told him to "take care of him, he is special". Dad said he had not a clue. I have wondered. Perhaps Granddad, known to the family as a clairvoyant, was on to something.
I was never taught hate or non-acceptance. My dad had his prejudices, but he never imposed those on us kids. I credit my mother for my being so open to the world. She disliked the liars, deceivers and those lacking integrity. Their culture or color caused her no disturbance. Because of her, my universe has indeed been a rainbow of nationalities, religions, cultures, races, languages.
WIthin certain theological circles Bonhoeffer is an icon. His intellect was either lauded or scorned. Yet, the Nazis were not the only enemies of free thinkers and intellectuals. Stalin executed (assassinated?) one million of his brightest and best, both civilian and military. Sadly, we are seeing the head of that ugly monster rising up again. We are well advised not to dismiss this as just a mere rough passage in the U.S.
I learned about Bonhoffer during graduate study at Seminary. Scholars believe that if he had stayed in the U.S., he would have been safe. He returned to Germany to join his lady friend/partner. All the "signal" were there, just as they were in the historical fiction "Valkyrie".
Reminds me of the Nazi Brown Shirts and how they promoted "power identity". This fits well within the QAnon, Oath Keepers and others who embrace a Neo-Nazi form governance.
'President Trump’s legacy of corruption, four years and 3,700 conflicts of interest later'
'Here’s what you need to know:'
'As president, Donald Trump has flouted all kinds of norms, starting with his decision not to divest from his business interests while in office. That set the stage for an administration marked by self-interest, profiteering at the highest levels and more than 3,700 conflicts of interest.' (CREW)
'corruption, .. It exists where there is community indifference or a lack of enforcement policies.' (Britannica).
“We're now working within the framework of a Big Lie .. so long as we're in that framework of a Big Lie, we can expect one of the parties to try to rig the system."
'Like other fascist and fake populist movements, Trumpism draws its power and a type of life force from the slavish loyalty of Trump's followers. Normal politics is fundamentally ill-equipped to grapple with fascism and its commands to ignore reality in deference to the Great Leader, the elevation of that leader into a type of God and extension of the self, and its collective celebration of narcissism and other anti-social behavior including violence and hatred. Ultimately, Trumpism is a cult movement: If Trump and other leaders are the brain and the arms, Trump's followers serve as a hammer meant to smash multiracial democracy.' (Historian, Timothy Snyder) Link is 2nd from last.
"Nothing remotely compares to this," said Akhil Amar of Yale Law School, who is among the most-cited constitutional scholars in the country. "His actions since the election have threatened the very existence of our constitutional democracy. This looms large in the history of not just this administration, but the history of America. This is what history will remember most harshly."(CNN) Link below is the last.
Somebody finally called the cult a cult, way past time. A fascist cult no less. Tfg is as evil as Jim Jones and David Koresh lumped together, maybe add in a little Hitler. Will history write that we waited too late to rise up.
Too bad MSM could not have pinned him to the wall on election integrity when, in 2016, he made it clear that unless HE won, he would question the viability of election results. Reportedly, he and closest aides were convinced his candidacy was an unattainable long shot. Then again, when he surprised himself and won, MSM needed to bore down on why he felt these results were suddenly reliable. I don’t pretend to think their jobs are easy. But autocrats show themselves in a million different ways. The red flags just piled up moment to moment! Norm breaking was, is and always will be his “norm”, much to the grave danger of the republic.
Thank heavens for this forum and all the wonderful commentary.
TFG started making the same claims a few months before the 2020 election. At the time, the media should have eviscerated him. Every day the media should demand of anyone saying the election was stolen: "Where's the proof?"
Bit of a tangent, but speaking of Akil Amar of Yale Law School, he is not only among the most-cited constitutional scholars in the country, but he also writes (voluminously) for the general public. His 2021 book _The Words That Made Us: American's Constitutional Conversation, 1760-1840_ should be available at your public library (as it was in mine, in a small college town in Connecticut).
I believe that the thematic trope of the sub-title, "constitutional conversation," was deployed by HCR in her Tuesday Facebook talk last week (30-November-2021). The breadth of what counts as "conversation" in this meme is quite wide.
Bill, Thank you and thank you for making it easy for me. I am very interested in 'The Words That Made Us: American's Constitutional Conversation, 1760-1840'. As I started to read your reply several things happened at once; my eyes widened at your recommendation; the eyes then looked behind by back at the piles of unread books purchased in the last year and not yet read, and those eyes didn't know whether to laugh, cry or go to sleep. And I'm a reader! Cheers, Bill!
The role of reporting/journalism is to seek the truth and provide facts so that the public is informed. Trump and his allies in state legislatures have been passing many bills to suppress the vote for some citizens. News articles in the USA have been reporting efforts to undermine free and fair elections as well as schemes to undermine democracy here. If you are unfamiliar with the important role of the free-press in democracies, you may learn more about it in the library.
Love the poem but have to say I find Violet’s musing (Downton Abbey) something that cannot be ignored “Hope is a tease, designed to keep us from accepting reality.” Time to kick arse, Dems
I feel a flutter of hope as well this morning. Thank you, JustJanice, for bolstering it thru Dickinson, another great American writer like Dr. Heather.
" One of the most potent attractions of a mass movement is its offering of a substitute for individual hope" Eric Hoffer. And I am wondering if a mass movement to defeat the autocracy we currently face is a substitute mass movement.
Delighted to see Janet Yellen and Samantha Power working together on the summit on saving democracy -- two powerhouses and women of vision!
And while mentioning exemplary superstars, I must pay tribute to the all-encompassing presence of a third powerhouse -- our own HCR -- who fearlessly provides us with inestimable information, insights, and hope on a daily basis. Thank you, Heather, for another invaluable letter❣️
Heather, what a powerful letter! gratitude to you!
It seems that someone in the Biden administration has been reading Sarah Chayes on corruption, and that is refreshing, to say the least. Her two texts on corruption are not to be missed reads. And high time to address local, endemic corruption... Cheers to Yellen and Power for their integrity. Biden can indeed bring down Putin with sanctions and global limitations to the point of crashing the economy of his very over-extended country.
So thankful to have Devin Nunes out of congress! I follow his cow on social media. What a trip. He would not have been re-elected.
Cheers for Matthews and Short, who are speaking truth to power and may change the world in their efforts.
The idjt is unable to refrain from telling all. Whether the Department of justice will act on his true confessions is yet another matter.
May the DOJ prevail against Texass, where the attorney general is a tool in the arsenal of the idjts. Despair at the thought of such a suit moving to the ideologically corrupt supremes...
May our congresscritters have the courage to do what it takes to pass the bills paving the way toward actual voting rights.
Blessings upon you, Heather, for your truth-telling in the face of oppression, autocracy, and fascism. You know, perhaps as few others, the consequences for such brave actions should the fascists gain power. You have my pagan prayers and unconditional positive regard.
In 2017 a thought skittered around in my brain for a few weeks before I let it rest and examined it closely. That thought was that the only rational explanation for the existence and continued support of Donald Trump was that he had taken a rapidly weakening politically party and turned it into a cult.
That was, at the time, an oddly liberating conclusion when I finally accepted it. It made everything that was irrational and senseless (basically boiled down to how could anyone support, let alone idealize, such a perfect paragon of evil) explainable and logical to me. For the first time I felt a chilling kind of respect for Trump - he was not an idiot. He was a dangerous, intuitive, and soulless savant - the most dangerous enemy the Democrats would ever face. The right man to be the culmination of decades of building, but mostly quiet, ugliness. It was Trump who had the unique gift to unleash it and harness its energy. My hope was that like all cults it would burn itself out before it did permanent damage. That level of crazed fanaticism cannot be sustained indefinitely.
I thought that moment had come on November 3, 2020 when he lost the Presidential election. It had been a titanic struggle, but he was toppled from power. Soon the monster would be caged and the confusing soup of “ideas” he had relentlessly driven forward would dry up. It would take a while, but eventually the long night would end.
I’ve watched in mounting dismay for more than a year now as events have relentlessly challenged my optimism. You know them all - I need not list the setbacks of 2021.
For the past few weeks I have had a thought skittering around in my brain. I have pushed it aside time and time again as being too fantastic and disheartening to consider.
But now it has settled. I accept it and will use it as a settled fact for what I think will happen going forward.
It is this. Donald Trump will never be held to account. He will never be indicted. He will never be tried. He will never be convicted. He will never be punished in law, although karma may do its own work. The reason is still unclear to me. I still consider it an outside possibility that America is too corrupt - the people who could see to it have no interest in doing it. He is the Washington version of a Jeffrey Epstein.
But more and more I think the reason is more elemental. The people who could bring Trump to heel are afraid to do so. Afraid of the man. Afraid of his followers and the havoc they would wreak. Afraid for their lives.
They are, in several places, going through the motions of investigating him, for not to do so would court trouble of another sort. But in fact they are running out the clock.
That means that, should he survive, he will run in 2024 with a better than 50% chance of winning. I have thought it absurd to even consider that possibility in the past. Now I factor it in.
America has made Donald Trump too big to fail. Too menacing.
As I read your excellent analysis, a mental picture of armed hordes storming mal-el-lardo filled my mind. Just delicious - the cult turning on their idol. Then reality intruded into the fantasy. What could fake45 possibly do to prompt their anger? Knowledge of the forces tipping past hordes to revolution is dimmed by age, and perhaps incomplete history courses. But today’s letter, and the writings of Robert Hubbel and Dan Rather, also on substack, make the fantasy a tiny bit more feasible. Perhaps there won’t be violent resistance, please! just a mass turning away from cult45.
I really appreciate this post. I had not heard of Teri Kanefield. Now I’ve been schooled by her very precise and unruffled logic. Her video laying out the case for not rushing to judgment in case indictments fail is compelling.
I guess the “wailing and gnashing of teeth” sentiment on the Left has a double edge. Part of it comes from the fact that (relatively) small fry get caught and the big ones sail (or seem to) scot free. The other part is that, as per her video, the Republicans have made a brand out of being “crime positive”. It’s almost a price of entry into Republican politics.
I see her logic and reluctantly accept it. But American civil society becomes very distorted as a consequence. Her point that prosecutors are successful 96% of the time they bring a case to court, because they don’t want to waste time and money losing leads to the inescapable conclusion that the more crime there is the less chance a person, especially one of means, has of being prosecuted.
There seems to me to be a need for imagination here. Surely in the midst of this hurricane like attack on democracy, those who defend it should not have their hands tied. It seems to me, based on her estimable logic, reasonable to draw the conclusion that America will be strangled while lawyers fight.
One last point. I don’t expect the indictment and conviction of Trump to bring an end to the nihilistic movement on the right. As she said, it may even embolden the hard core supporters to violence.
But that is the worst possible reason to pass on bringing justice to all, regardless of rank.
Agreed! Eric. It’s complicated/multifactorial/nuanced/intertwined and multiple other adjectives. Black and white it is not. Glad you connected with what she gives voice to. She helps me get more out of TSnyder, some of his important knowledge is a bit more abstract than my down to earth brain can completely grasp.
I feel that what’s lacking is some, “In case of emergency, break glass” backup.
America is watching an emergency and has only standard and inadequate tools to confront it.
I sometimes feel that the Republican upper (word used advisedly) echelon finds our grasping at straws and wasting of breath to be particularly mirthful.
It adds embarrassment to a growing sense of impotence.
Well, when you have a bunch of neo-Nazis at the helm and a corrupt and an evil ex-prez representing corporations and not “the people”, you get a nice recipe for destruction.
They call it voter integrity, just like Goebbels and Frank Luntz taught them, goes back to before W/Dickie, who called all their Schitt by the most sweet smelling names. That’s why their non-thinking drones just blather the bull Schitt non-stop. The pols know exactly what they are doing though.
Alexis de Tocqueville: “The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.”
Except that America has not repaired her faults. De Tocqueville was looking at America through 19th century eyes. The idea undergirding America that all are created equal before the law and with equal opportunities is a magnificent idea as compared to the divine right of kings. De Tocqueville did not live to see our civil war, which we are still fighting. Would that we could live up to the founding premise of the Declaration of Independence.
Democrats suffer from a different failure of imagination. They regularly sound the alarm about the threat to democracy, but it is one of many alarms, along with those over the pandemic, child care, health care, criminal justice, guns, climate change. All of these deserve urgent attention, but they can’t be equally urgent. Biden has spent far less of his political capital on saving democracy than on passing an infrastructure bill. According to a Grinnell College poll in October, only 35 percent of Democrats believe that American democracy faces a “major threat.” The figure is twice as large for Republicans—whose belief in a major threat is the threat. Delusion about the danger prevails in both parties.
What we have is a seven alarm fire and the Democrats are showing up with thimbles, you don’t bring a whittling knife to a gun fight. Maybe you don’t want to be in one, I’ll grant you, but if that’s where you find yourself, you need to get your shit together or your chances of survival are nil. If they don’t fix voting rights, we’re going to be toast.
Instead of passively complaining about the Democrats showing up with a thimble, why don’t you grab a bucket and join the fire brigade ? We have to complain less and work smarter. Be part of the solution not part of the problem.
Done that for years, need all the help we can get. Decent messaging would be a godsend. The multitudinous emails I get are as inane as the repubs missives. Do better Dems
Yes, I so agree with you, Jeri! I am constantly deleting those emails! Plus, I have attended many many marches over the course of 40 years, written letters, and made phone calls.
Yep, I hope there are more of us than the MAGAts. I have those that I donate to monthly (Mad dog pac, resistbot, Beto, DCCC) and will pick 2 Senate candidates that I will help so that The two Trojan horses will become irrelevant. However, my retirement salary won’t go far enough if I’m to survive.
As Derek Del Gaudio said on Twitter "I used to rig card games for a living. I'd watch people sit down and lose everything, again and again. But they didn't lose because they 'played by the rules' and we didn't. They lost because it wasn't a game. It just looked like one. Democrats think it's a game."
Dick, a lot of us have our shit together but the problem is the somewhat silence of our representatives. They are the ones who should be sounding the alarm to the public. We have never before seen the outright hatred, especially in the Senate. It’s unnerving. People I sometimes speak to, won’t even watch the news to educate themselves about the facts. They are tired of the doom and gloom. You are absolutely correct about fixing voting rights and the only way to do that is to kill the filibuster. Also, someday, natural selection will remove the evildoers from our earth. I just hope I get to stay alive to witness that.
If we can’t counter the Fox lies, we are toast. Joe can travel to Timbuktu but Fox can reach their crowd and spread lies faster than he can tell the truth. MSM gives him scant coverage compared to the 24/7 screeds from Fox
TC, erase a valid point, however actual change in the welfare of the middle and lower working class is a key to healing in America… the thing that reaches hearts and minds, improves lives, reduces child poverty, or at least has a chance of doing so. That’s what I see Biden doing. Of course with the current congress everything is a game of chicken. I support going for hearts and minds over counting on the dynamics and ‘fairness’ of elections.
This must be at least a 2 pronged approach. Yes. we MUST raise the alarm about losing democracy, but unless the everyday lives of folks improve, they don't care.
Democratic leaders have no weapon other than get out the vote, and that gets harder with every new vote-suppression law. It doesn’t matter what policies they propose, doesn’t matter what laws they pass, doesn’t matter what messaging strategy they use. The 74 million who support Trumpism cannot be converted. They will never vote for a party that does not commit itself to preserving the systemic advantages that white people enjoy in the USA.
They could bring more messaging power, they are outgunned by Fox every hour of the day. Maybe they could pay Frank Luntz more. HA. Really, Dems have truth on our side, but propaganda blasted non stop brings down countries. What more proof do we need?
Unfortunately, the 74 million want to watch Fox. They like it. No nessage from the Dems (except maybe one that violates their values, such as promising benefits to white Ameicans that they guarantee won’t go to people who have dome non-European ancestry) would have any chance of getting the votes of Trumpistas.
It’s been all over the news (that I watch) but not on Fox no doubt. “Delusion about the danger” is the overarching message from Fox and likely the impetus for the old woman at the next table loudly telling all that the Dems are destroying freedom in America. I stole this from Steady substack “sickofsomuchintheUSA.”
Devin Nunes is going to run Trump's new media company; probably right into the ground. When the most important attribute of one's key personnel is unflinching, unthinking fealty to the boss, who will tell him only what he wants to hear, failure is all but guaranteed. Trump's trail of bankruptcies are evidence.
Nunes is a political hack. He operated a dairy farm in California, but a career change to politician indicates he probably wasn't much of a farmer. I know a few farmers. No way are they leaving the farm. They'll stay with their livestock and orchards and kvetch about "goddamned politicians", but they prefer to shovel only one kind of manure.
Nunes has traced a career descent from "farmer" to Republican hack to Trump toady. It's good he's leaving Congress. I bet his cows don't miss him much either.
Nunes never operated a farm. His family are Portuguese immigrant dairy farmers who did operate dairy farm in California for many years but moved it to Iowa while Nunes was in Washington. Nunes himself was a golden boy from the Central Valley who pretends, for election purposes, to be Latino but in fact is pure European and identifies as such.
beautiful details, Ralph. I didn’t know what he failed at earlier in life. During the Trump shutdown in Washington some Januarys ago I found myself in a few tables away from Nunez in a Capitol Hill eatery… cows would not like him either.
The farmer/legislator exception was Governor Engler, who, in character (we called him King John), decided he wanted my seat at a dioxin hearing, and proceeded to take it. Eight months pregnant, I (and my baby) barely escaped being crushed by his lowness.
It looks like he has finally found the drain that all of the cow shit washes into. He’s one and the same. If we could only figure out what rock these people are crawling out from under, we could seal it up in concrete and they would be left to enjoy each other’s company, and we could get on with making our nation into the promise that the constitution envisioned.
I'm convinced it's just another Trumpian scheme, akin to stock market pump-and-dump practices. Just fleecing some more cash from his flock to feather his own nest. Or to pay for all the legal retainers he's likely already accrued?
How many "newsletters" are filled with so much critical concentrated and cohesive content that you keep re-reading it to be sure you have digested it all? Wow. This one is loaded. And it's structure weaves the tale beautifully. Artfully. Just wow. Powerful facts and hope for justice. And just plain progress after we have plodded through poop for years.
On Deceber 13 at 11 am Eastern, The Atlantic hosts an event with reporters, Bart Gellman, Anne Applebaum & The Atlantic Editor, Jeff Goldberg: "The Threat to Democracy". Anne is a historian of Eastern Europe with books on Ukraine & detailed articles on Hungary who is currently living in Poland; she previously wrote a column at the WaPo but moved to The Atlantic platform. You do not have to be a subscriber to register for the discussion.
I found his quotes from interviews VERY revealing about the nature of and motivations of the fascist cult followers. (I'm just going to call them that from now on. Seems accurate.)
Don't want to read them (and thanks for your excellent synopsis in your Sunstack column on them today TC), but will. Thrilled that the Atlantic has taken this bold and important step to reveal how precarious our democracy is. May Wall Street read them, too.
Per AG Merrick Garland's 12/6 Statement, the DOJ lawsuit against the state of Texas is based on Section II of the Voting Rights Act basically a cocification of the 14th Amendment & cannot be overturned by a 6-3 SCOTUS. Texas' "redisricting" is a direct attack on millions of Texas' Voters.
Lots happened today! Rubin is correct. The United States has to come to strong terms of being able to handle its own craziness before we try to influence other nations. I do, however, understand that Biden wants to re-create our standing in the world by having this summit. It isn’t a bad idea but why can’t we demonstrate that we will begin indicting the big players? TFG has just perjured himself over and over again enough to be imprisoned. These others like Bannon and Clark who plead the “Fifth” after the Special Committee have found many improprieties, is an absolute joke. Democracy is in peril.
I do understand and share your frustration, Marlene. And, what is such wondrous news is that the DOJ has integrity and is functioning beyond politics...as it should. That the idjt said he fired Comey because he would not have completed his term, is truth. I take comfort in that confession and hold DOJ accountable to act upon it.
Democracy IS in peril and still, true justice moves with the pace of molasses in freezing weather, but it is, and does, move. Patience is a virtue in this instance, IMHO.
I believe it’s all connected and goes hand and hand. Coordinating with our strong democratic allies to fight it worldwide can only help us here at home.
Chump has committed so many felonies if one believes his own eyes. Waiting for the headline that says he is ineligible to run for dog catcher due to his conviction on - well take your pick….
I like that....Chump. And he has committed so many felonies since he fired Comey. Seems going back that far is unnecessary when we have more recent felonies with which to charge him.
I hope the military top brass take the Matthews (DC national guard) memo seriously. If they do (and if their reputation as honorable patriots reflects reality, they will), the careers of Michael Flynn and Walter Piatt will be toast.
If you haven’t read Barton Hellman’s piece in the Atlantic, it’s worth the time, for a clear overview of how tfg is rigging the system to throw the next election for himself. The urgency is growing.
Dr. Richardson, thank you. The first thing I do, even before I make my coffee, is to look for your post. Over here in Germany, the time diff is 6 hours, and this morning the "news," which you bring together along with your sources, makes it possible for me to find my way through the mostly horrible news of nearly every day.
I had a mini breakdown yesterday as I worked on the book I’m writing. It’s a follow up on former gifted children who are now gifted adults. I started to do interviews with the subjects in 2014. Imagine how much we’ve all changed in that time! I had no idea that I had tons of racist assumptions. I kept stepping back while writing because as I learned, and as my understanding and views evolved, I needed to tweak and alter so much of what I was writing about. Yesterday was particularly hard because I’d created a category of school types back in the early 2000s to help parents know which types would and wouldn’t fit their gifted children’s needs well. As I was editing my review of school types, I realized the whole thing was underlaid with racist roots - both schools themselves and in myself. There are no good reasons why all schools can’t be great! Systemic racism and soft pervasive racism had been at work all along! And, I realized that I’d broken through finally on the erroneous view that most poor people (of any race culture, whatever) are poor because they were likely not smart enough to learn the skills our society values and pays highly for. The positive side of my view (I like to think) was that pay and standard of living shouldn’t be based on intellect at all and we needed a social safety net that guaranteed a good quality of life as a baseline for everyone. It hadn’t occurred to that entire racial groups had all these huge barriers in their lives. The sad, bad side of my view was that I did believe those differences in group IQs and the related poverty and struggles. I have come so far in the last 7 years that I wondered how I could help others see all the “aha lights” 💡) I am finally seeing. There were many inputs that include NPR (where I learned about red lining) and recommended to me books and book club selections. What only occurred to me yesterday, though, is that LFAA, Heather’s steady diet around such subjects in an historical context for the two years I’ve been reading her work are probably at the core of my intellectual actions and activism as I looked more and more for the truth. And all of you. It’s happened to more than just me. Isn’t it great? I am just so darned grateful to you all!
I'm so glad to "know" you here! If we don't stay open and willing to learn, we stay stuck. Change may hurt, but inaction hurts worse. You are correct - it HAS "happened to more than just [you]"! I never thought of myself being a part of "systemic racism" but when I look back at my fairly privileged white life and I reflect on the lives of my POC friends, there's no doubt I got all the luck while they had to scrap for every single thing.
Deborah, this is a touchingly beautiful and intensely personal, one might even say confessional, comment, and I too am "just so darned grateful," indeed, to the community of conversation here. Your phrase "underlaid with racist roots - both in the schools themselves and in myself" sums up the Malady of Whiteness perfectly - Personal And Systemic. Good luck to you as you continue working on the re-vision of your book.
Yes! Yes! I am also finally seeing! LFAA has opened my eyes in so many ways, breaking through erroneous cultural messages. 66 years on this Earth as a white person and I'm just now comprehending the forces that shaped me. So enriching for me to see the opening of hearts to all of humanity here on Heather's comment page.
Thank you for this honest account of your journey to greater awareness. It’s hard work to break through old assumptions and sometimes just heartbreaking. To acknowledge a new truth is to be changed forever.
I am in the field of psychology, and I want to nudge the focus of the perception of the type of power an authoritarian leader has over their followers. It is a form of identity grooming, extended to groups that are hungry for a positive self-identity. The self-identity offered by the authoritarian leader to their followers quickly gives them the status of being favored by a powerful person or party, of being special, and of being right. It is an intensely experienced sudden elevation of their perceived status, and contributes to their intense loyalty. They have not experienced such importance, and high regard, in their lives previously. That the extension of this positive identity is manipulative, dangerous and untrue is not visible to those who have embraced it until something happens to reveal the dishonesty of their leader. And even then, for the loyal followers, the betrayal of their loyalty is hard for them to believe. It is important to recognize, that the strong emotional bonds the follower has are not only to the leader, but also to the positive self-identity which the manipulative leader bestowed on them.
Thank you for that insight. I am reading Steven Hassan’s The Cult of Trump, published a couple years before the Jan 6 insurrection. When I read there (and again in your comments here) that part of the identity grooming involves making the follower feel special, I immediately thought of Trump’s remarks after the Capitol had been under seize for several hours, something like, “We love you, you’re very special. Go home.” Chilling. I am reading the book to try to get insight into how to counteract that influence on people in my own circles.
It was similar to his statement..."there are good people on both sides"! That chilled me too! Actually there isn't much that he ever said or still says that doesn't chill me!
Yes, Laura, I was chilled, as well, when I heard those remarks.
Your closing sentence echos my shock over a friends disgust over ‘Biden’ said with clenched teeth! Not sure how she perceives the Jan 6 attack in the Capitol led by her amoral hero versus her loathing of ‘Biden’!
I have an ex-classmate who prides herself on her religious beliefs and I am sure also sees herself as a great patriot. To this day, she has never once mentioned January 6th. In one thread, someone wrote a threatening post to me, but guess who she chose to castigate...not him, but me. Fortunately, all I am seeing from her lately are pictures of her dog and food.
Yes, dogs and trees and flowers are acceptable to most people. I do the same. Often.
Are you able to ask her?
My wife and I were invited to her home for lunch. I knew she was an old school Republican, I was too shocked by her tone and confident statement that she voted for dopey don in the last election! We both left there with the same disappointment in her conversion to the cult!
I find it interesting that old Republican voters haven't seen the new Republican behaviors, words, and actions and lies as different from the old days. It is so very apparent if you are even slightly paying attention.
Also, please excuse my typo. I meant "seige", not "seize".
Or better, “siege “
Indeed. Better brew myself some more coffee...
More coffee is the answer to many things...
And for everything else there is whiskey or, in some states, weed.
Sign up for his Freedom of Mind Resource Center newsletters. An email from December 5 has a link to his article in Psychology Today on that very thing. I haven’t read it yet. freedomofmind.com
You nailed it! I grew up in the Midwest and have been here visiting in my hometown for a month. As I walk around and see and hear the views, porch signs and flags and other stuff being displayed I’ve had the same thoughts. This moderate, racist undercurrent was probably here 60 years ago, but much more veiled and not given status by a national voice. Now it’s mild belligerence is more on display and to my eyes seemingly ubiquitous.
I was raised in St. Louis and went to an integrated high school in the early 60s when the South was still segregated. I never even thot about racism in MO, until I sent mom a pic of my “black woman” as she called her when she sent it back. (it took a couple of years of no communication until mom apologized to my partner Brenda.)
We were married while in the Peace Corps in Sierra Leone. My spouse's grandmother wondered if I was black. She also had plenty of derogatory things to say about Native Americans, not knowing that he had Sioux ancestry through his mother. She was his father's mother.
I grew up in northern Indiana where the racism was casual but of course, enforced through where people lived. In my county black people lived along a narrow strip south of the railroad in my town and no where else. And black people could not stay overnight in the county seat, Goshen, proudly displaying its Christianity. What I heard at home overtly was directed against Catholics and Jews.
Now thanks to death star donny everything can be in your face and it is.
I’m surprised it only took a couple of years. I’m glad your Mom came around! Brenda must have a very strong back bone and also a very large forgiving heart.
In the larger scheme of predestination, I was perhaps sent to my mom for her growth. Earlier I was the first “out” homo in the family, which she also mentioned disapprovingly in that letter. (She was in denial for 5 years about Jim my “roommate”). But, she visited me & Brenda in FL and we visited her in MO. Years later my 14-yr-old grandson and I visited mom, and I think she realized that a black teen boy is the same mess as a white one.
Wow.
"moderate, racist undercurrent" moderate racist is most definitely an oxymoron.
Also
"Now it’s mild belligerence ..." I don't see it a mild. It is meant to send a specific message to blacks. It is meant to send a specific message to people who uphold the last election as valid. I believe it is meant to be threatening. The January 6 insurrection smacked the labels of power and violence on these folks. And they love that.
I understood what David was saying about “moderate racist” because my mom was not an overt, black-hating racist as seen in the openly hostile South. She was a “separate but equal” kind of racist and my falling in love with a black woman is what triggered her. Up until that reaction I didn’t see it.
the tragedy is how the next generation is more exposed
Yes, well that's the idea, isn't it?
Carl Sagan summed it up in fewer words.
"One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we've been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”
Carl Sagan
Once one dances with the Devil, the dancer never is set free. One's soul has been highjacked.
A great summary analysis. I just completed Isabel Wilkerson's "Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent". I recommend this book to everyone, and will give out copies to friends and family. While the book grows out of Wilkerson's "The Warmth of Other Suns" about the great African American migration, "Caste" is not just about racial prejudice in the US. "Caste" reviews and explains basic human behavior to create identity, power and privilege by establishing castes that elevate one group as dominant and other groups as subservient using artificial means of differentiation. Artificial because black skin could just as easily be the dominant group over white skin that could easily be the subservient group.
Ironically, those who feel they need an identity boost to reinstate a dominant position are using the same artificial means of caste that creates their impression that their position is at risk. Rather than getting an education, working hard, helping each other for a common good and finding identity in positive activities, those who rely on white supremacy or some other artificial means of identity and power, take the easy way out and identify with a bully in their own artificial self image. That's unfortunate and threatening for all of us.
David, As I read your comment an interview, which read a little while ago popped into my mind. It sounds as though you have learned a good deal from 'Caste', which I purchased but not yet read. Even though you mind may be filled with the subject, I thought to pass this morsel on to you:
“The idea that we’re always getting better keeps us from seeing those times when we’re getting worse.”
'In 1995, James Loewen set out to resolve this problem. He published a landmark book, Lies My Teacher Told Me, that went on to sell more than 2 million copies. Loewen taught race relations for two decades at the University of Vermont, and spent two years at the Smithsonian Institution, where he surveyed past American history textbooks.
The result of his research was a massive tome that pointed out all the distortions and falsehoods taught in US history classes.'
'Like Howard Zinn famously did before him, Loewen shattered myths around Christopher Columbus, the first Thanksgiving, the Civil War, Helen Keller, Abraham Lincoln, American labor history, and the roots of racial inequalities. The problem, Loewen argued, was our impulse to turn historical events and figures into “moral examples,” which usually involved whitewashing the past in order to reinforce a familiar story about American greatness.'
Sean Illing
'What’s the most consequential lie we teach?'
James Loewen
'That’s an interesting question. I’d go back to 1892, 400 years after Columbus is said to have discovered America. If you looked around the world at that time, white people dominated most of it. The big lie is our failure to ask how that came to pass. We simply assumed that we dominated because we were better, or smarter, or worked harder.
So much of what has passed as “history” since has been invested with white supremacy, even though the reasons why history unfolded the way it did are extremely complicated and have to do with luck, and geography, and all sorts of factors that aren’t captured in our oversimplified narratives.'
'We never seriously asked the question, and so white supremacy became the default answer. What could be more consequential than that?'
Sean Illing
'Is a truly authoritative version of history ever possible? Isn’t history always a self-serving narrative shaped by actors who are deeply invested in it?'
James Loewen
'Yes and no. I certainly agree that a truly authoritative version of history, as you put it, isn’t possible. And there are always more perspectives, more questions, more things to learn. At the same time, we can take this too far and lose the capacity to say that one version of history is more authoritative than another version. And then we’re in the world of “post-truth” and “alternative facts.”
'Everything is not a matter of nuance: everything is not up for grabs. It is simply true, for example, that the South seceded from the Union because of slavery, and not because of states’ rights. We know this to be true, and an alternative version of history that denies this is a lie. Period.' (VOX) Link to conversation below.
https://www.vox.com/conversations/2018/8/1/17602596/american-history-james-loewen-howard-zinn
The most consequential lie taught in America is that the United States of America is the best place in the world to live with the best form of government.
Truth.
omg, Fern, you are astounding! Gratitude for this posting!
Thanks.
Good summary of the Caste book. I have bought 5 copies in its different forms to get it into the hands of others, too. And did you know that if you are an Audible subscriber, you can share - give - a copy at no cost to other people who have an Audible subscription? A very good idea, right?
1619 is a real eye opener too, plus Democracy in Chains....
I've bought several copies of D.I.C. and trying to share and am looking forward to reading The 1619 Project.
Deborah, do you know the author of this book? There are a few. Thank you.
Isabel Wilkerson: The Origins of Our Discontent t.
Idol worshippers are shortcutters......those who wish to get power without working for it or finding it in law,
In other words a cult, which has proven to be almost impossible to de-program cult followers.
Yes.
This is relatable. It shines bright light on why so many people are clinging so strongly to GQP Trumpism
The Human Condition in a World of nobodies promoted to somebody
The neurobiologist/psychologist Daniel Siegel likes to talk about "name it and tame it." We can constantly remind Trumpists that they don't actually know him.
They've never had an actual conversation with him, except in their heads
He's never visited their house.
He doesn't know their children's names.
They can't call him on the phone if they're in trouble.
He doesn't know they exist
He doesn't even like them.
By calling out the truth of their imaginary relationship, we have at least brought it to light. A simple slogan like "Trump doesn't know you" on billboards might be a good place to start.
Trump doesn’t really care about you
Or the billboard could say, "Do you REALLY think Trump CARES about you?"
They would reflexively answer, "yes," OTOH, if you asked,
"Since you've never met Trump., what makes you think he knows you?"
Then you aren't questioning the quality of the relationship,, but its very existence. That is the spell we need to break.
Amazing how much Trump worshippers are like evangelical Christians who claim to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, their lord and saviour.
Brilliant and insightful! Combine these elements with the “Junk Politics” factor - feeding the followers with seemingly flavorful but nutritionally toxic propaganda food that is addicting - that’s the whole picture! Junk Politicians know how to activate the reptilian brain which only reacts in extreme ways and has limited reasoning powers. A deadly stew of self importance, “feeling special” and responding like a moose in rut - ie “I’m getting what I want no matter what!”
Ah, Ned, the alchemist/chemist mixes this breakfast brew. Ugh!
Hi Fern, Not just empty calories, but poison to the immune system leading to slow but inevitable disease and death. “Have some kool aid - trust me it’s delicious!”
Branched out into sales, have you! You've good the goods alright!
Unfortunately the inevitable disease and death is Democracy.
Take the many who have already passed from Covid … you know that made up by the Democrats, FAKE disease!
Excellent and important comment. Our leaders for the common good need these insights to help develop strategies to communicate better with people.
Yes, Margaret, that is an important take away from this. To provide true reasons for positive self identity.
Eloquent and concise assessment of the Trump affliction.
Thank you for nudging the focus of perception. It really does fit with many of the people that I know that have taken the bait of positive self-identity at the expense of their critical thinking skills.
Pam,
Brilliantly written. I have copied this to send to all my friends (which, is not large, but, hey, ever little bit may matter, I hope).
Tremendously helpful. Thank you, Pam!
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor and theologian who was executed by Hiitler, wrote about some of this in his “Theory iof Stupidity”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ww47bR86wSc
This link is excellent. Thank you. I did not recall that Bonhoeffer was hanged just two weeks before liberation. Clearly, stupidity has overtaken a large population of the U.S.
I have been trying to understand "stupid" all my life because I was "different" (read gay). In my life I also found I had an innate abhorrence to authority. Try that combination as a midshipman at the Naval Academy, among the most ferocious of cults! I got out of there and the Navy and made my own path through life and became a better, I hope, more loving man.
Pastor Dietrich Bonhoffer's end breaks my heart, as he left an answer to my ignorance of others and some understanding. It is still beyond me why a young soul will trade their free will and be open to indoctrination of any sort. Perhaps it is:
"You've got to be taught
Before it's too late
Before you are 6 or 7 or 8
To hate all the people
Your relatives hate.
You've got to be carefully taught."
(Thank you Rodgers & Hammerstein for
"South Pacific")
Remember Pearl Harbor y'all !!!!
I differentiate between stupid and ignorant. I do not blame people for being ignorant. I do blame people for being stupid. Unpacking those two disparate thoughts requires more time than I will engage in here.
As to being gay, I came to terms with that two years after my Honorable from USAF. I recall my dad telling me one time that his dad, my grandpappy, told him to "take care of him, he is special". Dad said he had not a clue. I have wondered. Perhaps Granddad, known to the family as a clairvoyant, was on to something.
I was never taught hate or non-acceptance. My dad had his prejudices, but he never imposed those on us kids. I credit my mother for my being so open to the world. She disliked the liars, deceivers and those lacking integrity. Their culture or color caused her no disturbance. Because of her, my universe has indeed been a rainbow of nationalities, religions, cultures, races, languages.
WIthin certain theological circles Bonhoeffer is an icon. His intellect was either lauded or scorned. Yet, the Nazis were not the only enemies of free thinkers and intellectuals. Stalin executed (assassinated?) one million of his brightest and best, both civilian and military. Sadly, we are seeing the head of that ugly monster rising up again. We are well advised not to dismiss this as just a mere rough passage in the U.S.
I learned about Bonhoffer during graduate study at Seminary. Scholars believe that if he had stayed in the U.S., he would have been safe. He returned to Germany to join his lady friend/partner. All the "signal" were there, just as they were in the historical fiction "Valkyrie".
Thank you, Pam. It’s as if he’s a predator grooming his victims.
Not as if. That's exactly what is happening. If and when he does not need them any more, they will be victims.
… and this is the one thing they will never, ever admit.
SPOT ON!
As he leads them into the "gas chamber"!
Reminds me of the Nazi Brown Shirts and how they promoted "power identity". This fits well within the QAnon, Oath Keepers and others who embrace a Neo-Nazi form governance.
'President Trump’s legacy of corruption, four years and 3,700 conflicts of interest later'
'Here’s what you need to know:'
'As president, Donald Trump has flouted all kinds of norms, starting with his decision not to divest from his business interests while in office. That set the stage for an administration marked by self-interest, profiteering at the highest levels and more than 3,700 conflicts of interest.' (CREW)
'corruption, .. It exists where there is community indifference or a lack of enforcement policies.' (Britannica).
“We're now working within the framework of a Big Lie .. so long as we're in that framework of a Big Lie, we can expect one of the parties to try to rig the system."
'Like other fascist and fake populist movements, Trumpism draws its power and a type of life force from the slavish loyalty of Trump's followers. Normal politics is fundamentally ill-equipped to grapple with fascism and its commands to ignore reality in deference to the Great Leader, the elevation of that leader into a type of God and extension of the self, and its collective celebration of narcissism and other anti-social behavior including violence and hatred. Ultimately, Trumpism is a cult movement: If Trump and other leaders are the brain and the arms, Trump's followers serve as a hammer meant to smash multiracial democracy.' (Historian, Timothy Snyder) Link is 2nd from last.
"Nothing remotely compares to this," said Akhil Amar of Yale Law School, who is among the most-cited constitutional scholars in the country. "His actions since the election have threatened the very existence of our constitutional democracy. This looms large in the history of not just this administration, but the history of America. This is what history will remember most harshly."(CNN) Link below is the last.
https://www.citizensforethics.org/reports-investigations/crew-reports/president-trump-legacy-corruption-3700-conflicts-interest/
https://www.salon.com/2021/07/19/dr-john-gartner-on-america-after-trump-dystopian-science-fiction--is-actually-happening/
https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/24/politics/trump-worst-abuses-of-power/index.html
Somebody finally called the cult a cult, way past time. A fascist cult no less. Tfg is as evil as Jim Jones and David Koresh lumped together, maybe add in a little Hitler. Will history write that we waited too late to rise up.
The Justice department needs to arrest the bastard, let’s see how his judges act
Mueller provided a path, so they say
A lot of Hitler.
more than Is dreamed
Too bad MSM could not have pinned him to the wall on election integrity when, in 2016, he made it clear that unless HE won, he would question the viability of election results. Reportedly, he and closest aides were convinced his candidacy was an unattainable long shot. Then again, when he surprised himself and won, MSM needed to bore down on why he felt these results were suddenly reliable. I don’t pretend to think their jobs are easy. But autocrats show themselves in a million different ways. The red flags just piled up moment to moment! Norm breaking was, is and always will be his “norm”, much to the grave danger of the republic.
Thank heavens for this forum and all the wonderful commentary.
TFG started making the same claims a few months before the 2020 election. At the time, the media should have eviscerated him. Every day the media should demand of anyone saying the election was stolen: "Where's the proof?"
Our MSM has been pathetic, a few have done great but basically I think they believed chump and his slander
Bit of a tangent, but speaking of Akil Amar of Yale Law School, he is not only among the most-cited constitutional scholars in the country, but he also writes (voluminously) for the general public. His 2021 book _The Words That Made Us: American's Constitutional Conversation, 1760-1840_ should be available at your public library (as it was in mine, in a small college town in Connecticut).
I believe that the thematic trope of the sub-title, "constitutional conversation," was deployed by HCR in her Tuesday Facebook talk last week (30-November-2021). The breadth of what counts as "conversation" in this meme is quite wide.
Here is the OCLC link from Worldcat.org.
https://www.worldcat.org/title/words-that-made-us-americas-constitutional-conversation-1760-1840/oclc/1249702791/editions?editionsView=true&referer=br
Bill, Thank you and thank you for making it easy for me. I am very interested in 'The Words That Made Us: American's Constitutional Conversation, 1760-1840'. As I started to read your reply several things happened at once; my eyes widened at your recommendation; the eyes then looked behind by back at the piles of unread books purchased in the last year and not yet read, and those eyes didn't know whether to laugh, cry or go to sleep. And I'm a reader! Cheers, Bill!
Thank you, dear Fern. Reading, "a dangerous pastime, I know."
832 pages! It's heavy.
Great post Fern. Thanks. Archived.
Hello Mike. Getting cool and less color evident but still beautiful. Cheers!
Why are we validating this dickwad by continuing to talk about him?
He is taking down our country, ignore him at our peril
The role of reporting/journalism is to seek the truth and provide facts so that the public is informed. Trump and his allies in state legislatures have been passing many bills to suppress the vote for some citizens. News articles in the USA have been reporting efforts to undermine free and fair elections as well as schemes to undermine democracy here. If you are unfamiliar with the important role of the free-press in democracies, you may learn more about it in the library.
"Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me."
-Emily Dickenson
Slowly but surely grind the wheels of justice. I feel hopeful...
Thank you, Dr. Heather! Rest well. 💜
Love the poem but have to say I find Violet’s musing (Downton Abbey) something that cannot be ignored “Hope is a tease, designed to keep us from accepting reality.” Time to kick arse, Dems
Hear, hear! And beyond time.
I feel a flutter of hope as well this morning. Thank you, JustJanice, for bolstering it thru Dickinson, another great American writer like Dr. Heather.
Thank you for this!
Cult Republicans also hope.
" One of the most potent attractions of a mass movement is its offering of a substitute for individual hope" Eric Hoffer. And I am wondering if a mass movement to defeat the autocracy we currently face is a substitute mass movement.
Delighted to see Janet Yellen and Samantha Power working together on the summit on saving democracy -- two powerhouses and women of vision!
And while mentioning exemplary superstars, I must pay tribute to the all-encompassing presence of a third powerhouse -- our own HCR -- who fearlessly provides us with inestimable information, insights, and hope on a daily basis. Thank you, Heather, for another invaluable letter❣️
Hear! Hear! With Heart!
Heather, what a powerful letter! gratitude to you!
It seems that someone in the Biden administration has been reading Sarah Chayes on corruption, and that is refreshing, to say the least. Her two texts on corruption are not to be missed reads. And high time to address local, endemic corruption... Cheers to Yellen and Power for their integrity. Biden can indeed bring down Putin with sanctions and global limitations to the point of crashing the economy of his very over-extended country.
So thankful to have Devin Nunes out of congress! I follow his cow on social media. What a trip. He would not have been re-elected.
Cheers for Matthews and Short, who are speaking truth to power and may change the world in their efforts.
The idjt is unable to refrain from telling all. Whether the Department of justice will act on his true confessions is yet another matter.
May the DOJ prevail against Texass, where the attorney general is a tool in the arsenal of the idjts. Despair at the thought of such a suit moving to the ideologically corrupt supremes...
May our congresscritters have the courage to do what it takes to pass the bills paving the way toward actual voting rights.
Blessings upon you, Heather, for your truth-telling in the face of oppression, autocracy, and fascism. You know, perhaps as few others, the consequences for such brave actions should the fascists gain power. You have my pagan prayers and unconditional positive regard.
You took the thoughts right out of my brain before they could reach the keyboard. Perfect recap and quite well phrased. Especially the last line :)
She snatched from my brain as well. But she did it better…
I say ditto to every syllable, especially addressing local, endemic corruption, Texass is trying to beat out FL.
It’s neck and neck in their Govenor’s race to the bottom
and we have Dan and Ken, we win the idjits race
Excellent Kim. You have me searching for a song for background of "ideologically corrupt supremes." Stop , in the Name of Love?
that would work!
In 2017 a thought skittered around in my brain for a few weeks before I let it rest and examined it closely. That thought was that the only rational explanation for the existence and continued support of Donald Trump was that he had taken a rapidly weakening politically party and turned it into a cult.
That was, at the time, an oddly liberating conclusion when I finally accepted it. It made everything that was irrational and senseless (basically boiled down to how could anyone support, let alone idealize, such a perfect paragon of evil) explainable and logical to me. For the first time I felt a chilling kind of respect for Trump - he was not an idiot. He was a dangerous, intuitive, and soulless savant - the most dangerous enemy the Democrats would ever face. The right man to be the culmination of decades of building, but mostly quiet, ugliness. It was Trump who had the unique gift to unleash it and harness its energy. My hope was that like all cults it would burn itself out before it did permanent damage. That level of crazed fanaticism cannot be sustained indefinitely.
I thought that moment had come on November 3, 2020 when he lost the Presidential election. It had been a titanic struggle, but he was toppled from power. Soon the monster would be caged and the confusing soup of “ideas” he had relentlessly driven forward would dry up. It would take a while, but eventually the long night would end.
I’ve watched in mounting dismay for more than a year now as events have relentlessly challenged my optimism. You know them all - I need not list the setbacks of 2021.
For the past few weeks I have had a thought skittering around in my brain. I have pushed it aside time and time again as being too fantastic and disheartening to consider.
But now it has settled. I accept it and will use it as a settled fact for what I think will happen going forward.
It is this. Donald Trump will never be held to account. He will never be indicted. He will never be tried. He will never be convicted. He will never be punished in law, although karma may do its own work. The reason is still unclear to me. I still consider it an outside possibility that America is too corrupt - the people who could see to it have no interest in doing it. He is the Washington version of a Jeffrey Epstein.
But more and more I think the reason is more elemental. The people who could bring Trump to heel are afraid to do so. Afraid of the man. Afraid of his followers and the havoc they would wreak. Afraid for their lives.
They are, in several places, going through the motions of investigating him, for not to do so would court trouble of another sort. But in fact they are running out the clock.
That means that, should he survive, he will run in 2024 with a better than 50% chance of winning. I have thought it absurd to even consider that possibility in the past. Now I factor it in.
America has made Donald Trump too big to fail. Too menacing.
As I read your excellent analysis, a mental picture of armed hordes storming mal-el-lardo filled my mind. Just delicious - the cult turning on their idol. Then reality intruded into the fantasy. What could fake45 possibly do to prompt their anger? Knowledge of the forces tipping past hordes to revolution is dimmed by age, and perhaps incomplete history courses. But today’s letter, and the writings of Robert Hubbel and Dan Rather, also on substack, make the fantasy a tiny bit more feasible. Perhaps there won’t be violent resistance, please! just a mass turning away from cult45.
Indeed I hope so.
By the way ‘cult45’ is an excellent name!
Love it! How about on billboards:
""Cult45 stop drinking the orangeade, it's killing U.S.!
Have cults ever deprogrammed themselves. Ike would say not…
I fight this scenario with every breath.
“For what I mean by the left putting Teflon on Trump, see: https://twitter.com/Teri_Kanefield/status/1465329135824224262…
The left is minimizing and ignoring facts and instead, is sinking into a mire of speculation, and conclusions based on speculation.
15/
Quote Tweet
Teri Kanefield
@Teri_Kanefield
· Nov 29
What if instead of repeating: "there've been no consequences," everyone did:
"OMG, the Trump Org has been INDICTED for FRAUD!
And the GJ is still hearing evidence."
Repeat a million times. Let it sink into the public consciousness. ("Her emails")
Instead of minimizing it.“
I highly recommend: https://mobile.twitter.com/Teri_Kanefield/status/1467932988612612099
I really appreciate this post. I had not heard of Teri Kanefield. Now I’ve been schooled by her very precise and unruffled logic. Her video laying out the case for not rushing to judgment in case indictments fail is compelling.
I guess the “wailing and gnashing of teeth” sentiment on the Left has a double edge. Part of it comes from the fact that (relatively) small fry get caught and the big ones sail (or seem to) scot free. The other part is that, as per her video, the Republicans have made a brand out of being “crime positive”. It’s almost a price of entry into Republican politics.
I see her logic and reluctantly accept it. But American civil society becomes very distorted as a consequence. Her point that prosecutors are successful 96% of the time they bring a case to court, because they don’t want to waste time and money losing leads to the inescapable conclusion that the more crime there is the less chance a person, especially one of means, has of being prosecuted.
There seems to me to be a need for imagination here. Surely in the midst of this hurricane like attack on democracy, those who defend it should not have their hands tied. It seems to me, based on her estimable logic, reasonable to draw the conclusion that America will be strangled while lawyers fight.
One last point. I don’t expect the indictment and conviction of Trump to bring an end to the nihilistic movement on the right. As she said, it may even embolden the hard core supporters to violence.
But that is the worst possible reason to pass on bringing justice to all, regardless of rank.
Thanks so much Christy. :)
Agreed! Eric. It’s complicated/multifactorial/nuanced/intertwined and multiple other adjectives. Black and white it is not. Glad you connected with what she gives voice to. She helps me get more out of TSnyder, some of his important knowledge is a bit more abstract than my down to earth brain can completely grasp.
My brain too is “down to earth”. :)
I feel that what’s lacking is some, “In case of emergency, break glass” backup.
America is watching an emergency and has only standard and inadequate tools to confront it.
I sometimes feel that the Republican upper (word used advisedly) echelon finds our grasping at straws and wasting of breath to be particularly mirthful.
It adds embarrassment to a growing sense of impotence.
Terrible truths, I fear
What a beautiful prayer! ❤️
Well, when you have a bunch of neo-Nazis at the helm and a corrupt and an evil ex-prez representing corporations and not “the people”, you get a nice recipe for destruction.
They call it voter integrity, just like Goebbels and Frank Luntz taught them, goes back to before W/Dickie, who called all their Schitt by the most sweet smelling names. That’s why their non-thinking drones just blather the bull Schitt non-stop. The pols know exactly what they are doing though.
Alexis de Tocqueville: “The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.”
Except that America has not repaired her faults. De Tocqueville was looking at America through 19th century eyes. The idea undergirding America that all are created equal before the law and with equal opportunities is a magnificent idea as compared to the divine right of kings. De Tocqueville did not live to see our civil war, which we are still fighting. Would that we could live up to the founding premise of the Declaration of Independence.
“Except that America has not repaired her faults.” Yet. And, it will always be an ongoing and not easy process, won’t it?
I remember a line from a John Cleese film in which his character laments (paraphrased), “It’s not the despair that’s hard to bear; it’s the hope.”
“Would that we could live up to the founding premise of the Declaration of Independence.” We can. And we will. I hope and believe, dear JennSH.
I agree with John Cleese, my hope has taken a beating of late
Thank You Janet.
Your hope is contagious! Thank you!
Our faults are galloping over our promise
True that!
He saw the promise and the flaws…
A picture of de Tocquelle comes to mind as he visits the present: Head in hand, voicing Oh, how wrong I was.
From "Are We Doomed" in the Atlantic:
Democrats suffer from a different failure of imagination. They regularly sound the alarm about the threat to democracy, but it is one of many alarms, along with those over the pandemic, child care, health care, criminal justice, guns, climate change. All of these deserve urgent attention, but they can’t be equally urgent. Biden has spent far less of his political capital on saving democracy than on passing an infrastructure bill. According to a Grinnell College poll in October, only 35 percent of Democrats believe that American democracy faces a “major threat.” The figure is twice as large for Republicans—whose belief in a major threat is the threat. Delusion about the danger prevails in both parties.
What we have is a seven alarm fire and the Democrats are showing up with thimbles, you don’t bring a whittling knife to a gun fight. Maybe you don’t want to be in one, I’ll grant you, but if that’s where you find yourself, you need to get your shit together or your chances of survival are nil. If they don’t fix voting rights, we’re going to be toast.
Instead of passively complaining about the Democrats showing up with a thimble, why don’t you grab a bucket and join the fire brigade ? We have to complain less and work smarter. Be part of the solution not part of the problem.
Done that for years, need all the help we can get. Decent messaging would be a godsend. The multitudinous emails I get are as inane as the repubs missives. Do better Dems
Yes, I so agree with you, Jeri! I am constantly deleting those emails! Plus, I have attended many many marches over the course of 40 years, written letters, and made phone calls.
Yep, I hope there are more of us than the MAGAts. I have those that I donate to monthly (Mad dog pac, resistbot, Beto, DCCC) and will pick 2 Senate candidates that I will help so that The two Trojan horses will become irrelevant. However, my retirement salary won’t go far enough if I’m to survive.
As Derek Del Gaudio said on Twitter "I used to rig card games for a living. I'd watch people sit down and lose everything, again and again. But they didn't lose because they 'played by the rules' and we didn't. They lost because it wasn't a game. It just looked like one. Democrats think it's a game."
Dick, a lot of us have our shit together but the problem is the somewhat silence of our representatives. They are the ones who should be sounding the alarm to the public. We have never before seen the outright hatred, especially in the Senate. It’s unnerving. People I sometimes speak to, won’t even watch the news to educate themselves about the facts. They are tired of the doom and gloom. You are absolutely correct about fixing voting rights and the only way to do that is to kill the filibuster. Also, someday, natural selection will remove the evildoers from our earth. I just hope I get to stay alive to witness that.
If we can’t counter the Fox lies, we are toast. Joe can travel to Timbuktu but Fox can reach their crowd and spread lies faster than he can tell the truth. MSM gives him scant coverage compared to the 24/7 screeds from Fox
TC, erase a valid point, however actual change in the welfare of the middle and lower working class is a key to healing in America… the thing that reaches hearts and minds, improves lives, reduces child poverty, or at least has a chance of doing so. That’s what I see Biden doing. Of course with the current congress everything is a game of chicken. I support going for hearts and minds over counting on the dynamics and ‘fairness’ of elections.
This must be at least a 2 pronged approach. Yes. we MUST raise the alarm about losing democracy, but unless the everyday lives of folks improve, they don't care.
aren't both critical at this juncture
Democratic leaders and the media are failing the nation in its greatest domestic crisis since the Civil War. That they don't see this is baffling.
Democratic leaders have no weapon other than get out the vote, and that gets harder with every new vote-suppression law. It doesn’t matter what policies they propose, doesn’t matter what laws they pass, doesn’t matter what messaging strategy they use. The 74 million who support Trumpism cannot be converted. They will never vote for a party that does not commit itself to preserving the systemic advantages that white people enjoy in the USA.
They could bring more messaging power, they are outgunned by Fox every hour of the day. Maybe they could pay Frank Luntz more. HA. Really, Dems have truth on our side, but propaganda blasted non stop brings down countries. What more proof do we need?
Unfortunately, the 74 million want to watch Fox. They like it. No nessage from the Dems (except maybe one that violates their values, such as promising benefits to white Ameicans that they guarantee won’t go to people who have dome non-European ancestry) would have any chance of getting the votes of Trumpistas.
It’s been all over the news (that I watch) but not on Fox no doubt. “Delusion about the danger” is the overarching message from Fox and likely the impetus for the old woman at the next table loudly telling all that the Dems are destroying freedom in America. I stole this from Steady substack “sickofsomuchintheUSA.”
"Timing is everything". Right?
Devin Nunes is going to run Trump's new media company; probably right into the ground. When the most important attribute of one's key personnel is unflinching, unthinking fealty to the boss, who will tell him only what he wants to hear, failure is all but guaranteed. Trump's trail of bankruptcies are evidence.
Nunes is a political hack. He operated a dairy farm in California, but a career change to politician indicates he probably wasn't much of a farmer. I know a few farmers. No way are they leaving the farm. They'll stay with their livestock and orchards and kvetch about "goddamned politicians", but they prefer to shovel only one kind of manure.
Nunes has traced a career descent from "farmer" to Republican hack to Trump toady. It's good he's leaving Congress. I bet his cows don't miss him much either.
Nunes never operated a farm. His family are Portuguese immigrant dairy farmers who did operate dairy farm in California for many years but moved it to Iowa while Nunes was in Washington. Nunes himself was a golden boy from the Central Valley who pretends, for election purposes, to be Latino but in fact is pure European and identifies as such.
Thank you for the history.
beautiful details, Ralph. I didn’t know what he failed at earlier in life. During the Trump shutdown in Washington some Januarys ago I found myself in a few tables away from Nunez in a Capitol Hill eatery… cows would not like him either.
Worked with many excellent farmer legislators in Michigan over 4 decades. Nunes is no farmer.
The farmer/legislator exception was Governor Engler, who, in character (we called him King John), decided he wanted my seat at a dioxin hearing, and proceeded to take it. Eight months pregnant, I (and my baby) barely escaped being crushed by his lowness.
It looks like he has finally found the drain that all of the cow shit washes into. He’s one and the same. If we could only figure out what rock these people are crawling out from under, we could seal it up in concrete and they would be left to enjoy each other’s company, and we could get on with making our nation into the promise that the constitution envisioned.
I have a mound of dairy manure outside my garden gate. It's way more useful than Nunes.
I am always puzzled by any farmer who supports chump, not the corporate guys, but the real deal.
I’m hoping it’s not a real company and just an empty construct designed to make money - a shell company?
I posted an interesting article about it earlier.
I'm convinced it's just another Trumpian scheme, akin to stock market pump-and-dump practices. Just fleecing some more cash from his flock to feather his own nest. Or to pay for all the legal retainers he's likely already accrued?
That’s his M-O. True to form.
He is the great pretender, except for corruption and revenge. No doubt that is their mission statement
How many "newsletters" are filled with so much critical concentrated and cohesive content that you keep re-reading it to be sure you have digested it all? Wow. This one is loaded. And it's structure weaves the tale beautifully. Artfully. Just wow. Powerful facts and hope for justice. And just plain progress after we have plodded through poop for years.
This newsletter has become my number one way to process the news.
Bill, this newsletter is the first thing I read every day.
Twp must-read's in the new Atlantic issue:
Trump's Coup Has Already Begun
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/01/january-6-insurrection-trump-coup-2024-election/620843/
Are We Doomed?
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/01/imagine-death-american-democracy-trump-insurrection/620841/
On Deceber 13 at 11 am Eastern, The Atlantic hosts an event with reporters, Bart Gellman, Anne Applebaum & The Atlantic Editor, Jeff Goldberg: "The Threat to Democracy". Anne is a historian of Eastern Europe with books on Ukraine & detailed articles on Hungary who is currently living in Poland; she previously wrote a column at the WaPo but moved to The Atlantic platform. You do not have to be a subscriber to register for the discussion.
Here is the link to register:
https://www.theatlantic.com/live/
Thank you. Bryan Sean McKown
Thank You, Bryan.
I found his quotes from interviews VERY revealing about the nature of and motivations of the fascist cult followers. (I'm just going to call them that from now on. Seems accurate.)
Don't want to read them (and thanks for your excellent synopsis in your Sunstack column on them today TC), but will. Thrilled that the Atlantic has taken this bold and important step to reveal how precarious our democracy is. May Wall Street read them, too.
Per AG Merrick Garland's 12/6 Statement, the DOJ lawsuit against the state of Texas is based on Section II of the Voting Rights Act basically a cocification of the 14th Amendment & cannot be overturned by a 6-3 SCOTUS. Texas' "redisricting" is a direct attack on millions of Texas' Voters.
Yes!
Lots happened today! Rubin is correct. The United States has to come to strong terms of being able to handle its own craziness before we try to influence other nations. I do, however, understand that Biden wants to re-create our standing in the world by having this summit. It isn’t a bad idea but why can’t we demonstrate that we will begin indicting the big players? TFG has just perjured himself over and over again enough to be imprisoned. These others like Bannon and Clark who plead the “Fifth” after the Special Committee have found many improprieties, is an absolute joke. Democracy is in peril.
I do understand and share your frustration, Marlene. And, what is such wondrous news is that the DOJ has integrity and is functioning beyond politics...as it should. That the idjt said he fired Comey because he would not have completed his term, is truth. I take comfort in that confession and hold DOJ accountable to act upon it.
Democracy IS in peril and still, true justice moves with the pace of molasses in freezing weather, but it is, and does, move. Patience is a virtue in this instance, IMHO.
Blessings upon us all.
I believe it’s all connected and goes hand and hand. Coordinating with our strong democratic allies to fight it worldwide can only help us here at home.
Yes.
Chump has committed so many felonies if one believes his own eyes. Waiting for the headline that says he is ineligible to run for dog catcher due to his conviction on - well take your pick….
He was a criminal BEFORE he ran for office. He was just never prosecuted.
I like that....Chump. And he has committed so many felonies since he fired Comey. Seems going back that far is unnecessary when we have more recent felonies with which to charge him.
Let us count the ways…
I hope the military top brass take the Matthews (DC national guard) memo seriously. If they do (and if their reputation as honorable patriots reflects reality, they will), the careers of Michael Flynn and Walter Piatt will be toast.
Maybe they will get demoted to private with dishonorable discharge...hate thinking they will retire comfortably.
oh, they will
What? Get demoted or retire comfortably?
Traitors get more that demotion.
If you haven’t read Barton Hellman’s piece in the Atlantic, it’s worth the time, for a clear overview of how tfg is rigging the system to throw the next election for himself. The urgency is growing.
www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/01/january-6-insurrection-trump-coup-2024-election/620843/
It’s been all over the news, except Fox, where truth goes to die. There they are just happy to be owning the libs
That was an intense piece which I foolishly read last night before bed. I’m glad you posted it here; I agree that it should be read widely. Thank you.
I am listening to it on Audm right now. It is scary!
Dr. Richardson, thank you. The first thing I do, even before I make my coffee, is to look for your post. Over here in Germany, the time diff is 6 hours, and this morning the "news," which you bring together along with your sources, makes it possible for me to find my way through the mostly horrible news of nearly every day.
I had a mini breakdown yesterday as I worked on the book I’m writing. It’s a follow up on former gifted children who are now gifted adults. I started to do interviews with the subjects in 2014. Imagine how much we’ve all changed in that time! I had no idea that I had tons of racist assumptions. I kept stepping back while writing because as I learned, and as my understanding and views evolved, I needed to tweak and alter so much of what I was writing about. Yesterday was particularly hard because I’d created a category of school types back in the early 2000s to help parents know which types would and wouldn’t fit their gifted children’s needs well. As I was editing my review of school types, I realized the whole thing was underlaid with racist roots - both schools themselves and in myself. There are no good reasons why all schools can’t be great! Systemic racism and soft pervasive racism had been at work all along! And, I realized that I’d broken through finally on the erroneous view that most poor people (of any race culture, whatever) are poor because they were likely not smart enough to learn the skills our society values and pays highly for. The positive side of my view (I like to think) was that pay and standard of living shouldn’t be based on intellect at all and we needed a social safety net that guaranteed a good quality of life as a baseline for everyone. It hadn’t occurred to that entire racial groups had all these huge barriers in their lives. The sad, bad side of my view was that I did believe those differences in group IQs and the related poverty and struggles. I have come so far in the last 7 years that I wondered how I could help others see all the “aha lights” 💡) I am finally seeing. There were many inputs that include NPR (where I learned about red lining) and recommended to me books and book club selections. What only occurred to me yesterday, though, is that LFAA, Heather’s steady diet around such subjects in an historical context for the two years I’ve been reading her work are probably at the core of my intellectual actions and activism as I looked more and more for the truth. And all of you. It’s happened to more than just me. Isn’t it great? I am just so darned grateful to you all!
I'm so glad to "know" you here! If we don't stay open and willing to learn, we stay stuck. Change may hurt, but inaction hurts worse. You are correct - it HAS "happened to more than just [you]"! I never thought of myself being a part of "systemic racism" but when I look back at my fairly privileged white life and I reflect on the lives of my POC friends, there's no doubt I got all the luck while they had to scrap for every single thing.
Deborah, this is a touchingly beautiful and intensely personal, one might even say confessional, comment, and I too am "just so darned grateful," indeed, to the community of conversation here. Your phrase "underlaid with racist roots - both in the schools themselves and in myself" sums up the Malady of Whiteness perfectly - Personal And Systemic. Good luck to you as you continue working on the re-vision of your book.
Yes! Yes! I am also finally seeing! LFAA has opened my eyes in so many ways, breaking through erroneous cultural messages. 66 years on this Earth as a white person and I'm just now comprehending the forces that shaped me. So enriching for me to see the opening of hearts to all of humanity here on Heather's comment page.
Kathe, it warms my heart to read your reply. Thank you for responding 😊
Thank you for this honest account of your journey to greater awareness. It’s hard work to break through old assumptions and sometimes just heartbreaking. To acknowledge a new truth is to be changed forever.
Realization, seeing, learning, openness, communication. Deborah, thank you for what you have given us today.