Ask not for Whom the bell tolls …
We knew justice was blind, but … deaf, dumb and blind?
With the Trump tragedy in the news daily, there is much talk about the rule of law, but none about the other option: mob rule.
That’s not hyperbole, that is the other option. You may dress it up as fascism or authoritarianism, but barbarism is probably more accurate. The bullies in the back of the room, the ones who slept through classes, threw spitballs, pulled on pigtails and wrote dirty words in the restroom stalls, they want to be in charge. If you think that’s not possible, recall the Visgoths and Mongul hordes, the Dark Ages. I don’t fear Donald Trump; I fear his ideological progeny.
Certainly you can identify educated (some Ivy-league), wealthy, successful people amongst his supporters, but they are the puppet masters or, at least, believe they shall reap the spoils of his chaos. The mass of puppets are marching … and they are coming for us. What’s the opposite of civilization? Barbarism - the absence of culture and the collapse of civilization, extreme cruelty and brutality.
As David Remnick in The New Yorker newsletter points out,
“The (Trump) indictment comes just days after a poll conducted by the Times and Siena College showed that the former President is so far ahead of Ron DeSantis and the rest of the Republican field that it is clear that a large portion of the electorate has decided that multiple criminal indictments current and forthcoming—the 2020 election fraud; the hush-money sex-scandal case, in Manhattan; the election-fraud case, in Georgia; the classified-documents case in Florida—will not dissuade them from voting for Trump.”
“Sooner or later, a great reckoning is coming.”
As Nate Cohn put it in his analysis of the Times’ poll, “The MAGA base doesn’t support Mr. Trump in spite of his flaws. It supports him because it doesn’t seem to believe he has flaws.” According to the Times poll, Biden and Trump are tied in a hypothetical rematch at forty-three per cent. Sooner or later, a great reckoning is coming.
I know I am stating the obvious, but it leads to my question: WHY? What is it that has lead us to this cultural divide? Are we standing at the edge of the abyss?
The Geography of Hate is an endless wasteland, one that reminds me of September 11, 2001. Most every American remembers what they were doing when they saw those horrifying images and how they were affected. My initial reaction was total fatalism and denial. I had the day off and was about to go fly fishing on a local Colorado River. I watched the endless replays of the first Twin Tower crash on the early morning news, but when the second crash occurred, I retreated to an isolated section of river canyon and flogged the waters for hours. If the world was going to end, I selfishly wanted to squeeze in a few last hours of peaceful bliss.
As I stood there, midstream, bathed in clear, cold rushing waters, I cherished each moment. The golden-colored rock walls comforted me, rising to isolate me from the chaos of a world gone mad. A few wispy clouds dancing in the sterling blue sky gifted me with reflected soothing images, but reminding me of the transience of our lives. We are here … and then we are not. What is the purpose?
The Dalai Lama once said “ … the purpose is to be happy.” How can that be reconciled with the immense hated of such a barbarous act as that attack? Unfortunately, looking at it from the other side of the world, from a culture foreign to our experience, it made sense (and maybe still does) to Bin Laden followers, as well as many Muslims who felt subjugated, humiliated and victimized by the foreign occupation of their “holy land.” From the Crusades to the oil company geologists, the infidels never stopped coming, always wanting to improve, to modernize their countries and cultures.
And so that is where we are now. Trumpism has become a Holy War. Many still bury their heads in the sand. How many times have you heard it: “… it doesn’t affect me, I don’t do politics; I never watch the news .…” Maybe denialism is a unique human trait among the animal species, a part of our DNA. At the very least, it is endemic. The philosopher Santayana once wrote: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
As for me, I often wish I could revisit that splendid Colorado morning, feeling the rushing waters pulsing against my legs, watching darting trout shadows dance beneath the surface, casting my fate to the winds of changes I could not see. But Heraclitus warned me: No one steps in the same river twice ….
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Yes, it is increasingly difficult not to feel ashamed/appalled at being human. Not just Trumpism, but climate change, racism, sexism, on and on and on. The only sense I can make of it all is that humans simply evolved for another reality. Our adaptability is now killing us because we adapt too easily to "new normals" of deteriorating ecological realities and irrational political discourse. Human tribalism prevents us from seeing the larger picture. Anyone who does sincerely look at what is happening...runs the risk of feeling a terror that tends to shut down higher reasoning, and further encourage fight or flight responses. As a species we have proved ourselves superbly adapted at "survival of the fittest" against all species and all environments...except against against ourselves, our own "civilization", and our own Nature.