Bod Woodward book, Fear, has been released today. Last week's excerpts have added to the belief that Trump is dysfunctional and dangerous. We expect to see more examples as the public reads the full book.
At the same time, a monster hurricane is approaching North Carolina. The current prediction is that it will make landfall on Cape Fear, where there is a nuclear power plant. This hurricane is just one of many recent unusually harsh climate related events, which supports the fear that the worse of climate change is happening now and Trump is derailing the world's effort to stop it.
Here are two of the videos that will be shown at the meeting:
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Here is the other video that was shown at the meeting:
I like how you found the common denominator between the two topics.
ReplyDeleteThe historian Christopher Lasch in 1979 said this about the narcissist (which he identified as a common personality type in the U.S. at the time): “Outwardly bland, submissive, and sociable, they seethe with an inner anger for which a dense, overpopulated, bureaucratic society can devise few legitimate outlets.” Lasch may have been describing the college-educated middle class that tended to deny its anger and seek refuge in self-discovery, but what might he say today about Trump’s core supporters? For they seem little interested in self-discovery. Instead they may just be angry and scared, and what Trump offers them is a stamp of legitimacy, if not hope. But other than that wisp of legitimacy, what does the die-hard Trump voter really expect to change under his leadership? Will the 1% no longer control their lives? Will minorities simply accept continued injustice, slink back to the balcony, and be content to bow and scrape? Will their well-paying factory job come back? Will women happily return to their traditional roles of juggling work, home and childcare? Will their communities return as places of vibrant social life? Will everyone convert to evangelical Christianity? Will homosexuality disappear? Will transsexuals just forget about it and go back to pretending? Will the environment simply take care of itself, freeing us from any responsibility for fouling our nest? Will people just decide one day to stop killing themselves with heroin and Oxycontin? Will unintended pregnancies cease to exist? Will poor immigrants stop their search for a decent wage and a decent life? Will poor folks in the inner cities just fade into oblivion? Will all of our adversaries be so awed and intimidated that they will consider our interests before their own?
ReplyDeleteHere’s a thought exercise: Maybe the way to counter Trump is to simply cede to his version of reality and repeatedly and publicly ask his supporters to clarify what that might mean. That is, press them to voice what they really want. It’s just possible that what we would find is that all they’ve ever wanted is to have their version of reality affirmed, and that they’ve never given much thought to what that might mean. Otherwise, by not forcing a critical examination of fantasy – our own or anyone else’s – we may give credence to a worldview that, morality aside, cannot be squared with reality. And it’s hard to see how that scenario ends well.