I wonder how much the multiple crises and constant drumbeat of lies and threats and violence has just made a silent majority numb, comatose, unable and unwilling to think about where it is leading. Your brain can only take so much before it starts to shut down. Perhaps it is a form of national Stockholm Syndrome that we feel so helpless and won't try to escape.
I wonder how much the multiple crises and constant drumbeat of lies and threats and violence has just made a silent majority numb, comatose, unable and unwilling to think about where it is leading. Your brain can only take so much before it starts to shut down. Perhaps it is a form of national Stockholm Syndrome that we feel so helpless and won't try to escape.
I recall a political cartoon during Trump's first election campaign: from inside a large hall the crowd is chanting USA, USA, USA. The sign at the entrance says "check your brain at the door."
Since then, endless 3-syllable slogans, countless lies, opportunistic enablers and apologists, propaganda posing as news, bat-shit crazies like Marjorie Taylor Greene about to become key players in the government: yes, the brain wants to shut down.
But that will be fatal. In 1935 Sinclair Lewis wrote "It Can't Happen Here," a novel about a populist leader who rides to the White House on depression-era discontent, lies, and anti-semitism, then installs a fascist government and suspends civil liberties. But Lewis put the blame on a complacent "sleep walking" populace for literally voting away their democracy. How many Americans will cast their vote on Nov. 8 based on this week's price of gas rather than saving their democracy. Timothy Snyder said it best in On Tyranny: "each election could be the last."
Well done, you! Brilliant. I agree. And i doubt the ability of the American voter so i tend toward gloom, fatalism and consequently distraction from the visible oncoming loco-motive.
Stop giving them a rational or excuses … your brain took just as much as they’re did & didn’t shut down. A big percentage of USA citizens (mind you NOT a majority but a lot) have decided to ignore (or believe) the lies, want the threats & violence and just don’t see the danger or care enough.
I was educated and lived among thinking, connected people. And I was taught all people are equal in the eyes of God, in religious terms. So i believe in a bedrock principle of equal opportunity (not outcome).
I dont think that holds true for all America anymore, or even 70% of us. I wondered in the 60s what the drug culture long term would produce. I wonder if the long unraveling of a sense of collective culture beyond Me Me Me and identity politics has caught up to the underlying bigotry and jealousy that stirs 40% of the population and always has but was kept in check by those in leadership roles of both parties (who all have outsized influence and power). That check is gone and trump unleashed the worst in the population so that the hatred fueled by fear of the Other fused with the violence of uneducated rootless wastrels. And down we go.
I wonder how much the multiple crises and constant drumbeat of lies and threats and violence has just made a silent majority numb, comatose, unable and unwilling to think about where it is leading. Your brain can only take so much before it starts to shut down. Perhaps it is a form of national Stockholm Syndrome that we feel so helpless and won't try to escape.
I recall a political cartoon during Trump's first election campaign: from inside a large hall the crowd is chanting USA, USA, USA. The sign at the entrance says "check your brain at the door."
Since then, endless 3-syllable slogans, countless lies, opportunistic enablers and apologists, propaganda posing as news, bat-shit crazies like Marjorie Taylor Greene about to become key players in the government: yes, the brain wants to shut down.
But that will be fatal. In 1935 Sinclair Lewis wrote "It Can't Happen Here," a novel about a populist leader who rides to the White House on depression-era discontent, lies, and anti-semitism, then installs a fascist government and suspends civil liberties. But Lewis put the blame on a complacent "sleep walking" populace for literally voting away their democracy. How many Americans will cast their vote on Nov. 8 based on this week's price of gas rather than saving their democracy. Timothy Snyder said it best in On Tyranny: "each election could be the last."
https://neofascism.substack.com/
Well done, you! Brilliant. I agree. And i doubt the ability of the American voter so i tend toward gloom, fatalism and consequently distraction from the visible oncoming loco-motive.
Stop giving them a rational or excuses … your brain took just as much as they’re did & didn’t shut down. A big percentage of USA citizens (mind you NOT a majority but a lot) have decided to ignore (or believe) the lies, want the threats & violence and just don’t see the danger or care enough.
I was educated and lived among thinking, connected people. And I was taught all people are equal in the eyes of God, in religious terms. So i believe in a bedrock principle of equal opportunity (not outcome).
I dont think that holds true for all America anymore, or even 70% of us. I wondered in the 60s what the drug culture long term would produce. I wonder if the long unraveling of a sense of collective culture beyond Me Me Me and identity politics has caught up to the underlying bigotry and jealousy that stirs 40% of the population and always has but was kept in check by those in leadership roles of both parties (who all have outsized influence and power). That check is gone and trump unleashed the worst in the population so that the hatred fueled by fear of the Other fused with the violence of uneducated rootless wastrels. And down we go.