If you’ve seen the diary I posted the other day with links to Umair Haque’s “We Don’t Know How to Warn You Any Harder. America is Dying”, I have been adding updates at the bottom to keep up with events that seem particularly germane. There’s no shortage of data points...
I’m posting here about Farhad Manjoo’s latest at the NY Times because he is seeing the same things Haque is — and is having a comparable reaction.
Even if Trump loses, there’s no guarantee we’ll make it to the other side.
My wife, Helen, and I got into a quarrel the other day about how to plan for America’s bleak future. Our family needs to replace an aging car, but I’ve been hesitant, wary of making any new financial commitments as the nation accelerates into the teeth of political chaos or cataclysm. What if, after the election, we need to make a run for it? Why squander spare cash on a new car?
Helen thinks I’m being alarmist — that I’m LARPing “The Handmaid’s Tale,” nursing some revolutionary fantasy of escape from Gilead. But I think she — like a lot of other white, Gen X native-born Americans who’ve known mostly domestic peace and stability — is being entirely too blasé about the approaching storm.
As an immigrant who escaped to America from apartheid-era South Africa, I feel that I’ve cultivated a sharper appreciation for political trouble. To me, the signs on the American horizon are flashing blood red.
Read The Whole Thing.
Among the reactions I got to the diary about Haque’s warnings was the criticism that it might be a Russian info wars piece intended to create despair and apathy. I would hope this piece by Manjoo would answer that conjecture. He doesn’t reference Haque at any point, so I am assuming he hasn’t seen his writing. Whatever other problems we might have with the NY Times, it can’t be easily dismissed as a fringe operation.
Haque is writing from London; Manjoo from Northern California. When two people with experience of authoritarianism reach similar conclusions while writing from two different locations, I would suggest that gives us sufficient triangulation to consider their conclusions as having a high degree of validity. I don’t think we need to pass the Bellman’s Test here with a third observation.
There are people who do not want to hear bad news. Well, denial is not pretty, but it sure seems to keep popping up as an understandable reaction. For those who are optimistic about a Blue Tsunami turning things around, I would suggest that’s simply another form of denial. We have a long road ahead of us even assuming the best case scenario in November. Manjoo offers this:
In a new book, “Presidents, Populism and the Crisis of Democracy,” the political scientists William G. Howell and Terry M. Moe argue that Trumpism is largely a symptom of growing populist disaffection with the American government’s inability to solve people’s problems. Even if Trump does lose, they argue, our democracy will still face serious questions about its viability. I asked Moe, a professor at Stanford, how America might recover from this damage.
“It’s not clear that we can,” he told me. “I think the Republicans, for now, are an anti-democracy party.” Their only chance of political survival is to continue to “make the country as undemocratic as they can so that they can win elections.”
emphasis added
The problem is bigger than Trump. Even if we take back the White House and gain complete control of Congress, Fox News will still be out there. The Dark Money will still be out there. The McConnell Supreme Court and the McConnell judiciary will still be out there. QAnon and worse will still be out there. The structural anti-democracy of the Electoral College, the Senate, and the way House districts give red states more seats even though Team Blue gets more votes — all that will still be out there.
Above all, beware despair.
The Right Wing loves to misquote the Founding Fathers, but they don’t hold sole title to them. Words from Thomas Paine seem to be called for here.
“THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated”
Forward momentum. Constant vigilance. Never give up, never surrender. If you aren’t working to GOTV, now is the time to mobilize. Find a local candidate you can support and help them. We need to take back government at every level. We must concede nothing without a fight.
Have a plan to vote and make it count.
61 days...
