I am going to make a prediction: I do not think we are going to see violence in the streets after Trump’s loss, and I’ll tell you why. Trump was not a political position; he was a sickness that attached itself to a political position, like the coronavirus attaching itself to a good cell.
I watched the Trump flag-waving folks with their pickups and bumper stickers bringing food to the fire refugees and going out to find those who were unaccounted for. I saw them helping their neighbors no matter what their political persuasion. They were good, caring people, who would give someone in need the shirts off their backs, just as those of us who secretly or not so secretly wanted to see Trump dead would reach out to help anyone in a situation of need. We were all good cells, but he infected us all, no matter what our political persuasion.
Be honest: Those of us on the left found ourselves having feelings and entertaining thoughts that were sick and angry. We did not feel good about ourselves for doing so. I know from my friends on the right that they were doing the same from their position. Somewhere inside all of us was a voice saying, “How can I be feeling this? I can’t believe I am thinking the thoughts I am thinking.” Whatever diabololical force Trump possessed — and, yes, he could have shot someone on Fifth Avenue and not have been convicted — put him inside all of our psyches for four years. We hardly had a moment when we were not thinking about him — one dysfunctional, cruel, horrible false man — who by his obsession with himself somehow drew the rest of us into that obsession.
We will need to do some hard cultural introspection in the future to figure out what this was, and how to keep it from happening again. But the truth is that he drew us all, right, left, and center, into the locus of his sickness. I truly believe that few of us wanted to be there.
If you consider how you are feeling right now, I’ll bet it is more a sense of relief than hope (if you are on the left) or fear (if you are on the right). We have somehow shed the political virus that was killing our body politic and we are all able to breathe again. We have chased Donald Trump from our minds and exorcised him from our spirits.
My guess is that this palpable feeling of relief and release is bigger than Trump; that we all want this sickness to be gone so we can go back to being human. We will go back to arguing, and the intractable issues of abortion/right to life, gun control, and others will cause our anger to rise and our hearts to harden. But the removal of Trump from the emotional calculus has allowed light to shine inside all of us again.
None of us wants to be the person we have been for the last four years. We have been that person because of Donald Trump, and we are weary — all of us. I truly believe that we will all move on from this man faster than anyone can imagine, and he will be left raging alone on a stage in an empty political arena with a few well-worn MAGA hats strewn around the floor.
We want to be good. We want to be healthy. We want to be happy. As my Native friends say, we want to bring the world back into balance. Trump represented something dark inside of all of us. May he disappear from our individual and cultural memory as quickly as possible, and remain only as a distant reminder and a cautionary note. I truly think this can happen.
It’s a very compassionate way of looking at how many of us have been feeling. Thank you for sharing it. I do have some hope (I always do) but relief is washing over me. I want my kids to grow up in a world where a leader acts from a place of humility.
I do believe this and thank you for writing it so perfectly… and hopefully.
Right on! I agree with you
Thanks Kent. I appreciate your always thoughtful take on a tough situation.
“Whatever diabolical force Trump possessed” is really about someone who has only fed or given over to the bad wolf within him. I’m sure you’re familiar with the story:
https://www.firstpeople.us/FP-Html-Legends/TwoWolves-Cherokee.html
It’s hard to be subject to his….I can’t help but say it, evil on a daily basis for years and not feel worn out. It has been like watching a serial killer doing his business right out in the open and not being able to do a thing about it. Also, watching his enablers fanning the flames like the wildfires we’ve been ravaged by was tough.
Whatever we practice we get good at. The people who voted for Biden were voting their hearts and hopefully will continue to follow that path within them.
Cliches abound in the space we’ve been in and in where we find ourselves now. The one that pleases me is: ‘a breath of fresh air’–after coming into the light from a dungeon. As always, I appreciate your eloquence.
While I have always followed your thoughts and ideas, Kent, and was a total Democrat in the past, since March of this year I have looked at things differently. I can’t speak for others not in my home state of PA, but the world, as I see it, looks much the same as it did n 2019. Except for one thing. Covid. I have a 16 year old grandson who cannot go to school because his anxiety causes him to be ill for a while. Since March, he and his friends have been a “close knit” group, and he has not been sick once other than his occasional allergies. Because we have seen how unreliable testing is for this “virus”, we cannot risk him being tested and causing our lives to be on hold and my daughter out of work. Fear of this is worse than any illness to us. While I hated Trump for a long time, I began to think maybe he was aware of things we were not. Although he was crude, and ill-mannered at times, and I thought he wasn’t doing good for the environment, his agenda was to get American working again. And he did. Now people are out of work and small businesses are failing. Elderly people in nursing homes are shut in without seeing their families. I have friends I can’t see because of their fear of a sickness that I have not seen at all in seven months. This makes no sense to me. I voted with my heart , too, to get rid of this fear, and be free people again. The fear of something keeps it growing. I don’t trust this new Administration and when Biden said, “We are headed for a dark winter”, I don’t think he meant the weather. There are nasty people on both sides of this, but our ultimate goal is to find out how this all began and not to accept the media’s spreading their explanation. If we remember the distant past in this country, it is not beyond certain in power spreading illness and disease to complete their plan. Call me what you want, but I, too am afraid for us all. Afraid of a forced and unnecessary vaccine, afraid of losing our freedom and not realizing it. I see it every day. Others call it “staying safe,”, I call it “control”. I pray others are right and this will all end someday soon, that this “new normal” that they have shoved down our throats since March, will become the old “non perfect” normal. I guess we shall see…
This is a strange turn for you toward conspiratorial fears. I would be wary of using personal situations (I, too, have grandchildren who are losing their childhood to fear of the virus)to draw larger conclusions and support larger policies. The facts are the facts about the death toll from this pandemic. It is the “back-door” infections that we need to fear: not so much the children getting it as the children becoming carriers and spreading it. I am perhaps guilty in the other direction: I do not believe that Trump had anyone’s interests at heart in his cruel withholding of PPE and government aid, and I cannot impute anything positive to his actions, even if they were accidentally wise or beneficial, which I do not believe they were. And the “allowing it to spread” approach proved faulty where it was tried. There is a lurking “one world order” paranoia in your post, it seems to me. Am I misreading you?
Thank you. That was so beautifully said, and helped to further heal my heart. I’m going to share it with others. We all need this right now.
Kent, thank you for writting the words and sentences that reflect my beliefs & thoughts but can’t put them on paper so concisely as you. I’ve commented to a grandson who is in Trump’s reality ” It’s up to all citizens of this country to change attitudes and work together, not political parties.” that’s the best I can do will save your words to use with family members who negate my attempts at holding us together.
Beautifully – and deeply – expressed. Thank you.
Thank you, Kent, for your eloquent and healing words. This nation is so much better than what we have been witnessing – all if us, with few exceptions have goodness in our hearts,
and somehow we have gotten caught up in the madness in one way or another. Thank you for the wonderful reminder of who we are.
Thank you Kent for once again offering a voice of reason.
As always, thank you Kent for your insight.
very well said Kent…I think you are correct. Thanks for putting it into words. GONE is how we all are spelling relief.
Dear Kent,
I understand the relief for many people in the US but let us also hear what a few (only a handful) of observers are saying:
Slavoj Zizek: Biden’s win changes nothing and signifies stalemate that could see Trump run again in 2024
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/506197-zizek-biden-win-changes-nothing/
“The US is now almost symmetrically divided, and Biden’s words of unity and reconciliation sound vacuous – as former US secretary of labor Robert Reich put it: “How can Biden heal America when Trump doesn’t want it healed?” And this division is here to stay. As academic Michael Goldfarb argued: “Trump was no accident. And the America that made him is still with us.”…”But the outcome of the elections is not just a stalemate – there is a clear winner: the big capital and deep state apparatus, from Google and Microsoft to the FBI and the National Security Agency. From their standpoint, a weak Biden presidency with the Senate in Republican hands is the best possible outcome. Without Trump’s eccentricities, international trade and political cooperation will get back to pre-Trump normality, while the Senate and Supreme Court will block any radical measures. The paradox is thus that, in the US, the victory of the ‘progressive’ side was at the same time its loss, signifying a political stalemate which may even give Trump a chance to return to power in 2024.”
Also, cultural historian, Morris Berman made the following comments after the election (I have consolidated them. Note: In his comments WAF stands for the title of his book Why America Failed and ch. 4 is chapter 4 in that book that explores the Civil War):
“It is sobering to contemplate the fact that for 4 yrs, the US was governed by a madman, someone who was clinically insane. Of course, since Bad Is Good in these end-of-days, that was a plus. The late Roman empire also had emperors who were out to lunch, including a 7-yr-old boy, and this contributed to its collapse. But of course, a vulgar boor can get a bit tiring. Biden will do very little to change things, despite the hopes and dreams of the progs. But at least he’s not an asshole, wh/brings its own kind of relief. History is rarely linear, and by treading water, Obama-style, his admin will serve to slow down our disintegration to some degree. Perhaps, in 2024, with a Trump comeback, we will be ready to resume a more accelerated pace into the abyss. In any case, from a declinist pt of view, it’s comforting to know that nearly half the country lives in the alternative, self-destructive universe created by Trumpalumpi.
And so, Joe. Joe will not unite the country; this is the usual post-election rhetoric. The country will remain bitterly divided, you can count on it. As for his larger mission: he will do his best to restore the globalized, neoliberal regime that has been in place for decades, and was certainly reinforced by Obama. A corporate world, with a corporate agenda, which causes suffering for most of the people on the planet. Think ahead to 2024: Trumpi, or some version of Trumpi, will certainly have a chance at the polls once again. And if that person isn’t a bulvan, a vulgar boor, the chance will be so much greater.
The final problem is that we have 2 nations that don’t want to talk to one another, but which each have something important to say. Dems will ignore what I said in WAF ch. 4, and continue to tear down Confederate statues, for example. The rt will go on ignoring the murder of black people by white cops. Etc.
And hovering over it all is the truth that almost all Americans are clueless abt, including the hi-IQ dummies at the NYT and elsewhere: the US is finished, no matter what anyone does or says. The empire is dying, and for most people on the planet, this will be regarded as a positive thing. All of the things I identified in the Twilight bk as bringing the country to its knees, are coming to pass as we speak.
From time to time somebody will raise the issue of Biden being some sort of shill for corporations, during his time in the Senate, and as VP. I can well believe it, but I’m wondering if any of you have come across evidence for this. I’m quite sure he will strive to promote globalization and neoliberal economics, but is there any specific evidence for his working to promote corporate interests?
Watching (online) jubilant crowds of progs in NY, Philly etc. celebrating Biden’s victory, I can’t help reminding myself of how fundamentally unintelligent Americans are…which includes major anchors, newscasters, editors, and so on. The progs actually believe that the source of the American ‘problem’ was Trump, and now that he’s being replaced by someone who is presumably a nice guy and doesn’t engage in constant lying and disgusting rhetoric, all will be well. It’s so amazing…as I have said, even the smart ones in this country are dumb. Was all well during the Obama admin, when Obama turned into a war criminal and was regularly murdering civilians with drones (he himself picked out 1/3 of the targets)? When 0 was done abt the environment, and the rich (like Obama) were getting richer? Americans focus on the personal and the trivial; the larger picture is literally beyond the reach of people who have 0 training in history or sociology. Instead, let’s dance in the streets over the dump of Trump (=pure evil) and installation of Biden (= messiah). Let’s get excited over the fact that Kamala is a person of color, while forgetting that Obama was a person of color, and did shit for 8 years (and hardly promoted the cause of people of color). Meanwhile, the US is, and will remain (for as long as it can) a genocidal war machine run by a plutocracy and cheered on by clueless morons.
An analogous situation: in DAA, I talk about how hurt Americans were in 1980 over the Iranian hostage crisis, how they took it personally, w/o any recognition of what we (CIA) did to Iran in 1953–deposing Mossadegh (democratically elected president) and installing the Shah and his torture regime. There is never any larger picture for Americans, never any connecting of the dots.
Nor do the progs want to address what motivates the Trumpites, why Trumpi came pretty close to winning a 2nd time around; or why Dems lost seats in the House, and gained little in the Senate. Those motivations are real, and cannot be dismissed as groundless. (Not that the bubbas are esp. interested in what motivates the progs, of course.) Americans believe that emoting is the same thing as thinking, and that self-righteous passion proves yr rt.
Anyway, the post-election glow will eventually fade, and no one–neither progs nor bubbas–will ever conceive of our stubbornly refractory problems in structural terms. I doubt very many Americans wd be able to say what ‘structural’ means, in fact.
What we are witnessing rt now, I believe, is a false dawn.
The problem is that Biden is a staunch advocate of globalization and neoliberal capitalism, both of which–the record is quite clear on this–make the rich richer, and the poor poorer. That is the larger picture.
On another note, I’m aware of the rather dramatic swings of the American electoral process. Bush Jr. was such a shmuck, and led us into the worst foreign policy mistake in US history (altho Vietnam is rt up there), that the pendulum swung strongly away from the GOP and put Obama into office. Obama was a pretty boy, a nothing president, treading water for 8 yrs, and as Hillary offered nothing more than more of the same, the pendulum took another violent swing back, and we got Trumpi. Who was such an asshole, and flubbed the covid situation so badly, and was so clearly racist, that the pendulum then swung back again, and we now have Mr. Empathy in the W.H. And in 2024, after very little substantive is accomplished? Can we predict another similar reversal (which seems to be the American electoral pattern), namely a return of Trumpi or someone even more rt wing and nasty? Just thinking out loud here.
I can’t refrain from observing how singularly awful Trumpi is as a human being; one of the worst, when you get rt down to it. A jackass like no other, even beyond dreck such as Nixon, or Reagan, or Bush. Of course, from a declinist pt of view, this was a gd thing, and perhaps, like Grover Cleveland, he’ll be back. But when you stand back a bit, and look at the guy from a distance, he comes across as surreal.”
I would also encourage people to read Joe Bageant’s works. Most relevant to recent happenings is the following essay (written in 2006 during the Bush years):
http://www.coldtype.net/Assets.07/Essays/0107.JoePunch.pdf
Excerpts:
“Americans take comfort in the spoonfed “pendulum” theory of politics. No matter that the pendulum smacks them in the goddamned head at either end of the swing, because supposedly, it achieves some democracy preserving balance. To my mind, it merely offers a different faux target for citizen discontent every four years, so the same powers behind the powers can continue to extract wealth and sucker the public into consumer confidence and the latest Wall Street Ponzi scheme, or fighting wars to obtain more wealth and to protect what the elites have already piled up.Yet American tolerance for this pendulum bullshit, for this set of fake choices between two powerful groups of political elites who are dancing in the Washington conga line, asshole to belly button pretending they are alternatives to each another, seems endless.
Just what on god’s green earth do liberals think the Democrats are going to do after they finish singing “This is the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius?” Really? What to do after they spend a few more years indexing the Republican crimes? The Republicans have the stolen geet, the Dems have a two-year ticket to ride, and the working guy and the middle class are pretending they are not about to get the worst reaming since Herbert Hoover was president. What are the Democrats to do, dear Nelly, pray tell? Well, it would be nice if they would immediately move to dismantle the police state that is so well under construction. And ideally they might begin to address the real problems that constitute the very shaky stage upon our delusional “American lifestyle” movie is being played out – peak oil and the collapse of the environment. When it comes to the peak oil crisis, their best shot seems to be Al Gore telling us to hang our clothes on lines and turn down the thermostats, never once mentioning, much less blaming, the corporations that keep our nation addicted to
oil, and are responsible for bankrolling the Bush/Cheney junta that brought us this ongoing national nightmare in the first place. ”
Himanshu
Just watched the film based on Neither Wolf nor Dog, so decided to look up Kent Nerburn and stumbled into this interesting exchange. First of all, I appreciate Kent’s assessment of the post-election period – like a salve on a very painful wound, and admit that everyone – no matter the political stripes, have been sucked into the Trump Black Hole.
I disagree that we will recover quickly from this time because the harm and hurt are very deep: The issues that have been revealed with the Trump presidency have been around for a long time – and will continue to fester until we find the courage to enact paradigm-shifting change to save ourselves.
To Anita: I hope you recover your wits enough to examine the reality of Trump’s criminal incompetence and naked cruelty. I understand the fear you speak of, but suspect it’s misdirected. Please look beyond your own world to see the damage Trump has done to our country to enrich himself and create as much chaos as he can.
To Himanshu: I happen to agree with much of what you say. But you offer no alternative scenario….I’d hoped to find, within the sheer volume of your post, that you’d have offered a path out of the dystopia we are all living in now.
I may well have been a bit too sanguine about this outcome. I assumed Trump’s self-absorbed fantasies would continue, but I was hopeful that the deranged among his followers would slowly come to their senses. Instead, they seem to be digging ever deeper into their toxic beliefs and intransigent illiteracy. I still think that time will heal things, but it is beginning to look like that healing may have to come after a protracted civil war of opinions and ideas. It is not deeply insightful to say that we are not confronting an ideology, but a cult. And cults only disappear after the cult leader disappears or a radical reprogramming takes place.
To ess Jay:
Thank you for your comments. I will offer the way out in this response but let me say a few words as to why I normally do not include solutions when it comes to the problems facing the US. I did not say anything about the way out because in my experience much of the dominant culture of the US doesn’t understand (or want to understand) that the problems facing the US are structural in nature. MLK Jr understood this (refer to his quotes about the edifice needing dismantling, changing from a thing oriented society to a person oriented society. He also saw that the equal share of the pie that he was trying to get for black people is rotten…privately he began to wonder if he was leading his flock into a burning church) as did writers and social critics such as John Steinbeck, Kurt Vonnegut (He said: “There is a shit storm coming.”), Joe Bageant (who I quoted in my previous post and highly recommend his works), C Van Woodward, Andrew Hacker, Lewis Mumford, etc. US cultural historian Morris Berman (who I have also quoted often) and a few other contemporary writers such as Richard Heinberg, Dmitry Orlov, etc also understand this. Again the point is if we misdiagnose the problem we will never come up with a real solution. I understand people’s urge to find quick solutions but I see that we (not you or Kent) need to spend some time looking at the structural problems in the US the way they are, understand their magnitude and then look for solutions.
I would also encourage you to think about the situation of the late Roman Empire (around the third and fourth century AD) with which contemporary US shares many characteristics. What could possibly have saved it or what was its way out? The emperors and the Roman public continued to believe in SPQR (In the US case the SPQR is American Exceptionalism to which both the Republicans and Democrats steadfastly adhere) while Rome burnt and eventually collapsed.
Now onto the way out: Both Morris Berman and Joe Bageant advise (and I agree) that if you are a young person in the US try to emigrate to a Latin American country or countries in EU and Asia that are outside the Anglosphere (UK, Australia). If this is not possible then both suggest doing an “inner” emigration. What does this inner emigration mean? To answer this question I will quote from Joel Magnuson’s book “The Approaching Great Transformation” where he has summarized an important part of Morris Berman’s book The Twilight of American Culture(TAC):
“In TAC (2000), cultural historian Morris Berman tells of the Franciscan monks and others in the 4th century who “took it upon themselves to preserve the treasures of the Greco-Roman civilization as the lights of their own culture were rapidly fading.” Berman draws a parallel between these monastics of early middle ages to what he calls the New Monastics. These are those in our contemporary society “who resist the spin and hype of the global world order; he or she knows the difference between reality and theme parks, integrity and commercial promotion…dedicated not to slogans or the fashionable patois of postmodernism, but to Enlightenment values that lie at the heart of our civilization: the disinterested pursuit of truth, the cultivation of art, the commitment to critical thinking, inter alia.”
“The New Monastics are aptly summarized on the cover of Berman’s book by Ferenc Morton Szasz, “[People} who are willing to reject the corporate consumer culture of our time and instead work to preserve the historical treasures of our civilization.”
Magnuson goes on to add: “ For our purposes here, we can think of the New Monastics as those among us who will craft new institutions patterned after businesses, governments, non-profits, and other social structures that are treasures worth preserving in our current system that we will leave behind. These are the organizations governed by rules that are unconventional in the sense that they place truly sustainable practices, community empowerment, aesthetics, and social justice over profit and growth.”
I see Kent’s works as a great example of what constitutes a New Monastic Individual.
Below are some essays and excerpts by Morris Berman and Joe Bageant that further elaborate on what “Inner Emigration” could mean:
Dual Process: The Only Game in Town
http://morrisberman.blogspot.com/2016/05/dual-process-only-game-in-town.html
Excerpt: “Dual Process consists of two parts, as the name would indicate. The first part is the collapse of the reigning socioeconomic formation; the second part is the concomitant emergence of alternatives, what could well amount to the latter’s replacement. As far as collapse is concerned, I’ve already indicated how the system is doing itself in politically, economically, and spiritually; and as I suggested 16 years ago, in The Twilight of American Culture, these processes are going to continue unabated—a prediction that proved to be true. In fact, they actually accelerated. The truth is that no system lasts forever; change is the only constant we find in the historical record. As one social critic argued a few years ago (Peter Frase), “humanity has never before managed to craft an eternal social system…and capitalism is a notably more precarious and volatile order than most of those that preceded it.” Wolfgang Streeck, in an article he published in 2014 in the New Left Review, wrote that “What we are seeing today…appears in retrospect to be a continuous process of gradual decay, protracted but apparently all the more inexorable.” Whatever stability capitalism had in the past, he goes on to say, was dependent on the presence of countervailing forces (e.g., labor unions). Today, no force is on hand to check capitalist expansion, balance it out; which suggests that it may undermine itself by being too successful. Everyone in these societies is mesmerized by consumerism, and thus dysfunctions in the system continue to accumulate, because there is not enough structural variety to cope with change. In a word, he concludes, “victorious capitalism has become its own worst enemy”; it is “dying…from an overdose of itself.”
Also I recommend reading all of Joe Bageant’s works(Deer Hunting With Jesus, Rainbow Pie, and his essays that are freely available online: http://www.coldtype.net/joe.html). Below are two essays that are very relevant:
AMERICA:Y UR PEEPS B SO DUM? Ignorance and courage in the age of Lady Gaga
http://www.coldtype.net/Assets.11/pdfs/0111.Joe.Culture.pdf
Excerpts: “Capitalism’s faceless machinery has colonized our very souls. If the political was not personal to begin with, it’s personal now. Some Americans believe we can collectively triumph over the monolith we so fear and worship. Others believe the best we can do is to find the personal strength to endure and go forward on that lonely plain of the inner self. It all depends on where you choose to fight your battle. Or if you even choose to fight. Doing either will take moral, spiritual and intellectual liberation. But one thing is certain. The only way out is in.”
THE SUCKER BAIT CALLED HOPE
http://www.coldtype.net/Assets.08/pdfs/1208.joe.dec.pdf
Excerpts: “The real solution — not to the problem, which is unsolvable in the long haul, but to balancing those eternal scales inside ourselves — begins with a more contemplative and reflective life, and the care of the soul. Both of which are necessarily thwarted by the wasteful daily busyness of our materialism and technology. Jesus did not text message his truth, and the Buddha never had a single friend on Facebook. Yet we hear their truth across millenniums. They simply practiced compassion. Only by eliminating suffering among sentient beings, do we create the spiritual soil in which peace can flourish. That takes conviction. The real stuff . It pisses me off that the Christian fundamentalists of my childhood were right about one thing — the value of conviction – but that’s the way it is.
And as long as we are still breathing and passing water, choice remains available, even superior choice: Accepting the truth and acting upon it. Thankfully, we can do individual positive action. It starts with getting in touch with higher intelligence: Our own. After that, it’s soul work. We can, at the very least, deliver our bodies to the halls of power and say: “No more scorched babies in Iraq!” We can refuse to participate in a dead society gone shopping. We can remember and contemplate the example of Rachel Cory. Or even follow that dogged neocon mantra of “taking personal responsibility,” but doing it for real. All of which can be considered voting for the spirit. It will take an entire lifetime of commitment, and the world will continue to crumble around us even as we work. There will be not one ounce of public glory or reward during our lifetimes, not if we are doing it right. And if we turn a buck on it, we can be assured that we are playing the same game as this earth’s wrecking crew. Which is called irony, I guess. Yet the reward lies right there before us. Knowing and observing the spirit in all things… even above life itself. It is the first fearful step… the first stone on the path to liberation. Anyway, that’s my take on things. Namaste. Get me a beer while you’re up.”
Himanshu
Himanshu’s contributions are never easy, but always worthwhile. They are well-thought out, well-reasoned Cassandra cries about the state of our country and culture. They are like the unexpected downswooping of some bird of prey while the kiddies play in the “good Trump, bad Trump” sandbox. So, hitch up your big boy or big girl pants and give this a go. Serious food for thought.
Kent, I love your point of view and I agree with it.
I’ve always loved Native American spirituality and am reading everything I can to learn more. Just purchased your book on Chief Joseph and I’m excited to read it.
On the subject of Trump and where civilization is headed…my whole life I’ve heard about how civilization is changing for the worst and we need to do something different, somehow.
First of all I want to say I am not judging anyone on this site but people always want to complicate things. I see this as a very simple issue but as old as humanity. The change has to start with us. Each person. That is the only way change will happen. I believe we are in a battle between light and dark, good and evil, love and fear. Every individual is a leader. I urge everyone to look in their hearts and be very honest with themselves, are you leading with love or are you leading with fear and anger. Look at how you treat other people, do you smile at the clerk who’s checking out your groceries or do you ignore them. What do you say to them as you walk away, anything? Do you want everyone to succeed or are you just concerned with your own success. I guarantee you this will change civilization more and faster than anything.
I know this will generate some criticism. I usually don’t put myself out there like this but I think it’s time to stop protecting myself and speak up. So…I can handle it. My hope is that people will start thinking about how they move around in the world and DO something different.
Janis and Himanshu said it plainly and even Lao Tzu concurs:
“Would you like to save the world from the degradation and destruction it seems destined for? Then step away from shallow mass movements and quietly go to work on your own self-awareness. If you want to awaken all of humanity, then awaken all of yourself. If you want to eliminate the suffering in the world, then eliminate all that is dark and negative in yourself. Truly, the greatest gift you have to give is that of your own self-transformation.”
Thank you Jerry, because of you I went back and read Hianshu’s post. It’s so long I sort of skipped a lot. What an incredible mind. It got me so excited in the middle of the post I went to amazon and bought Joe Bageant’s book “Deer Hunting with Jesus”, LOL.
Love this conversation,
Janis
I’m so glad some people are making the effort to read Himanshu’s posts. They are incredibly erudite and thought provoking. I am honored that he graces my site with his perspective.
From Wales in the Uk – huge gratitude to hear compassionate and spiritual Americans speaking out. Thank you
This has been a real spiritual challenge: how to respond to the presence of a man who is literally doing evil things, and doing them with glee? You keep hearing the echo of the phrase about evil triumphing when good people do nothing? Is asserting the positive really a pollyanna-ish denial of the evil? Or is it a legitimate rising above the fray? When that man started pulling families apart and placing toddlers in cages, I had to take a stand. Thank God this nightmare is receding. May our nation have learned some humility, though of that I am doubtful.
Now that we are several weeks into the rule of the new administration, has anyone realized that our new figurehead, Joe Biden is a bumbling imbecile, a puppet for the radical Marxist movement that is bent on crushing freedom and joy out of our lives? Years ago, there was a book published titled “A Nation of Sheep”…Sadly, we have become that through the sham of our unionized public education system that punishes enlightened and creative thinking.
As a Vietnam combat veteran (drafted)
As a director or a drug and alcohol rehab
As a retired architect
As an elder citizen of the Chickasaw Nation and member of the Warrior Society
I am deeply hurt and disappointed with the current state of affairs.
May the Great Spirit forgive our cowardice and greed and lead us into the brave light of unselfish service to all!!!
I agree with Jeffrey Jordan.
I read Chief Joseph a couple years ago, just purchased Neither Wolf Nor Dog (my thoughts about this just prompted me here for the first time), and look forward to reading many more of your books in the future.
But, I think you’re giving the former president too much credit. What is the media’s role in your thoughts and opinions? When you’re surrounded by negative voices day in day out for four years, how would you expect to feel differently?
May God bless you richly with the peace that surpasses all understanding.
To my mind, Donald Trump is a bad man, no matter what his status or position, and he has brought out the worst in the American character. Having said that, the media has forgotten how to report and give context in order to educate and Fox has learned how to use a public forum not to educate and inform but to manipulate to achieve political ends. That the rest have mirrored and followed is an indictment of their methodologies. It has put us into a dark time, I’m sad to say.
He is a sinner, certainly.
Think about this. Fox is one outlet. Sure, some people watch it all day and are enveloped by it. But, how much more powerful the message that is repeated around the clock by a multitude of respected, authoritative news channels, newspapers, magazines, books, and radio programs? Do you think a human being would realistically be able to counter that? Is the brain strong enough?
Kent,
You wrote (in 2020 piece above):
“We have somehow shed the political virus that was killing our body politic and we are all able to breathe again. We have chased Donald Trump from our minds and exorcised him from our spirits.”
and
” the removal of Trump from the emotional calculus has allowed light to shine inside all of us again.”
This (light shining in all of us) has not happened on a collective level—-far from it. The light that remains seems to be growing dimmer.
Many are moving into an acceptance of fascism taking hold completely by 2022. The right is gleeful about this. The left is just staring at this in disbelief and are immobilized to do anything.
This is about as dark as it can get. But it can get much, much darker—- and it looks like it will(cue Leonard Cohen)
Violence, anger, hatred, income inequality, climate chaos and collapse has increased significantly since you wrote this piece.
Getting rid of trump was not the problem. It is much deeper than that.
I have valued your work for decades. I hope you can update this article based on all that has happened since you wrote it. It was overly optimist and not realistic I am sad to say.
Caroline
I agree, Caroline. I still think Trump is in eclipse, but his moral and intellectual pathologies have taken root in our culture. I have quite purposely stayed away from writing political posts lately, and will probably continue to do so. My own mental health requires it. But if I were to update the post you mention I would certainly take a position much like your own.
Caroline, what does this even mean? “Many are moving into an acceptance of fascism taking hold completely by 2022. The right is gleeful about this. The left is just staring at this in disbelief and are immobilized to do anything.”
The right has basically no political power at present. The left has the federal government, universities, media, and even big corporations. I’m pretty tuned into conservative currents and I can’t think of anyone “gleeful” about “fascism taking hold” in 2022.
In fact, fascism is alive and well right now and weaponized by the federal government against the people, especially conservatives. For decades, Americans were bewildered by the ability of Nazism to take hold in Germany. But, 2020-2022 has shown us one way it can happen. Fear. Fear ramped up by the media complex over a virus with 99%+ survival (for which we have great early treatment – censored). Fear that “others” those against experimental jabs (which just hit 1,000,000 adverse events reported in VAERS, which is at least 6.5x underreported per the CDC – censored). Fear that pushes a certain side to “gleefully” call for the non-compliant to be fired from their jobs and be excluded from medical care (both actually happening – not just talk). Fascism is government dictatorship in combination with corporations and/or political factions – don’t believe the propaganda about it having to be “right-wing”. We currently have a government of Pfizer, of Moderna, of Raytheon, of Blackrock, and of Wall Street. A government that hides Pfizer vaccine safety data for 75 years. That is fascism.
You said that “the left is just staring at this in disbelief… immobilized to do anything.” I’m still puzzled by this and wonder what it could mean. (What the statement could mean, but also what it could say about the state of things, if true.)
Kent, with all due respect, I know why your mental health suffers because of Trump. But, it’s not because of Trump.
French philosopher Jacques Ellul helped elucidate the cause in 1965 –
“Propaganda must be total. The propagandist must utilize all of the technical means at his disposal – the press, radio, TV, movies, posters, meetings, door-to-door canvassing. Modern propaganda must utilize all of these media. There is no propaganda as long as one makes use, in sporadic fashion and at random, of a newspaper article here, a poster or radio program there….
“Thus one leaves no part of the intellectual or emotional life alone; man is surrounded on all sides….
“It is a matter of reaching and encircling the whole man and all men. Propaganda tries to surround man by all possible routes, in the realm of feelings as well as ideas, by playing on his will or on his needs, through his conscious and his unconscious, assailing him in both his private and his public life. It furnishes him with a complete system for explaining the world, and provides immediate incentives to action. We are here in the presence of an organized myth that tries to take hold of the entire person. Through the myth it creates, propaganda imposes a complete range of intuitive knowledge, susceptible of only one interpretation, unique and one-sided, and precluding any divergence. This myth becomes so powerful that it invades every area of consciousness, leaving no faculty or motivation intact.
“Propaganda must be continuous and lasting – continuous in that it must not leave any gaps, but must fill the citizen’s whole day and all his days; lasting in that it must function over a very long period of time. Propaganda tends to make the individual live in a separate world; he must not have outside points of reference. He must not be allowed a moment of meditation or reflection in which to see himself vis-à-vis the propagandist, as happens when the propaganda is not continuous. At that moment the individual emerges from the grip of propaganda. Instead, successful propaganda will occupy every moment of the individual’s life: through posters and loudspeakers when he is out walking, through radio and newspapers at home, through meetings and movies in the evening. The individual must not be allowed to recover, to collect himself, to remain untouched by propaganda during any relatively long period, for propaganda is not the touch of the magic wand. It is based on slow, constant impregnation. It creates convictions and compliance through imperceptible influences that are effective only by continuous repetition. It must create a complete environment for the individual, one from which he never emerges.
“Continuous propaganda exceeds the individual’s capacities for attention or adaptation and thus his capabilities of resistance…. He may even be tempted to resist…. But will he then engage in a sustained effort to resist propaganda? Will he disavow his past actions? Will he break with the environment in which his propaganda is active? Will he stop reading a particular newspaper? Such breaks are too painful; faced with them, the individual, feeling that [a] change in line is not an attack on his real self, prefers to retain his habits.” -Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes.
That’s enough. This is insidious and inhuman psychological warfare and it’s not your fault. No human is strong enough to fight against this. The best we can do is be aware and constantly guard and correct ourselves. And we’ll fail, but we have to forgive ourselves, and re-correct, and try again. The same when we fall into vilifying our peers and into the false left-right trap, which is really just divide-and-conquer great game puppeteering. Re-correct, forgive, seek forgiveness. Seek God. Meditate on his word. Pray. Put on The Armor. Ephesians 6:10-20.
It is a sad situation when rioters are egged on by a madman with power who cannot accept defeat or follow basic civil engagement protocols that ended in millions of dollars of property damage and dead individuals who were trying to protect other people in power who one year later deny the riot happened and follow in lockstep said madman