"a body of people, typically influential members of government agencies or the military, believed to be involved in the secret manipulation or control of government policy."
It has conspiratorial, i.e., paranoid style , implications.
Thank you for your thoughtful column. As a republican woman (although I consider myself a moderate and Steve Bannon doesn’t speak for me), I appreciate that you also included some of the fear mongering beliefs of the far left. I know I’m not alone when I say that we need better candidates on both sides. What’s frustrating is that up until now, much of the media has been gaslighting us about the true condition of Biden. How are we to believe that they are also not exaggerating much of what they report on the right? Both sides have extreme groups who have basically ruined it for the rest of us. When you have to choose between one or the other and you really are sort of in the middle, it’s extremely frustrating. I joined Braver Angels a few years ago - it’s a nonpartisan group of reds and blues who are working to become for civil and accepting of each other.. to find common ground. But if our current candidates are the best we can do, we have a problem worse than a few loudmouths claiming to speak for the entire party.
Thanks for the comment. I consider myself an independent and a moderate as well. The distinction between the two parties is that the Republicans I quoted do speak for the party. They have captured it. That does not mean that every Republican or even most Republicans endorse their views. But they are the leaders and the Republican leaders who opposed them, like Liz Cheney, were ousted.
There's not a parallel on the Democratic side.
I avoided writing about the presidential race because I had nothing new to add. I too wish we had better choices.
Do you follow Bill Maher at all? He had an interesting segment where he explained that many of his Republican friends said the reason they will vote for Trump is because he’s all that stands in the way of what the far left is trying to do. Whether their fears are real or not, they are real to them. Politics of fear is real. Identity politics is also real. People vote out of fear and for the candidate they think will best protect their way of life, their families, their businesses, etc.. The phrase “false equivalence” isn’t an issue in this case, because people have different priorities and if their priority is being threatened, that’s how they will vote. And it all comes down to who is most motivated to vote.
I don't watch Bill Maher. He has always irked me with his smugness. More to do with his affect than anything he says.
I don't discount fears. But I do differentiate between fears of an articulated set of far right policies vs. fears of the far left whose policies are still at the fringes. But I recognize that instincts will always come before analysis.
I think some policies have already been implemented.. some would say the changed to title IX, pervasive DEI, gender focus in elementary schools, things like no cash bail in IL, permissive laws on theft and drug use in big cities, excessive taxing, gerrymandering, etc… from the left. So while the right may have defined what they want to do, many would consider far left policies have also been implemented.. I’m not taking a specific position on any of these.. just pointing it out.. I live in IL if that helps explain things..
Thanks for sharing this perspective. I hear this from Republican friends, too, though I don't hear people weighing the problems if Trump is elected against problems if he is not. For moderate Republicans, it seems like there are things to fear either way, are there not?
Wisconsin is the worst; wherein with voter parity between the parties, the GOP in '22 has veto-proof 64-35 and 22-11 majorities in the WI House and Senate, respectively.
Illinois district 13 was heavily gerrymandered to eliminate a republican seat. In fact.. the Illinois Democratic Party is doing everything it can to strengthen their supermajority. I think it should be addressed on both sides. People are not fairly represented and there are not check and balances.
A plurality of so-called "Low Information" Republican voters honestly believe that Democrats abort babies in all three trimesters--and even after they are born. They believe that Hispanic illegals are rapists, murderers, drug dealers--and generally rotten people who will also clog the welfare rolls and vote in American elections. They believe Covid vaccines are far more deadly than the virus itself. They believe that Democrats have declared war on Christmas, and are God-hating moral degenerates.
They believe these things--and many more of a similar ilk--because FOX News and its lesser imitators in RW media tell them so again and again and again.
That’s painting with an awfully broad brush. Not all republicans believe the same thing or to that extreme. Assuming people are evil, ignorant or any other slur because they vote differently doesn’t help us. Are there people in the Republican Party who believe some of these things? Sure. There are also Democrats who believe everything is about race and gender and people are either oppressed or oppressors. But most don’t..
When I was a child in the aftermath of McCarthy’s reign of terror, my mother gave me Richard Rovere’s book on the rise and fall of the demagogue. She wanted me to know that nothing like this should be allowed to happen again. Those years also saw a campaign to meld religion with public life. E.B. White, who deplored it, explored the trend in an essay that rings true today. Thank you for this cogent analysis.
My father, a senior civil servant in Washington in the 30s and 40s, was affected by the McCarthy bullying, moved to the UN in 1951 and was caught up by a second wave in the 50s. It was very real and affected people’s lives.
The neoliberal ruling class of this country (and its fiefdoms in Europe) are inbred, insular, incompetent, but above all, deeply, deeply paranoid concerning the masses over whom they manage. They view the folkways of the average native-born American as terrifyingly backward and dangerous. To be an elite means to regularly engage in a ritual denunciation of these people in specific terms- they are racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. and this denunciation is meant to indicate that the people are both benighted and evil. This serves to justify systemic lying on a scale never seen in history, with the state security services collaborating with the media to promote and suppress information with the goal of preserving the existing managerial elite under the fiction of democracy. The endlessly repeated mantra of “X (unusually Trump, but also Putin etc.) is a threat to Our Democracy is the central rallying cry for the campaign of propaganda waged against the American people, which really just amounts to projection. And of course, this involves state sanctioned violence by cut outs like Antifa and Black Lives Matter, who are given leave to engage in public acts of violence without any hint of official reprisal to send the message that opposing the system means a mob at your doorstep.
The Democrat party foisted an obviously senile candidate on the country, colluded with the media to lie about his metal state, sent masked rioters into the streets to intimidate voters, locked down the country under wholly a spurious medical pretext, and then spent the next few years telling the American people that despite what they personally experienced as awful- the economy and everything else- all was going fine. Even in terms of holding on to power none of this makes much sense unless the managerial elite were truly and irrationally terrified of the people getting what they actually wanted through electoral politics. It’s not the people who are paranoid, it’s the deep state.
If the "Deep State" were really powerful, I think the Democratic party would not have a candidate that is polling so dreadfully against a party that wants to dismantle the Deep State (assuming it exists). As i write, what I observe is a major party dominated by political leaders with extremist views that they have articulated in detail. I don't see evidence of that on the Democratic side.
I agree that they’re powerful; my point is that they’re out of touch and terrified of the people as a whole. Thus they prefer to exercise power as a background oligarchy rather than an accountable executive. The Democrats Party is a coalition of wealthy globalists, government workers and dependents, and various minorities, with very little to hold them together apart from a fear of Red America and its values. Joe Biden was the only possible candidate acceptable to all factions, which is why, senile or not, he had to be the guy.
The Democrat Party fully endorses the basic outlook that America is a racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. country that needs to be radically reconstructed by enlightened elites. There is no daylight between the party leadership and the mores of the academy or the radical left in that regard. This has the happy (for them) effect of coinciding with the neoliberal drive to homogenize culture and globalize financial systems, hence woke capital. Blue collar Scranton Joe is a creature of the credit card companies who publicly states that a man can become a woman through an act of will. The idea that he or his party represents average people or moderation I do not believe is tenable.
The Democrats have an extremist platform of letting in a deluge of millions of immigrants each year, making every aspect of corporate and government life “woke” as possible, and rolling out crippling carbon taxes on many basic products. One form of extremism is aimed to degrade the common man, the other is aimed at the bureaucracy. Telling how many people rush to defend civil service before anything else
So it's purely coincidence that this "deluge" of immigrants surged when the economy added so many jobs that there was--and still is--a severe tightening of the labor market?
When the economy is hot, they come. When we're in recession, they don't. It's that simple. They come for economic reasons; not because the Dems conspire to let them in--so they can supposedly be given the illegal right to vote (as pretty much any FOX News viewer fervently believes).
Building a wall--or at least beefing up ICE's ranks--is a good idea. But the GOP is simply not interested in a solution; preferring instead to keep it a perennial campaign issue. During the first 2 years of the Trump Admin, the GOP had control of POTUS, House and Senate. Did they solve the border issue? No. All they passed was the 2017 tax bill, that added $1.7trn to the national debt.
A tight labor market likely was an influence on the desire to open the border. But so was the party itself also being driven farther to the left on racial issues. Many openly believe now that demographic change should be sped along (even if they don’t immediately vote, they inflate the size of the districts they arrive in). Who will stop them?
Project 2025 is based on the assumption that no wall can be built without first cleaning up the executive branch to actually do what the president wants them to do. Trump did try to make such things happen in his term (and immigration did decrease), but the degree to which he was stonewalled by the bureaucracy was very visible.
Firstly, the border hasn't been "opened". That's just the drivel pushed out by FOX. ICE operations--interceptions & detentions--have been pretty much the same under Biden as they were with Trump. The only difference is that as the economy has boomed, the number of illegals seeking entry has risen dramatically. Which would've also happened if Trump hadn't lost in '20.
Project 2025 will replace meritocracy with political appointees--know-nothing yes men. Cronyism that will damage the efficiency of government, not improve it.
There was a gap in the labor market that migrants could hope to fill after 2020, but there was also a bunch of shadowy organizations and charities given under the table DNC money to entice those migrants and to make their journey easier. If the only side of the story was just the economy, then the feds would not have been harassing Texas for doing the bare minimum of border security.
The civil service has not been anything resembling a meritocracy since 1932. Project 2025 is conservatives finally abandoning foolish principles and realizing their only hope of survival is appointing their own cronies rather than giving the table to the democrats.
In order to have a democracy we need a secular society. If we don’t one religion will be trying to enforce their doctrine on the rest of us. This always provokes resistant.
Can refer to either financial and political organizations directing politicians (eg open society foundation, bill gates foundation) or the civil service branches directly. Both are unelected and unaccountable to voters.
And it primarily refers to the influence of Big Oil & Wall Street upon politicians, the media and bureaucrats. Since 2016, however, the term has been commandeered by the Trump and the GOP to refer to any policy of the Democratic Party.
David, another thought provoking column from a wet Saturday afternoon in London. It is a sign of the times that I am far more concerned about what happens in the US in November than the UK election this week.
One quick observation from the result of the UK election on Thursday. The Labour (centre) party's landslide, won a huge majority with more than 200 additional seats on a vote share which barely increased from the last election, which they lost badly in 2019.
Only 60% of the electorate voted, the worst turnout since 2001. There was also a significant amount of tactical voting - voting for the candidate most likely to defeat the incumbent Conservative (centre right) in any particular area (seat).
I don't for one minute expect the result of the UK election to have any impact in the US, but I wonder whether we might at least see many frustrated Republicans abstain, lowering the turnout in order to avoid global catastrophe?
Any Republicans reading this could argue Democrats might be feeling the same. There is of course, one significant difference, two old apples one of which is rotten to the core.
The British election was a very peculiar "landslide." I didn't realize that turnout was so low. Thanks for pointing that out. That's really interesting and may in fact be a harbinger for what happens in the US.
Your noting of the poor election turnout in the UK elections does have significance for the upcoming U.S. elections. Someone pointed out that Biden’s real opponent is not so much Trump, but the couch. If Biden can’t inspire some enthusiasm then many will stay home on the couch and the left will lose.
Factoring in our weird electoral college system, Trump can easily win even if he doesn’t receive a majority of the popular vote like he did before when many sat out the unpopular Hilary Clinton race. ‘None of the above’ currently seems more popular than either candidate. If the couch wins, Trump’s cult has the advantage.
I like your nomination of the couch as the ultimate third party candidate. Given how our electoral politics work and the lack of candidate enthusiasm by so many, the couches in a few states may well be the deciding factor.
I share this concern. I think new voters, especially, want to hear some positive reasons to vote for Biden. He's a terrific candidate for young voters because he has a timeless, youthful hopefulness that defies age, but voters will need to see and hear it for themselves. I hope they do.
Young women, and really all women of reproductive age, have a lot riding on this election, as GOP rule will result in an national abortion ban; followed by bans on many forms of contraception, as well as IVF. By upholding the "fertilized egg has the rights of personhood" principle, the GOP has managed to piss off most of the women in the country, and guarantee that female voter count will be high.
I am so sorry to read what I have been warning people about the dangers of using them against us politics of division and the history of our system of treatment of Blacks as the basis for Hitlers game plan for the world takeover and ethnic cleansing. So while, it may not seem like racism or sexism or homophobia. This is how the great breakdown of society in Germany happened through the systemic racism and systematic oppression of the entire Jewish population of Germany leaving few survivors, thereby creating the Holocaust. I fear for my fellow Black Americans who live in concentration camps all over America because they are actually voting for a candidate that has called for their extermination and will carry it out… and they will see… I just hope that the liar is not elected president of America and that the people will vote for the people who will not be forced into this mess of feeling scared of what lies ahead if he’s not elected president. They say that they will not let the election go bloodless only if the left will let it happen ( only if Trump wins)🥶chills went up my spine..,
It sounds like you may have read Isabel Wilson's book "Caste," which i thought was a terrific history book. The Nazi's use of the Jim Crow laws as a blueprint was a revelation to me.
I have not heard any of the leaders of the Republican party call for racial extermination, although there are fringe violent and dreadfully racist groups who are aligned with MAGA. And they have not been denounced by Republican leaders.
Just had to let you know that that quote was debunked years ago yet the left still uses it. Please read the transcript. Trump wasn’t referring to the Nazis. The media cut and pasted and the Dems have been using it as a talking point to bash Trump ever since.
Yes, that's true. I was trying to be clever by doing a call-back to a controversy while making the point that I agreed with the sentiment. But I'd been better off without the cleverness.
No no no @CK Steefel. Saying that it wasn't about the Nazis doesn't debunk anything. Just watch the source videos from Charlottesville. What exactly do you think they mean when chanting, "You will not replace us?" and "Jews will not replace us?" What do you think they are they trying to invoke by singing Dixie and chanting, "The South will rise again!"
That's no cut and pasting. Just watch and listen. Every person walking by with their torches and chanting. So you watch that, and then you say, oh, yeah, there were some fine people there. Nah. Stop the revisionism.
Yes, I devoured the book and I am rereading it now as well as the election approaches to alert people to the subliminal messages of our election ads in preparation for life isn’t that much about race but about our caste system. It just so happens that in our country Blacks are always the bottom of the caste system…more people have to read this powerful history book 📚
You lost me at "With a little irony but an ironclad belief, I state that there are mostly “good people on either side.” You can't vote for hate AND be a good person.
I understand that view, but for most people their vote is not something they give much thought to. So many people don't even take the time to vote. I already live in a pretty tight bubble. i don't want to make it all the more tighter.
What the quote? "There's no hate like Christian love". So many "good people on both sides" show up to church on Sunday and vote to deny funds to help the poor (totally disregarding the teachings of Jesus) when they go to the polls. No abortion, birth control is next, but guns for all and the death penalty is A OK! The cognitive dissonance never fails to amaze me.
I don't think that either Republican or Democratic voters have a monopoly on my sense of morality (below). Or immorality by those same terms. We are all highly fallible.
Micah 6:8 To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
There's also the paranoia that centres on a false equivalence – "the Left is just as bad." For example, I kept hearing about "the Authoritarian Left" a few years ago. This was the threat that we all had to gird ourselves against...the Authoritarian Left were, above all, in our universities squelching academic freedom. But this never squared with reality. Students may have been shouting down opposing opinions, but actual legislation was eroding long-held freedoms. And the reaction to students turning on unpopular speakers in tertiary education has been the formal censorship of books in primary and secondary education – the formal erosion of the quality of education that every child has a right to access. The paranoia is grounded in false equivalence to justify the extremity of the response.
Yes. Social pressure is not the same thing as legislative or administrative pressure. One very famous professor, Jordan Peterson, cultivated a very public profile saying whatever he wanted and his tenured position at the University of Toronto was never in doubt. He resigned for his own reasons and still enjoys professor emeritus status there, all the while complaining about what he “cannot” say.
It is false to equate someone who “cannot” do something due to social pressure with someone who cannot do something due to actual legal consequences.
Social pressure is very hard to stand up to… particularly for young students. I think there is also a real fear of not being promoted or tenured or graded fairly. This is what I hear from friends who are conservative professors at a very large big ten college. Maybe they won’t get fired but maybe they will be shunned. Is that okay?
Unless someone is a political scientist, I’m not sure how their partisan affiliation would even be relevant to their work. Do they want the freedom to argue against diversity? That may be professionally unacceptable in education because education has a vested interest in inclusion. Intellectual talent is distributed randomly across the population and should be cultivated wherever it is found.
It used to be acceptable to use the n-word both publicly and in the halls of Congress — you can find its use in Congressional transcripts. But after the 1960s Civil Rights movement, it became no longer socially acceptable to do so. The people who wanted to keep using the word complained about how unjustly censored they were, yet the culture had moved on. Use of the n-word was pushed out of the public space and no one should mourn the loss of “freedom of speech” over celebrating the progress of American society.
While I stand by my point that the Republican party is animated by extremism and the Democratic party is not, there are certain enclaves of our society where the far left is dominant. I think some academic departments in some colleges and universities and schools are among those enclaves. That said, there has been an overreaction to incidents of DEI overreach. No one has come out of that battle of extremes looking wise.
II think you went off on a tangent here.. I was pointing out that conservatives are often treated with disdain for the simple reason that they are conservative. Not that they are racist or want to use racial slurs.. but simply because they have other conservative beliefs. And yes, there are conservative beliefs that are not rooted in any of the “isms” and this is why it’s so frustrating… making the assumption that all members of a party think alike or are “bad” people doesn’t get us anywhere. There should be acceptable diversity of thought and ideology on campus. Students should be encouraged to think for themselves and not be told that one side is wrong and the other is always right. where does that get us?
My point was really just: who cares? Why should it matter if some people feel uncomfortable discussing their personal political views? 1) what does that have to do with the education they deliver? (I’ve taught political science and I’ve never once shared my personal views in class); 2) maybe their views shouldn’t be shared because they’re unprofessional or contrary to the ethos of education; and 3) maybe their views are no longer socially acceptable. That’s not necessarily a bad thing at all (as illustrated by intolerance of public use of a long accepted racial slur, but this can include many other examples unrelated to racism).
Regardless of the social pressure to conform that they may feel they face, what they don’t face is actual censorship — the kind that states have enacted through legislature at secondary and primary levels of education. So this is an example of the false equivalence I referred to.
Another very interesting read. I’m Australian so not directly affected, but the Project 2025 document is a very scary read. Thank you for your contribution to the conversation.
I don’t think I could ever get over how much of a difference the pandemic was handled because of the demographics of the areas and the fact that it was so unpredictable and unknown that it was very difficult for people to understand that we were losing our Black and Brown people at two to three times the rate of white Americans but the only way to control that was through the lockdown or we would have had even worse outcomes than we had in the places where those people live.
Our public health system was on the verge of collapse. The 4% fatality (of infections) rate that swept Italy in the early days of the Pandemic was a very real worst case nightmare scenario. Social distancing and the Lockdown was a reasonable response at the time, at least until the vaccines became available.
David, what an excellent reminder of why this upcoming election in the U.S. matters so much to all of us. My son, who comes across alt-right social media on occasion, told me yesterday that there’s a conspiracy going round about Biden’s poor debate performance being a “psy op” designed to give the Dems a better candidate in facing Trump. We joked about this, but really, this kind of thinking is not a joke, as your piece points out, especially because social media amplifies everything that used to be in the fringe minority.
It is important to situate the paranoid style as part of both the right and left. Yet the grip it has on so many mainstream Republicans in public office is what deeply disturbs me and, after Jan. 6, is unconscionable. It may well mean that more moderate Republicans simply don’t vote - just as many disaffected Dems likely won’t if Biden continues as the candidate. The low turnout in the UK may be a harbinger, but at least Labour won (with success for the Liberal Democrats, too, as I understand it). Another more concerning harbinger might be the snap elections in France - I’m hoping the Popular Front coalition on the left can defeat a majority of the far right National Rally - but that one is too close for any comfort.
Yes, I think the key difference between the two parties is the uniform embrace of the extremist views of the Republican leadership. Another commenter said that the "couch" is what both candidates have to overcome.
Hmm. I'm a huge Hofstadter fan--he wrote a great book on Social Darwinism, but I think you missed some stuff here. You can go back to the Constitutional Convention and the early years of the republic and find the same sort of overheated rhetoric. Jefferson did it; Hamilton did it; Madison, Adams, etc. If the government did this or didn't do that, tyranny would be the result and the nation is doomed. The slavery period leading up to the Civil War was rife with it, etc. The point here is that politicians understand that unless they keep raising the stakes higher and higher...to match their opponents...they will also not be able to match their support. That's why so many politicians who rue the spate of negative advertising always have to use it to win. I love Michelle Obama, but "When they go low, we go high," is one of the most naive and disastrous things anyone in politics has ever said. I worked for McGovern. He would rather be right than president. So he was right and Nixon was president. Want paranoia? Read "American Midnight" by Adam Hochschild. Where you are correct, alas, about which, as you know, I've written often, is that this group, perhaps uniquely in our history, is not simply interested in attaining power, but wants to destroy the basic structure of American democracy in order to keep it. Republicans are aware that they are, a: the minority party, and b: derive their power, as do most modern far-right groups, from rural areas. As such, they tailor their message to those living outside cities who are angry and envious of what they see as the profligacy of the elites--urban based--while they suffer. They avoid mentioning that their suffering was often their own fault in the failure to adapt to changing conditions by, for example, making sure their schools were educating their kids to compete in the modern world. As such, the conservatives focus on selling the notion that if government was gone and the borders were sealed, the lives of these poor, dumb schmucks would vastly improve. But, in fact, they real result will be the descent of rural areas into greater poverty, both economic and social. And so, the irony here is that if Trump gets in and the Republicans control the government...again as the minority party...people like you and I will do just fine. Trump's base, on the other hand, with the exception of those with money, will find their lives growing worse and worse.
And Hitler got a little more than a third. I don't see either comparison is apt. Think about this. Until 2000, there were only three elections in which winner lost the popular vote: 1824, which went to the House and was a robbery; 1876, which was decided by one man--Joseph Bradley--which was another fix; and 1888, in which Benjamin Harrison was elected, although he lost the popular vote by less than 100,000 out of ten million cast. Since then it has happened twice, 2000 and 2016, and could easily have happened in 2020, although Trump lost by a staggering seven million votes. If Trump wins this time, it will surely have happened again, and may likely become the only way a Republican can win. That means large segments of the electorate will decide that presidential elections are fixed and may also view the system as irredeemably corrupt. If that happens, protestors will take to the streets, and we ain't got no Gandhi to keep things peaceful.
"Buy the Truth, and sell it not." Our country has strayed so far from that absolute. Both sides of the political spectrum are guilty, each searching for the "win" instead of the absolute. Recent political events have further defined that schism - cover-ups are unconscionable and dangerous, further masking our country's fundamental problem. Thanks David for your thoughts, but the points you're trying to make "hurt" the search for Truth, instead of "help."
Thanks, David, for a timely essay. Perspective and context help sort through a somewhat complicated history. My own take, that comes from my previous political and social activism, is that we started down, and I mean down, this path with Ronald Reagan and a Republican agenda that valued self-interest and money over service to others and tax reform. With few exceptions, it seems the U.S. has been "out of balance" for the past 45 years, probably longer. It seems that all three branches of Thomas Jefferson's "tree of liberty" are in need of reform and renewal before they are broken entirely. Here's a quote from Jefferson in a letter to William Smith, son-in-law of John Adams. "What country before ever existed a century and half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure. Our Convention has been too much impressed by the insurrection of Massachusets: and in the spur of the moment they are setting up a kite to keep the hen yard in order. I hope in god this article will be rectified before the new constitution is accepted."
I am reluctant to say this but I'll go out on a limb. The U.S. may have exceeded its limits and its time in its current configuration has expired.
Yes, I hope not, have worked for this not happening and continue to stand on the side of justice, equity, and the rule of law. We are on the edge, or so it appears, and it's time once again for good to triumph over evil. It's not the first time in our history and if we could do it without bloodshed and sacrifice, all the better. It comes down to beliefs and values, and actions one is willing to take on behalf of those, and the future. There is much good work to be done to keep the flame of hope burning brightly.
Unfortunately, not going to happen with conservative media like FOX News and its lesser imitators, which have collectively almost completely abandoned any journalistic standards. When a third of the electorate is fed a steady stream of propaganda, and have zero awareness that they're consuming only propaganda, we have a serious problem.
Thanks Isabel. safe travels wherever you're going!
Here is the Miriam-Webster definition:
"a body of people, typically influential members of government agencies or the military, believed to be involved in the secret manipulation or control of government policy."
It has conspiratorial, i.e., paranoid style , implications.
Thank you for your thoughtful column. As a republican woman (although I consider myself a moderate and Steve Bannon doesn’t speak for me), I appreciate that you also included some of the fear mongering beliefs of the far left. I know I’m not alone when I say that we need better candidates on both sides. What’s frustrating is that up until now, much of the media has been gaslighting us about the true condition of Biden. How are we to believe that they are also not exaggerating much of what they report on the right? Both sides have extreme groups who have basically ruined it for the rest of us. When you have to choose between one or the other and you really are sort of in the middle, it’s extremely frustrating. I joined Braver Angels a few years ago - it’s a nonpartisan group of reds and blues who are working to become for civil and accepting of each other.. to find common ground. But if our current candidates are the best we can do, we have a problem worse than a few loudmouths claiming to speak for the entire party.
We need to make a new national party for the Braver Angels to allow people to come together and work together for the good of our nation
Thanks for the comment. I consider myself an independent and a moderate as well. The distinction between the two parties is that the Republicans I quoted do speak for the party. They have captured it. That does not mean that every Republican or even most Republicans endorse their views. But they are the leaders and the Republican leaders who opposed them, like Liz Cheney, were ousted.
There's not a parallel on the Democratic side.
I avoided writing about the presidential race because I had nothing new to add. I too wish we had better choices.
Do you follow Bill Maher at all? He had an interesting segment where he explained that many of his Republican friends said the reason they will vote for Trump is because he’s all that stands in the way of what the far left is trying to do. Whether their fears are real or not, they are real to them. Politics of fear is real. Identity politics is also real. People vote out of fear and for the candidate they think will best protect their way of life, their families, their businesses, etc.. The phrase “false equivalence” isn’t an issue in this case, because people have different priorities and if their priority is being threatened, that’s how they will vote. And it all comes down to who is most motivated to vote.
I don't watch Bill Maher. He has always irked me with his smugness. More to do with his affect than anything he says.
I don't discount fears. But I do differentiate between fears of an articulated set of far right policies vs. fears of the far left whose policies are still at the fringes. But I recognize that instincts will always come before analysis.
I think some policies have already been implemented.. some would say the changed to title IX, pervasive DEI, gender focus in elementary schools, things like no cash bail in IL, permissive laws on theft and drug use in big cities, excessive taxing, gerrymandering, etc… from the left. So while the right may have defined what they want to do, many would consider far left policies have also been implemented.. I’m not taking a specific position on any of these.. just pointing it out.. I live in IL if that helps explain things..
Thanks for sharing this perspective. I hear this from Republican friends, too, though I don't hear people weighing the problems if Trump is elected against problems if he is not. For moderate Republicans, it seems like there are things to fear either way, are there not?
Gerrymandering is primarily a GOP thing. Even Newsweek refers to the 10:1 dynamic; where ten Red states are heavily gerrymandered to one Dem state (MD): https://www.newsweek.com/map-shows-most-gerrymandered-states-wisconsin-1915098
Wisconsin is the worst; wherein with voter parity between the parties, the GOP in '22 has veto-proof 64-35 and 22-11 majorities in the WI House and Senate, respectively.
Illinois district 13 was heavily gerrymandered to eliminate a republican seat. In fact.. the Illinois Democratic Party is doing everything it can to strengthen their supermajority. I think it should be addressed on both sides. People are not fairly represented and there are not check and balances.
A plurality of so-called "Low Information" Republican voters honestly believe that Democrats abort babies in all three trimesters--and even after they are born. They believe that Hispanic illegals are rapists, murderers, drug dealers--and generally rotten people who will also clog the welfare rolls and vote in American elections. They believe Covid vaccines are far more deadly than the virus itself. They believe that Democrats have declared war on Christmas, and are God-hating moral degenerates.
They believe these things--and many more of a similar ilk--because FOX News and its lesser imitators in RW media tell them so again and again and again.
Any idea on how to cross the information divide?
That’s painting with an awfully broad brush. Not all republicans believe the same thing or to that extreme. Assuming people are evil, ignorant or any other slur because they vote differently doesn’t help us. Are there people in the Republican Party who believe some of these things? Sure. There are also Democrats who believe everything is about race and gender and people are either oppressed or oppressors. But most don’t..
When I was a child in the aftermath of McCarthy’s reign of terror, my mother gave me Richard Rovere’s book on the rise and fall of the demagogue. She wanted me to know that nothing like this should be allowed to happen again. Those years also saw a campaign to meld religion with public life. E.B. White, who deplored it, explored the trend in an essay that rings true today. Thank you for this cogent analysis.
Thanks Rona. if you happen to have the name of the White essay, I'd love to read it.
“Bedfellows,” a favorite of mine. Ostensibly about a curmudgeonly dog, really a meditation on the state of the republic.
My father, a senior civil servant in Washington in the 30s and 40s, was affected by the McCarthy bullying, moved to the UN in 1951 and was caught up by a second wave in the 50s. It was very real and affected people’s lives.
The neoliberal ruling class of this country (and its fiefdoms in Europe) are inbred, insular, incompetent, but above all, deeply, deeply paranoid concerning the masses over whom they manage. They view the folkways of the average native-born American as terrifyingly backward and dangerous. To be an elite means to regularly engage in a ritual denunciation of these people in specific terms- they are racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. and this denunciation is meant to indicate that the people are both benighted and evil. This serves to justify systemic lying on a scale never seen in history, with the state security services collaborating with the media to promote and suppress information with the goal of preserving the existing managerial elite under the fiction of democracy. The endlessly repeated mantra of “X (unusually Trump, but also Putin etc.) is a threat to Our Democracy is the central rallying cry for the campaign of propaganda waged against the American people, which really just amounts to projection. And of course, this involves state sanctioned violence by cut outs like Antifa and Black Lives Matter, who are given leave to engage in public acts of violence without any hint of official reprisal to send the message that opposing the system means a mob at your doorstep.
The Democrat party foisted an obviously senile candidate on the country, colluded with the media to lie about his metal state, sent masked rioters into the streets to intimidate voters, locked down the country under wholly a spurious medical pretext, and then spent the next few years telling the American people that despite what they personally experienced as awful- the economy and everything else- all was going fine. Even in terms of holding on to power none of this makes much sense unless the managerial elite were truly and irrationally terrified of the people getting what they actually wanted through electoral politics. It’s not the people who are paranoid, it’s the deep state.
If the "Deep State" were really powerful, I think the Democratic party would not have a candidate that is polling so dreadfully against a party that wants to dismantle the Deep State (assuming it exists). As i write, what I observe is a major party dominated by political leaders with extremist views that they have articulated in detail. I don't see evidence of that on the Democratic side.
I agree that they’re powerful; my point is that they’re out of touch and terrified of the people as a whole. Thus they prefer to exercise power as a background oligarchy rather than an accountable executive. The Democrats Party is a coalition of wealthy globalists, government workers and dependents, and various minorities, with very little to hold them together apart from a fear of Red America and its values. Joe Biden was the only possible candidate acceptable to all factions, which is why, senile or not, he had to be the guy.
The Democrat Party fully endorses the basic outlook that America is a racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. country that needs to be radically reconstructed by enlightened elites. There is no daylight between the party leadership and the mores of the academy or the radical left in that regard. This has the happy (for them) effect of coinciding with the neoliberal drive to homogenize culture and globalize financial systems, hence woke capital. Blue collar Scranton Joe is a creature of the credit card companies who publicly states that a man can become a woman through an act of will. The idea that he or his party represents average people or moderation I do not believe is tenable.
The Democrats have an extremist platform of letting in a deluge of millions of immigrants each year, making every aspect of corporate and government life “woke” as possible, and rolling out crippling carbon taxes on many basic products. One form of extremism is aimed to degrade the common man, the other is aimed at the bureaucracy. Telling how many people rush to defend civil service before anything else
So it's purely coincidence that this "deluge" of immigrants surged when the economy added so many jobs that there was--and still is--a severe tightening of the labor market?
When the economy is hot, they come. When we're in recession, they don't. It's that simple. They come for economic reasons; not because the Dems conspire to let them in--so they can supposedly be given the illegal right to vote (as pretty much any FOX News viewer fervently believes).
Building a wall--or at least beefing up ICE's ranks--is a good idea. But the GOP is simply not interested in a solution; preferring instead to keep it a perennial campaign issue. During the first 2 years of the Trump Admin, the GOP had control of POTUS, House and Senate. Did they solve the border issue? No. All they passed was the 2017 tax bill, that added $1.7trn to the national debt.
A tight labor market likely was an influence on the desire to open the border. But so was the party itself also being driven farther to the left on racial issues. Many openly believe now that demographic change should be sped along (even if they don’t immediately vote, they inflate the size of the districts they arrive in). Who will stop them?
Project 2025 is based on the assumption that no wall can be built without first cleaning up the executive branch to actually do what the president wants them to do. Trump did try to make such things happen in his term (and immigration did decrease), but the degree to which he was stonewalled by the bureaucracy was very visible.
Firstly, the border hasn't been "opened". That's just the drivel pushed out by FOX. ICE operations--interceptions & detentions--have been pretty much the same under Biden as they were with Trump. The only difference is that as the economy has boomed, the number of illegals seeking entry has risen dramatically. Which would've also happened if Trump hadn't lost in '20.
Project 2025 will replace meritocracy with political appointees--know-nothing yes men. Cronyism that will damage the efficiency of government, not improve it.
There was a gap in the labor market that migrants could hope to fill after 2020, but there was also a bunch of shadowy organizations and charities given under the table DNC money to entice those migrants and to make their journey easier. If the only side of the story was just the economy, then the feds would not have been harassing Texas for doing the bare minimum of border security.
The civil service has not been anything resembling a meritocracy since 1932. Project 2025 is conservatives finally abandoning foolish principles and realizing their only hope of survival is appointing their own cronies rather than giving the table to the democrats.
In order to have a democracy we need a secular society. If we don’t one religion will be trying to enforce their doctrine on the rest of us. This always provokes resistant.
With all due respect what exactly is the “deep state ?”
Can refer to either financial and political organizations directing politicians (eg open society foundation, bill gates foundation) or the civil service branches directly. Both are unelected and unaccountable to voters.
The terms has been around since the 1950's, but the term was popularized by Peter Dale Scott in his 2014 book of the same name: https://www.amazon.com/American-Deep-State-Struggle-Democracy/dp/1442214252
And it primarily refers to the influence of Big Oil & Wall Street upon politicians, the media and bureaucrats. Since 2016, however, the term has been commandeered by the Trump and the GOP to refer to any policy of the Democratic Party.
David, another thought provoking column from a wet Saturday afternoon in London. It is a sign of the times that I am far more concerned about what happens in the US in November than the UK election this week.
One quick observation from the result of the UK election on Thursday. The Labour (centre) party's landslide, won a huge majority with more than 200 additional seats on a vote share which barely increased from the last election, which they lost badly in 2019.
Only 60% of the electorate voted, the worst turnout since 2001. There was also a significant amount of tactical voting - voting for the candidate most likely to defeat the incumbent Conservative (centre right) in any particular area (seat).
I don't for one minute expect the result of the UK election to have any impact in the US, but I wonder whether we might at least see many frustrated Republicans abstain, lowering the turnout in order to avoid global catastrophe?
Any Republicans reading this could argue Democrats might be feeling the same. There is of course, one significant difference, two old apples one of which is rotten to the core.
The British election was a very peculiar "landslide." I didn't realize that turnout was so low. Thanks for pointing that out. That's really interesting and may in fact be a harbinger for what happens in the US.
Your noting of the poor election turnout in the UK elections does have significance for the upcoming U.S. elections. Someone pointed out that Biden’s real opponent is not so much Trump, but the couch. If Biden can’t inspire some enthusiasm then many will stay home on the couch and the left will lose.
Factoring in our weird electoral college system, Trump can easily win even if he doesn’t receive a majority of the popular vote like he did before when many sat out the unpopular Hilary Clinton race. ‘None of the above’ currently seems more popular than either candidate. If the couch wins, Trump’s cult has the advantage.
I like your nomination of the couch as the ultimate third party candidate. Given how our electoral politics work and the lack of candidate enthusiasm by so many, the couches in a few states may well be the deciding factor.
I share this concern. I think new voters, especially, want to hear some positive reasons to vote for Biden. He's a terrific candidate for young voters because he has a timeless, youthful hopefulness that defies age, but voters will need to see and hear it for themselves. I hope they do.
Young women, and really all women of reproductive age, have a lot riding on this election, as GOP rule will result in an national abortion ban; followed by bans on many forms of contraception, as well as IVF. By upholding the "fertilized egg has the rights of personhood" principle, the GOP has managed to piss off most of the women in the country, and guarantee that female voter count will be high.
I am so sorry to read what I have been warning people about the dangers of using them against us politics of division and the history of our system of treatment of Blacks as the basis for Hitlers game plan for the world takeover and ethnic cleansing. So while, it may not seem like racism or sexism or homophobia. This is how the great breakdown of society in Germany happened through the systemic racism and systematic oppression of the entire Jewish population of Germany leaving few survivors, thereby creating the Holocaust. I fear for my fellow Black Americans who live in concentration camps all over America because they are actually voting for a candidate that has called for their extermination and will carry it out… and they will see… I just hope that the liar is not elected president of America and that the people will vote for the people who will not be forced into this mess of feeling scared of what lies ahead if he’s not elected president. They say that they will not let the election go bloodless only if the left will let it happen ( only if Trump wins)🥶chills went up my spine..,
It sounds like you may have read Isabel Wilson's book "Caste," which i thought was a terrific history book. The Nazi's use of the Jim Crow laws as a blueprint was a revelation to me.
I have not heard any of the leaders of the Republican party call for racial extermination, although there are fringe violent and dreadfully racist groups who are aligned with MAGA. And they have not been denounced by Republican leaders.
But you know that is how it starts in the backrooms. Remember, there’s “some pretty good people on both sides .”
Just had to let you know that that quote was debunked years ago yet the left still uses it. Please read the transcript. Trump wasn’t referring to the Nazis. The media cut and pasted and the Dems have been using it as a talking point to bash Trump ever since.
Yes, that's true. I was trying to be clever by doing a call-back to a controversy while making the point that I agreed with the sentiment. But I'd been better off without the cleverness.
Ugh. It's tough to be clever when it comes to politics-- esp. these days.
No no no @CK Steefel. Saying that it wasn't about the Nazis doesn't debunk anything. Just watch the source videos from Charlottesville. What exactly do you think they mean when chanting, "You will not replace us?" and "Jews will not replace us?" What do you think they are they trying to invoke by singing Dixie and chanting, "The South will rise again!"
That's no cut and pasting. Just watch and listen. Every person walking by with their torches and chanting. So you watch that, and then you say, oh, yeah, there were some fine people there. Nah. Stop the revisionism.
You're right. Trump was not referring to Nazis, but rather American Neo-Nazis.
Sigh. No. Just read the transcript. He was referring to the folks who wanted to keep the statues.
Yes, I devoured the book and I am rereading it now as well as the election approaches to alert people to the subliminal messages of our election ads in preparation for life isn’t that much about race but about our caste system. It just so happens that in our country Blacks are always the bottom of the caste system…more people have to read this powerful history book 📚
You lost me at "With a little irony but an ironclad belief, I state that there are mostly “good people on either side.” You can't vote for hate AND be a good person.
I understand that view, but for most people their vote is not something they give much thought to. So many people don't even take the time to vote. I already live in a pretty tight bubble. i don't want to make it all the more tighter.
Strangely, supporters of either candidate might say the exact same thing.
Yes, Ivy Exile. I'm well aware of that false equivalency.
What the quote? "There's no hate like Christian love". So many "good people on both sides" show up to church on Sunday and vote to deny funds to help the poor (totally disregarding the teachings of Jesus) when they go to the polls. No abortion, birth control is next, but guns for all and the death penalty is A OK! The cognitive dissonance never fails to amaze me.
I don't think that either Republican or Democratic voters have a monopoly on my sense of morality (below). Or immorality by those same terms. We are all highly fallible.
Micah 6:8 To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
There's also the paranoia that centres on a false equivalence – "the Left is just as bad." For example, I kept hearing about "the Authoritarian Left" a few years ago. This was the threat that we all had to gird ourselves against...the Authoritarian Left were, above all, in our universities squelching academic freedom. But this never squared with reality. Students may have been shouting down opposing opinions, but actual legislation was eroding long-held freedoms. And the reaction to students turning on unpopular speakers in tertiary education has been the formal censorship of books in primary and secondary education – the formal erosion of the quality of education that every child has a right to access. The paranoia is grounded in false equivalence to justify the extremity of the response.
Do you think that conservative students and professors feel free to speak out at liberal colleges and universities? That is not what I am seeing.
Yes. Social pressure is not the same thing as legislative or administrative pressure. One very famous professor, Jordan Peterson, cultivated a very public profile saying whatever he wanted and his tenured position at the University of Toronto was never in doubt. He resigned for his own reasons and still enjoys professor emeritus status there, all the while complaining about what he “cannot” say.
It is false to equate someone who “cannot” do something due to social pressure with someone who cannot do something due to actual legal consequences.
Social pressure is very hard to stand up to… particularly for young students. I think there is also a real fear of not being promoted or tenured or graded fairly. This is what I hear from friends who are conservative professors at a very large big ten college. Maybe they won’t get fired but maybe they will be shunned. Is that okay?
Unless someone is a political scientist, I’m not sure how their partisan affiliation would even be relevant to their work. Do they want the freedom to argue against diversity? That may be professionally unacceptable in education because education has a vested interest in inclusion. Intellectual talent is distributed randomly across the population and should be cultivated wherever it is found.
It used to be acceptable to use the n-word both publicly and in the halls of Congress — you can find its use in Congressional transcripts. But after the 1960s Civil Rights movement, it became no longer socially acceptable to do so. The people who wanted to keep using the word complained about how unjustly censored they were, yet the culture had moved on. Use of the n-word was pushed out of the public space and no one should mourn the loss of “freedom of speech” over celebrating the progress of American society.
While I stand by my point that the Republican party is animated by extremism and the Democratic party is not, there are certain enclaves of our society where the far left is dominant. I think some academic departments in some colleges and universities and schools are among those enclaves. That said, there has been an overreaction to incidents of DEI overreach. No one has come out of that battle of extremes looking wise.
II think you went off on a tangent here.. I was pointing out that conservatives are often treated with disdain for the simple reason that they are conservative. Not that they are racist or want to use racial slurs.. but simply because they have other conservative beliefs. And yes, there are conservative beliefs that are not rooted in any of the “isms” and this is why it’s so frustrating… making the assumption that all members of a party think alike or are “bad” people doesn’t get us anywhere. There should be acceptable diversity of thought and ideology on campus. Students should be encouraged to think for themselves and not be told that one side is wrong and the other is always right. where does that get us?
My point was really just: who cares? Why should it matter if some people feel uncomfortable discussing their personal political views? 1) what does that have to do with the education they deliver? (I’ve taught political science and I’ve never once shared my personal views in class); 2) maybe their views shouldn’t be shared because they’re unprofessional or contrary to the ethos of education; and 3) maybe their views are no longer socially acceptable. That’s not necessarily a bad thing at all (as illustrated by intolerance of public use of a long accepted racial slur, but this can include many other examples unrelated to racism).
Regardless of the social pressure to conform that they may feel they face, what they don’t face is actual censorship — the kind that states have enacted through legislature at secondary and primary levels of education. So this is an example of the false equivalence I referred to.
Well said, Leah. "The culture had moved on."
Another very interesting read. I’m Australian so not directly affected, but the Project 2025 document is a very scary read. Thank you for your contribution to the conversation.
I don’t think I could ever get over how much of a difference the pandemic was handled because of the demographics of the areas and the fact that it was so unpredictable and unknown that it was very difficult for people to understand that we were losing our Black and Brown people at two to three times the rate of white Americans but the only way to control that was through the lockdown or we would have had even worse outcomes than we had in the places where those people live.
Our public health system was on the verge of collapse. The 4% fatality (of infections) rate that swept Italy in the early days of the Pandemic was a very real worst case nightmare scenario. Social distancing and the Lockdown was a reasonable response at the time, at least until the vaccines became available.
David, what an excellent reminder of why this upcoming election in the U.S. matters so much to all of us. My son, who comes across alt-right social media on occasion, told me yesterday that there’s a conspiracy going round about Biden’s poor debate performance being a “psy op” designed to give the Dems a better candidate in facing Trump. We joked about this, but really, this kind of thinking is not a joke, as your piece points out, especially because social media amplifies everything that used to be in the fringe minority.
It is important to situate the paranoid style as part of both the right and left. Yet the grip it has on so many mainstream Republicans in public office is what deeply disturbs me and, after Jan. 6, is unconscionable. It may well mean that more moderate Republicans simply don’t vote - just as many disaffected Dems likely won’t if Biden continues as the candidate. The low turnout in the UK may be a harbinger, but at least Labour won (with success for the Liberal Democrats, too, as I understand it). Another more concerning harbinger might be the snap elections in France - I’m hoping the Popular Front coalition on the left can defeat a majority of the far right National Rally - but that one is too close for any comfort.
Thanks Martha.
Yes, I think the key difference between the two parties is the uniform embrace of the extremist views of the Republican leadership. Another commenter said that the "couch" is what both candidates have to overcome.
Hmm. I'm a huge Hofstadter fan--he wrote a great book on Social Darwinism, but I think you missed some stuff here. You can go back to the Constitutional Convention and the early years of the republic and find the same sort of overheated rhetoric. Jefferson did it; Hamilton did it; Madison, Adams, etc. If the government did this or didn't do that, tyranny would be the result and the nation is doomed. The slavery period leading up to the Civil War was rife with it, etc. The point here is that politicians understand that unless they keep raising the stakes higher and higher...to match their opponents...they will also not be able to match their support. That's why so many politicians who rue the spate of negative advertising always have to use it to win. I love Michelle Obama, but "When they go low, we go high," is one of the most naive and disastrous things anyone in politics has ever said. I worked for McGovern. He would rather be right than president. So he was right and Nixon was president. Want paranoia? Read "American Midnight" by Adam Hochschild. Where you are correct, alas, about which, as you know, I've written often, is that this group, perhaps uniquely in our history, is not simply interested in attaining power, but wants to destroy the basic structure of American democracy in order to keep it. Republicans are aware that they are, a: the minority party, and b: derive their power, as do most modern far-right groups, from rural areas. As such, they tailor their message to those living outside cities who are angry and envious of what they see as the profligacy of the elites--urban based--while they suffer. They avoid mentioning that their suffering was often their own fault in the failure to adapt to changing conditions by, for example, making sure their schools were educating their kids to compete in the modern world. As such, the conservatives focus on selling the notion that if government was gone and the borders were sealed, the lives of these poor, dumb schmucks would vastly improve. But, in fact, they real result will be the descent of rural areas into greater poverty, both economic and social. And so, the irony here is that if Trump gets in and the Republicans control the government...again as the minority party...people like you and I will do just fine. Trump's base, on the other hand, with the exception of those with money, will find their lives growing worse and worse.
Yes, the civil war was an example of two irreconcilable views clashing.
This Republican Party will get more than 40% of the vote. If they're the minority, it won't be by much, either way.
Breckenridge the 1860 Southern Democrat who in effect represented the future Confederacy won just 18% of the overall popular vote.
And Hitler got a little more than a third. I don't see either comparison is apt. Think about this. Until 2000, there were only three elections in which winner lost the popular vote: 1824, which went to the House and was a robbery; 1876, which was decided by one man--Joseph Bradley--which was another fix; and 1888, in which Benjamin Harrison was elected, although he lost the popular vote by less than 100,000 out of ten million cast. Since then it has happened twice, 2000 and 2016, and could easily have happened in 2020, although Trump lost by a staggering seven million votes. If Trump wins this time, it will surely have happened again, and may likely become the only way a Republican can win. That means large segments of the electorate will decide that presidential elections are fixed and may also view the system as irredeemably corrupt. If that happens, protestors will take to the streets, and we ain't got no Gandhi to keep things peaceful.
"Buy the Truth, and sell it not." Our country has strayed so far from that absolute. Both sides of the political spectrum are guilty, each searching for the "win" instead of the absolute. Recent political events have further defined that schism - cover-ups are unconscionable and dangerous, further masking our country's fundamental problem. Thanks David for your thoughts, but the points you're trying to make "hurt" the search for Truth, instead of "help."
🎯
Thanks, David, for a timely essay. Perspective and context help sort through a somewhat complicated history. My own take, that comes from my previous political and social activism, is that we started down, and I mean down, this path with Ronald Reagan and a Republican agenda that valued self-interest and money over service to others and tax reform. With few exceptions, it seems the U.S. has been "out of balance" for the past 45 years, probably longer. It seems that all three branches of Thomas Jefferson's "tree of liberty" are in need of reform and renewal before they are broken entirely. Here's a quote from Jefferson in a letter to William Smith, son-in-law of John Adams. "What country before ever existed a century and half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure. Our Convention has been too much impressed by the insurrection of Massachusets: and in the spur of the moment they are setting up a kite to keep the hen yard in order. I hope in god this article will be rectified before the new constitution is accepted."
I am reluctant to say this but I'll go out on a limb. The U.S. may have exceeded its limits and its time in its current configuration has expired.
Gary, I hope not and I know you hope not. There's more good in America than not. Many more good people than not. That is my hope.
Yes, I hope not, have worked for this not happening and continue to stand on the side of justice, equity, and the rule of law. We are on the edge, or so it appears, and it's time once again for good to triumph over evil. It's not the first time in our history and if we could do it without bloodshed and sacrifice, all the better. It comes down to beliefs and values, and actions one is willing to take on behalf of those, and the future. There is much good work to be done to keep the flame of hope burning brightly.
"The remedy is to set them right as to facts..."
Unfortunately, not going to happen with conservative media like FOX News and its lesser imitators, which have collectively almost completely abandoned any journalistic standards. When a third of the electorate is fed a steady stream of propaganda, and have zero awareness that they're consuming only propaganda, we have a serious problem.