NEWSFEED by Laurie Lipton
The Resistance has been
Futile
by Jason V Brock
Massive wildfires fueled
by climate change… Immigration at unprecedented levels… Rampant
inflation, social collapse, unaffordable housing… The ongoing
threat of emerging viral plagues… Radicals proposing existential
questions about whether there are two, zero, or 72 genders…
Venerated institutions ideologically captured by extremist
theorizers… Catastrophic wars in Europe and the Middle East… The
major threat of the specter of religiously motivated terrorism…
Longstanding democratic traditions swept aside as autocrats seize
control of the reins of power across the globe… The world as it had
been suddenly dangles above a chasm of annihilation, besieged by
Left- and Right-inspired anarchic assaults… Unchecked technological
progress in the fields of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and other
areas feed social anxieties as the egos and bank accounts of
Postmodernist Techno-Robber Barons swell to grotesque proportions…
Meanwhile the screen-mesmerized masses seem anesthetized to the grave
new world order in the offing…
Elements of the latest
Hollywood blockbuster? A compelling mental exercise in the form of a
new television drama?
Sadly, no. Welcome to
our turbulent mid-decade: Call it the “Raging ‘20s”, a sort of
ghastly mirror of the more prosperous Roaring ‘20s one hundred
years prior.
There are several eerie
parallels to the 1920s in the current epoch: Multinational warfare
and its aftermath (namely World War I); a devastating global pandemic
(the Spanish Flu of 1918 and the Encephalitis Lethargica plague which
followed in its wake); huge surges in immigration triggered by
displacement due to war and other cataclysmic events both natural and
man-made; clashes between political and social ideologies; rapid,
technologically driven advances in modern life (e.g., automobiles,
movies, aviation); as well as key social upheavals due to the
advancement of women’s rights, relative tolerance of homosexuality,
and the development of Freudian Psychoanalysis, among other movements
and expansions.
Between the end of the
1920s and the start of the 2000s, the world was engulfed by several
massive disruptions, to include the Great Depression of 1929-1939
(echoed in the Great Recession of 2008), World War II in the 1940s
(which continues to generate geopolitical ripples in the modern
world), the Cold War of the 1950s through the 1980s, and other huge
changes socially (such as the Civil Rights Era in the U.S. and the
Vietnam War), technologically (the Space Race and the Information
Age), and in other ways (e.g., coups, assassinations, the decline of
religious belief in the West, and so on).
In particular, the
Information Age and the rise of the Internet have had a spectacular
(even revolutionary) impact on every realm of human experience, from
medicine and social interaction to politics and entertainment. After
widespread adoption of computers in the 1980s, the Internet became
the next frontier for the computing industry, fledging in earnest by
the late-1990s. A few years later, social media became popular. After
several precursor platforms, Facebook debuted to the general public
in 2006. Then the Apple iPhone dropped in 2007.
In 2008, the Democrat
Barack Obama was elected as the first mixed-race President of the
United States, using online tools to great effect. This election
seemed to signal a change in the way politics and humanity would
proceed; a transnational liberal order had become the norm in the
post-World War II Western democracies, foundationally established on
the promises of security, prosperity, knowledge, and personal freedom
from religious, political, and social strictures, the axis of which
had long hindered personal advancement and human development. Other
countries followed suit with their leadership choices. As these
elements intertwined, there was at once a sense of great potential
and profound concern regarding the way forward for humanity, though
no one truly believed that the world would ever devolve back into the
atavistic times of the pre-War period. In the years prior to 2016,
there was a sense of the unfolding future as an inevitable leap from
strength-to-strength, especially after the system shock of 9/11 in
2001, which heralded, at least for a time, a new phase of uncertainty
for the United States not felt since the end of the Vietnam War.
Post-9/11, while there were serious missteps along the way (the Iraq
War), things appeared to have reached a newfound accord during the
Obama years. Of course there were still problems in the world, as
there always have been and always will be, but there was renewed hope
that better times were on the horizon.
However, as Obama’s
second term drew to a close, there was what seemed, at the time, to
be a minor backlash to the rapid pace of change taking root in modern
life. By the lead-up to 2016, a sense of equilibrium appeared to have
at last been regained, albeit an uneasy one. During this time, it
looked as though progress in every sphere—social, technological,
entertainment, medical, and so on—could coexist with new
advancements and understandings in other areas of life: the personal,
the political, the world in general. Troubles may manifest, but they
could be overcome with compassion, grit, and forward-thinking. Then
Trump was elected in 2016, a surprise rejection of the status quo,
represented in this instance by the Democratic candidate to replace
Obama, Sec. Hillary Rodham Clinton.
In reality, while the
first term of Donald Trump was disordered and ineffectual in many
ways, his forceful nature seemed impervious to critique, and he was
absolutely worshipped by his stalwarts. Trump was fast evolving into
the Supreme Leader of a powerful cult of personality, one rarely
experienced outside of religious figures described in antiquity. The
closest analog to the loyalty he inspired (indeed demanded) in
the modern era could be a facile comparison to Adolf Hitler, though
Hitler was far worse with regard to policy and execution. Trump was
more of a caricature in many ways rather than a tyrant for the ages.
The resistance to Trump, and by extension what he appeared to
represent—a return to less progressive notions about social
structures and political policy—was vocal and determined, if
perhaps overzealous in some respects. The far-Left—so-called
“Progressives,” yet another nod to the Wilson-era 1920s—had by
this point come to dominate the media (with a few exceptions, such as
terrestrial radio and Fox News), academia, and other institutions,
providing robust challenges to the Trump Administration and his
policies in the courts, the media, and the streets.
One nexus of this
resistance was located in Hollywood’s entrenched, deeply Blue
entertainment industry. Almost since its inception, the entertainment
industry as represented by the Hollywood studios and their output
have been a major source of American soft-power throughout the world.
America has been quite successful at the cultural exportation of its
interpretation of American beliefs and ideals (at times even veering
into government-sanctioned propaganda), even when on the ropes
geopolitically. Over the years, Hollywood has grown increasingly
liberal in its political views and willingness to risk alienating
both audiences and powerbrokers within the industry with overt
demonstrations of its orthodoxy, especially during Trump’s first
term in office. During the period between 2016 and 2020, with the
convergence of causes such as Black Lives Matters (BLM), the #MeToo
movement, and others (many with early roots dating back to the 1920s
and related social movements throughout the 20th century
and after), the industry seemed to have found a raison d'être
in mocking and resisting Trump at nearly every turn.
Despite this, Trump
appeared on-track for reelection.
Along the way, however,
that all seemed to change; in 2020, during the peak of the COVID-19
pandemic and Trump’s bungling of the pandemic response, as the dead
piled up in mobile morgues and the virus raged, people appeared to
have hit their limit with the chaos and division. Trump would be
rebuffed in the 2020 election due to his poor handling of this
disaster; at last, a sense of normality would finally see a return in
the unlikely visage of Joe Biden, who cast himself as the anti-Trump:
Calm, steady, consistent. Not one to accept defeat gracefully, Trump
incited an uprising comprised of denials, lies, conspiracy theories,
and seditious activities in the lead-in to the January 6, 2021
certification of Biden’s victory after Trump’s November 2020
loss. The certification was delayed due to the ensuing riots
(understood now as the “J6 Insurrection”) at the Capitol, though
the process was finally completed in the proper timeframe, resulting
in Biden’s ascension as the 46th President, and Trump’s official
defeat.
Biden’s presidency
started well. Life returned to normal for most in many ways, though
the post-pandemic had its challenges: Inflation, supply-chain issues,
keeping the disease at bay, and trying to avoid a recession created
by a once-in-a-century Black Swan Event. Trump was the past; Biden
represented hope for the future.
Eventually, though,
Biden would be seen as isolated, even incompetent to lead. Though
metrics in the economic picture pointed at a strong recovery, the
reality for many was lacking; perception and personal experience
lagged behind the overall truth of the what he had accomplished given
the enormity of the task at-hand; that noted, he remained opaque, and
failed to capitalize on his strengths, instead being led by far-Left
advisers into unforced errors about unpopular culture war issues,
such as trans-care for minors or politically correct pronoun usage.
This afforded a line of attack for the opposition. In a strange turn
of events, he lost public confidence after his first debate with
Trump and was forced to capitulate his nomination to his Vice
President, Kamala Harris. She came out of the gate strong, but with
an overreliance on the by-now waning powers of the Hollywood
glitterati in the post-COVID, Tech Bro realignment of soft-power
within the U.S.—itself a troubling indicator of growing
technological hubris and vapidity—she failed to win the presidency.
As an aside, it isn’t
a surprise that Hollywood has lost its potency in this harsh
post-pandemic landscape; the strikes shortly afterward didn’t help,
and neither did weathering sizable changes in media consumption along
the way, most significantly the move from physical media to streaming
platforms as the primary vehicle for content delivery. Coupled with
the reality of rising production costs and the threat of Artificial
Intelligence (AI) looming on the digital horizon, a good deal of
anxiety for artisans within the industry has likewise ground the
moviemaking business to a relative standstill. The terrible Los
Angeles wildfires this January only added further insult to injury
for the beleaguered industry, causing many in the business to
reconsider their unwavering allegiance to the policies and
politicians who contributed to the disaster. Some even left the area;
every Blue lost makes California Redder. Besides, given there are no
more true auteurs, no real movie stars to power projects through
downturns, the business is no longer the culture-driver that it once
was, and has become just another adjunct to the Tech Industry at this
point—soulless and fixated on “streams” or “views” rather
than artistry and wonder; it has become mindless, boring, and safe.
Additionally, there
seems to be no plan in place to answer the (predictable) superhero
movie franchise collapse and the resultant vacuum produced, another
outcome of the slow evaporation of monoculture owing to the
Balkanization of this sphere because of a phenomenon that I deem the
“Internet Flattening Effect”: This is a process that rounds off
regionalism or other identifiable characteristics, rendering content
or imagery into a deadening sameness, driven by computer algorithms
designed to feed the end-consumer experiences defined by a plodding
monotony rather than encouraging personal discovery. Compliance and
consumerism are mandated; transgressiveness and invention are
discouraged (unless they can somehow be ruthlessly copied and
exploited as a financial tool). The consequence is a soul crushing
conformity of content without insight or imagination: The arts have
been commodified into a steady diet of psychogenic gruel.
Politicizing content with overt messages of Leftist right-think have
only compounded these problems within the film industry and closely
follow similarly disturbing trajectories within the publishing and
music businesses. The message appears to be that you must adhere to
the groupthink, or risk being ignored, consigned to creative
purgatory, or expunged from these spaces altogether.
Though Harris failed to
connect with the electorate, in fairness, as a key player in the
Biden Administration, she was part of a team dealt a bad hand from
the outset. All of his administration made valiant efforts under
difficult circumstances to keep America from plunging into a gulf of
financial ruination, and largely succeeded; collectively they have
many genuine accomplishments to their credit, though, in the end, it
was too little, too late. People were exhausted and afraid. Nostalgic
for a “simpler” time prior to the pandemic, Trump, a seditionist
criminal, was re-elected in 2024. The damage had been done for many
reasons, and psychic wounds are notoriously slow to heal. Minds,
hearts, and lives had been damaged, lost. Too little social
interaction dehumanized, and too much artifice deluded. The result
has been a decidedly sideways careening into the abyss that always
resides on either side of the narrow road from perdition, which
increasingly looks like nothing more than a well-paved circle with no
exit ramps.
And now?
Well, can you feel it?
That shift?
It’s the disorienting
perception of previous social conventions spinning off-axis into
oblivion as a new center of political gravity careens into reality. I
first noticed this shift as the election results came in on November
5, 2024. In truth, this shift signifies more a sort of boomerang
effect coming into view than a sudden change or evolution, though the
unexpected implosion of the far-Left extremes of recent societal
discourse ultimately failing to overcome the inertia of their own
ponderousness has felt at once predictable, startling, and in some
strange ways, welcome. It’s almost as though this boomerang of
common sense has finally returned to its sane home-state after
miscalculated overreaches by the increasingly out-of-touch far-Left.
To their credit, while
the Right may lie about policy aims, they rarely lie about who they
are and what they are in favor of (preferring allegiance to leaders
and an unwillingness to be perceived as “weak”). In this way,
they aren’t hypocrites. The Democrats are the opposite: They are
earnest about policy (preferring fealty to ideas, with little
appetite for compromise on principles), wonks even, but they often
appear to lie about who they are truly representing, which, more and
more, seems to be out-of-touch elitist snobs in the
Collegiate/Progressive Pipeline. They often resort to controlling,
abusive behaviors, such as wielding blame, shame, and guilt to
manipulate people—understood online as mob-like “cancel culture”
or “deplatforming” and now more often associated with the
Left—into doing their bidding. These tactics frequently edge into
pseudoreligious, even extremist actions. Of course, tantrums rarely
achieve their goals in the end; they push people away, in fact. They
also lose elections.
Going back further, the
shift actually began in the final weeks running up to the November
U.S. presidential election; on the Left, where only a few months
prior there was hope, momentum, and excitement, as the election
sprinted to its finale, there was also—if one was paying
attention—a strange undercurrent of déjà vu, even
foreboding; already a sort of 2016 rematch, it began to feel as
though it was becoming a replay, with likely similar outcomes.
Then, on Election Day, came the stark, unexpected (though sensed)
realities of defeat, status quo rejection (again), political
redemption, and change.
But change into… what,
exactly? Was it a return to some imagined past (“Make America Great
Again!”) or an effort to move ahead?
As noted, people were
growing nostalgic for the misremembered stability of a pre-COVID time
under Trump; life then seemed easier, digestible in ways the far-Left
had made ever more unpalatable. The negative aspects of Trump’s
first term felt less intrusive, softer, ironically, than the harsh
realities of the post-plague world. After the grimly ceaseless
battering of the COVID-19 outbreak and resultant pandemic of 2020 and
onward (still an existential threat, though better controlled now
thanks to vaccines), beyond the pent-up frustrations of ensuing
global lockdowns, school closures, political upheaval, inflation, and
the general angst created by the menace of a deadly new disease,
people were understandably feeling secluded and scared. As the virus
enveloped the Earth, one way of asserting control of their lives was
in speaking out from behind their devices; consequently, the Internet
became both a lifeline and a fuse for long-simmering frictions to
detonate as rivals competing for power boiled over from the online
realm and exploded into the streets. Unrelated worldwide social
protests—including #MeToo and BLM in the wake of George Floyd’s
death at the hands of Minneapolis police officers—had galvanized
the pre-2024 election politisphere into a perfect storm of hardened
oppositional perspectives.
In this new
organizational dichotomy, the rising “Alt-Right”—fomented in
stateless online enclaves—was in fact little more than a reverse
mirror-image of the burgeoning “Ctrl-Left”—itself a reaction to
the perceived resurgence of so-called “fascism” due to a nascent
worldwide rightward political lurch in the wake of the pandemic and
its response. Sadly, neither image was a reflection of reality for
the vast majority of people but instead represented the collective
Jungian double-projections created by twisted ideologues at the
fringes of socio-political thought; the moderate center was
collateral damage in these cultural melees.
Elsewhere, and adding to
this already combustible mix, the awful and starkly polarizing
terrorist attacks perpetrated against Israel by Hamas on October 7,
2023 sparked more warfare and global unrest (prompting a paroxysm of
outrage among youthful Leftists in the U.S. and other Western nations
particularly), just as some aspects of normality seemed in-hand. This
unprovoked, savage attack was yet another dystopian blow in a brief
span of grim recent history, which also encompassed the brutal grind
of the war in Ukraine, as well as surges in global migration
post-pandemic. In aggregate, these events would have ominous
implications for the Democratic coalition in the U.S., already
fracturing into factions as a result of Trump’s first-term policies
and the reactions to them.
Taken together, these
events made clear that there was no refuge from the entropy of
geopolitics whether within the U.S. or abroad. The democratization of
a now-mature Internet has vastly increased interpersonal antagonism
(via the virtual realm) even though people connect in the communal
“meatspace” in ever-shrinking numbers—impacting shared live
entertainment experiences, religious attendance, even romantic life.
The Internet Flattening Effect also afforded formerly radical
theorists and fringy, conspiratorial ideas to gain false equivalence
with established science and personalities, calling into question
recognized facts and priorities, further augmenting the chaos and
turmoil of daily life on both the Left and Right.
Meanwhile, as literacy
rates decline, ideologies (and paranoid mistrust) expand, both
attributable to social media, mobile connectivity, and the Internet.
Internally (the self), these forces synergize to promote half-baked,
postmodernist theory-driven ideological considerations of established
social norms regarding race, gender-identity, sex, class, and
sexuality—including the speech around them—further eroding the
boundaries defining community, morality, or what even constitutes a
“person” or “woman”.
Externally (the
community), insecurity regarding what defines the agreed upon borders
between nation-states due to migration fueled by violent conflict,
politics, climate change, and economic hardship, has ignited culture
clashes between religiously conservative Middle Eastern immigrants
and traditionally liberal Western ideals across Europe and the United
States (increasing pressures in the latter with respect to South
American and Mexican immigration). Wealth disparity has also
increased exponentially around the world as a result of this upheaval
and displacement.
In general, a sense of
unease, even dread, permeates the air; mentally conjured images of
virality and protean identity-loss inform the Roaring ‘20s
Zeitgeist. In a span of roughly five years, it feels as though
15 years have passed. And in some ways this time compression illusion
is real: Technology, medicine, and politics have leapt ahead, though
these leaps seem to have prematurely aged those living through this
period. The past has been torn down physically and mentally. The
future has arrived. Nothing seems permanent or reliable. Things feel
mutable, unstable. As demonstrated, even that dependable old source
of American pride and soft-power, Hollywood, seems to have gone dark,
unsure how to move forward, its influence in danger of shrinking to a
point of singularity, as old models of doing business surrender to
the dominant Tech-Industrial Complex, which has likewise consumed
multiple other industries, from publishing and music to healthcare
and retail. AI administrators seem poised and eager to reduce older
systems into even further irrelevance, crushing humanity in the
process.
With respect to the
perceptible shift mentioned previously, I personally felt it building
once more during the Trump presidential transition period shortly
after the election was called; the balance appeared to tip decisively
in his favor with the Inauguration on January 20 of this year, as
Trump assumed full power once more. As he began signing stacks of
Executive Orders (EOs) establishing new directions for the country
while consigning other actions from his predecessor to the fabled ash
heap of history, first at a televised rally, then at the White House,
the political boomerang appeared to swiftly drag Overton’s Window
back to the Right. For a brief instant, a few moderate majority
political positions came back into at least momentary focus, both
within the United States and globally. That proved to be short-lived,
perhaps illusory.
As the cold light of the
2025 New Year fades and the closing festivities and recollections of
2024 begin their slow transition from the vivid colors of present
understanding into the muted sepia of history, a gentle yet
accelerating sensation of mental vertigo has crept in. The echoes of
history resonate vibrantly in both good and bad ways; as the second
half of the 2020s materializes, society is set to reorient itself in
the wake of the tumultuous past decade or so. Western countries all
over the world are now seeing Leftist ideals and institutions (as
noted, once dominant in academia, politics, entertainment, the media,
and other institutions) collapse, change focus, and reject this
version of leftward extremism. The noose of leftist denunciation has
abruptly relaxed, leaving many in shocked disbelief as the
scaffolding around their pious trapdoor collapses underfoot; the
condemned who dared not toe-the-line hover in stark, surprised
disbelief at the strange reversal of fortune on display. As a
consequence, many of these same countries have also ejected (or are
about to) established leaders from their positions in favor of more
realistic, though not uncontroversial in some cases, policymakers.
Traditional values,
albeit perhaps too conservative in certain instances, have begun to
rise across the board. It appears that transformation is the order of
the day.
But, again,
transformation into… what, exactly?
As the world’s
economies collapsed under the onslaught of COVID and the attempts to
contain the ensuing fallout, people increasingly felt disconnected
and unmoored from the “before world” (which they yearned for,
having missed out during the radical disruption and loss during that
time)—though in reality this feeling was only a recent temporal
displacement from just a few months prior, it felt as alien and weird
to most as landing on a hostile, barren planet. Stress was high as
norms were disturbed; mental health deteriorated as the crisis wore
on, all driven by a horrific intrusion of mass death and injury into
the placid routine of daily life. After all, the past and the future
exist only as non-states in a collective mindscape. They do not exist
in the moment; they are both imaginary realms, places which reflect
current states of mind and understanding. We can imagine the future.
We also likewise must imagine the past based on records and memories;
though nothing to be or previously experienced is real, anticipation
and aftereffects are still felt.
There is little comfort
or sense to be made in this new paradigm: Trying to navigate these
freshly delineated, hysterical spaces is rewarded not with esprit
de corps, understanding, and decency, but instead by a rough,
politicized trajectory fraught with emotional overreaction and
terror. Nothing is easy, and the illusion of safety promised by
seemingly limitless scientific and technological advancements has
been suddenly and decisively curtailed in the near-term by one of
humanity’s oldest and deadliest foes: A pathologically lethal virus
of uncertain origin. Not since those modern-ancient horrors of 9/11
have things seemed so apocalyptic and disturbing: We have learned
that death is one fateful short-term close-quarter gathering—even a
single breath—away, and it could happen at any time and any place.
Life is uncertain.
Meanwhile, the
blue-collar class (ostensibly the Democrats’ “people”) and
those on the Right (frequently demonized by the Left) have been on
the hook paying a lot more for eggs, energy, and other staples,
dealing with shortages, escalating housing costs, COVID-driven
homelessness, deadly addictions, high crime rates, uncertain job
prospects in the wake of automation (despite low unemployment), an
ongoing immigration crisis, and a host of other problems. All while
being lectured to by pretentious, well-off Leftist youngsters and
(often) their parents about arcane notions rooted in Fourth-wave
intersectional feminist theory, and instructed to “check their
privilege” if white (though whites also include some of the poorest
people in the country), or how they are “supposed” to vote if
Latino, black, or some other minority (seeming to ignore their agency
and right to self-determination).
Much of this points to
class division (i.e., wealthy v. poor). The sufferings of ordinary
folks don’t seem to register or even matter in light of these
perceived “social injustices” (a debatable idea in and of
itself), whether of the moment or from literal ancient history
(surely this is what they actually mean as “privilege”
[relitigating the past through a presentist/classist lens], though
they cannot seem to grasp the irony). In this narrow worldview, the
transgressions of minority-status people and groups are blithely
dismissed as “historical trauma responses” (which I refer to as
“Benign Othering”), while non-minority Americans are shamed,
blamed, and scolded for nothing more sinister than wanting the best
for their families and friends, or not being performative enough
within the (limiting) oppressor/oppressed binary (to include moderate
Democrats, Independents, and other Centrists). It also appears that
civilization itself hinges on whether a woman can obtain an abortion
whenever she demands it, that males are inherently misogynistic
(and/or predators), and that “Zionists” are Untermenschen—this
latter position neatly uniting the far-Left (e.g., college
students) and far-Right (neo-Nazis) under the umbrella of
antisemitism.
Of course, there is no
compromise offered (i.e., Leftist fealty to ideas); one-sided and
never content, the far-Left continues to move goalposts and pedal a
victim-centric narrative that if you disagree you are ______phobic
(e.g., trans-, homo-, and so on), racist, sexist, anti-Muslim (though
antisemitism seems oddly acceptable to them), all of these, or
something worse. As a result, there is a great deal of condemnation,
either/or thinking, and contempt on display in their rhetoric and
actions.
Who could have guessed
that these arrogant strategies and alienating tactics would turn out
to be excellent ways to lose elections?
A tough environment, to
be sure.
And, granted, all
presidents have difficult issues to contend with, but the things
which eventually unseated Biden came from within his own party, a
sort of modern Praetorian Guard evidently determined to overreach and
allow the perfect to become the enemy of the good. Of course, as with
most such collapses, there wasn’t one single, critical part that
failed disastrously, but many small errors which compounded over
time. The result in this case was a diminishing of actual and
perceived value to the voters, which accumulated over time into an
unstoppable, cataclysmic chain reaction, either real or intuited;
given that perception is reality, similar accumulations risk becoming
a threat to the overall Democratic Party ecosystem if not addressed
directly and effectively. In the final analysis, despite the best
intentions, the so-called “resistance” was not only overly
confident, but has also been utterly futile.
This time, at the dawn
of his second term, the response to Trump has so far been more muted.
People voted for him in much larger numbers, including minorities; he
narrowly secured the popular vote—which eluded him in 2016—in
addition to the Electoral College, legitimizing his win. He has
better focus, organization, and understanding of the machinations of
governance now. People, including other world leaders, seem ready,
after the pandemic, after the lack of empathy from the far-Left,
after the collapse of “Progressive” ideology, after being
instructed by elitists how to think, speak, and be, to give him a
chance. Tellingly, voters this cycle came in greater numbers and from
all walks of life: poor, rich, female, male, Latino, black, all
religious faiths, Native Americans, young, old. Even some Democrats
who didn’t care for Harris flipped (though my wife, Sunni, and I
voted for her; we’re Democrats and Liberals).
So, what does this mean
for the future?
Watching the Inaugural
festivities, I had honestly hoped Trump could reform his worst
inclinations and succeed in his new term, although I strongly
disagree with most of his stated policies. There are a couple that I
agree with, mostly pertaining to reining in the more ridiculous
overreaches of the far-Left’s Orwellian tendencies to control
thought and speech. More control over the Southern Border seems
reasonable, given that terrorists could exploit an under guarded
ingress into the country, though the idea of deporting every
immigrant is unconstitutional, unsavory, and un-American (dangerous
criminals and gang members seems a wise idea, however). As a sane
Leftist, I am opposed to authoritarianism (including from the Left),
and many of his EOs seem destined to fail or be overturned, as they
rightly should be.
In an interesting
development, the “Progressive” wing of the Democratic Party seems
on a downward slope, a circumstance they have mostly brought upon
themselves due to their bombastic, dysregulated, and pompous actions.
They seem to have lost the plot about what we need to be working for,
and very little of it resides in odious social theories. These
elements should be purged from the Democratic Party, which has
morphed into a negative, ultra-feminist cult, just as the macho Cult
of Trump has psychologically captured the Right. The Democrats at the
moment are not for people, they’re about people, and
they are harmful. I will be curious to see how these things unfold,
and while I don’t care for Trump, he has brought a measure of hope
to many and has instigated a cultural shift that reads as a badly
needed corrective.
Of course, the very day
of his Inauguration, Trump once again showed his worst aspects.
Signing a raft of Executive Orders that displayed a remarkable lack
of understanding of the times we occupy and the needs of the American
people. They were often mean-spirited and venal, with few upsides or
relief for a pummeled electorate. His blanket pardoning of J6
rioters, for example, was a grave error and completely unwarranted.
His understanding of tariffs (and economic policy overall) is
embarrassingly limited. He generally displays little empathy for
others, and wallows smugly in obvious intimidation, bullying, and
cronyism, apparently relishing the suffering and anarchy he seeks to
unleash. His Cabinet picks have been absurd, even dangerous at times,
as though he is trolling the republic and wants to destroy the very
country he sought to lead by shattering institutions, gutting
programs, and relying on advisements not from policy experts and
seasoned government officials, but the likes of Fox News pundits,
rabid ideologues such as Steve Bannon, and billionaire Tech Industry
narcissists like Elon Musk and his cohort. Thusly noted, with the
Supreme Court and both the House and Senate (though only marginally)
on his side, it appears we are all in for a bumpy ride—largely
brought to us by dogmatically Leftist groupthink.
There is a political
truism: You can’t govern if you don’t win.
The Democrats are in
their wilderness period; they must look inward to understand how to
proceed, and with a ruthlessly critical eye. As a political party, we
can and should do better. And both parties are in dire need of
overhauls with respect to the gerontocracy that has developed, to
include operatives not only currently serving in the Congress and the
SCOTUS (e.g., we need term and age limits, as well as enforceable
ethical codes, among other things), but also restrictions on those
running for President (again: age limits, ethical codes, and so on).
I predict that the first
female President will be a Republican. I noted this on my own social
media in the first week after the election. A few weeks later, former
POTUS Bill Clinton said the same thing, so I feel my gut is on the
right track. It’s sort of an “only Nixon can go to China”
moment: Rightwingers will certainly vote for a woman; unfortunately,
the Left keeps putting up unlikable, extreme, or uninspiring
candidates (I wrote-in Bernie Sanders in 2016, as I disliked HRC),
offering no compelling bipartisan option for them to consider. A
female Republican would have broader appeal, and there is less
mistrust that she would be some sort of radfem Trojan horse. The next
candidate for the Democrats should probably be a moderate, Southern
male, plainspoken and intelligent, not a radical reactionary. Someone
like a modern-day Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton. But they are few and
far between. And even if they do present themselves, are the
Democrats mature enough to look past their own ideological biases and
purity testing?
Only time will tell.
###
Pushcart Prize-nominee Jason V Brock is a writer, editor,
filmmaker, composer, scholar, and artist. His fiction and nonfiction
works have appeared in many venues (Weird Fiction Review,
Fangoria, online, etc); his books include Disorders of
Magnitude: A Survey of Dark Fantasy (about
horror and science fiction in culture), numerous anthologies, and two
fiction collections. He has been nominated twice for the Bram Stoker
Award, and his films (Charles Beaumont: The Life of
Twilight Zone’s Magic Man;
the Forrest J Ackerman documentary The AckerMonster
Chronicles!—winner of the
Rondo Hatton Classic
Horror Award for Best Documentary in 2014) have garnered many
accolades; he is finishing another about Fantastic Art. He resides
with his wife and their reptiles in Vancouver, WA.
