When my editor at the paper called a few minutes later, I was glad to be walking up Western Avenue, on my way to interview a 5-year-old about cicadas — we'll get to that Wednesday. No, I wasn't in a position to opine on the conviction for tomorrow's paper. No, I really didn't have anything to add, other than what I've been saying about this for years:
Once you get in the habit of ignoring reality, the specifics of the reality being ignored hardly matter.
Has anything changed? Not really, making it a truth that bears regular repeating.
A kind of mantra to distance myself from the rest of the media, which display a startling inability to grasp the situation here, the dynamic that has settled over half our country. For followers of this man, there is no truth, no moment of revelation, no bottom to bounce up from. If trying to corrupt an election, then leading an insurrection didn't sour his acolytes, what is the dry legalism of 34 felony convictions supposed to do? His fans immediately cried persecution, flying flags upside down and off-gassing grievance.
In their world, anything goes. Literally. Trump isn't trying to steal the election, the Democrats are. By holding Trump accountable for the crimes he commits. And allowing mail-in ballots.
Once you get in the habit of ignoring reality, the specifics of the reality being ignored hardly matter.
Of course, that isn't true in real-life situations. If your house is on fire and you sit on the living room sofa popping malted milk balls into your mouth and grinning as the curtains ignite, the reality you are ignoring definitely will matter, and soon. The reality being ignored matters if your pregnancy goes wrong in Texas and you need emergency surgery. You can ignore facts, as I also like to say, but that doesn't mean facts will ignore you.
Friday morning I did my due diligence, re-reading W. B. Yeats' "The Second Coming."
"Turning and turning in the widening gyre," it begins — a gyre is a vortex. "Things fall apart/the centre cannot hold/Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world."
Testify, brother. Yeats wrote that in 1919, after the First World War killed the Western notion of order and progress. The idea that leaders don't know what they're doing wasn't born in the gore-washed trenches of the Somme. Rather, it was confirmed there, subject to periodic reminders.
To continue reading, click here.
So well put and unfortunately, so true.
ReplyDeleteHis supporters refuse to accept reality.
ReplyDeleteHe cheated at college & his rich father bought his degrees.
He's cheated on all of his wives.
He cheats at golf, in fact Rick Reilly wrote an entire book about that.
He cheats all the contractors he hires, even with signed contracts agreeing to pay them. He pays them a third of what they're owed & tells them to sue him for the rest.
He cheated to win in 2016, getting massive assistance from Putin & Russian intelligence to dump on Hillary.
He lied over 30,000 times while he polluted the White house.
He lied repeatedly about the judge & his daughter while on trial.
He lied during the trial claiming he wasn't allowed to speak & then refused to testify, because the prosecutors would've then been able to charge him with perjury.
He lies about his obvious dementia!
He lies saying he's done more for black people than even Lincoln.
He is the single worst person ever to run for president & then appallingly, was elected, due to the rotten electoral college, which was designed solely to give the then slave states more power to elect the president & it was the former slave states that gave him that edge!
He gave Top Secret info on our submarine's capabilities to a weird Australian billionaire, just to impress him.
He stole thousands of Top Secret documents & refused to return them, claiming he declassified them with his mind.
He tried to overthrow the government on January 6, 2021 & get his own VP murdered!
If he's put back in the White House again, he will sell out Ukraine to the Russians, who actually own most of the loans he has, because his liabilities far outstrip his assets!
I'd call him scum, but that's an insult to scum!
He has never nurtured a single person to be a better version of themselves. Virtually everyone he crosses paths with becomes a lesser version of themselves. He is almost supernatural in his toxicity.
DeleteHis niece, Mary Trump, has said that she has never met anyone else like him, because he does not possess a single redeeming quality. Not one. Very few people are so evil as to be beyond redemption, but he appears to be among them. Even Adolf liked dogs and kids. Not Orange Jesus. I have never hated another living human being as much as I hate him. Born in '47, so I just missed Hitler.
DeleteI forgot to add, he's never done a single day's honest work in his miserable rotten wretched life!
DeleteHe kept a book if Hitler's speeches on his bedside table, according to first wife Ivana. When she died, he buried her in a grave at his New Jersey golf course, believing he could get a tax break for declaring the place a graveyard. I don't believe that worked, but some who have seen the grave say it's untended & overgrown with weeds now.
His mannerisms at his Hitler like rallies are those of Mussolini, especially when he struts around with his chin in the air.
He also stinks, apparently from the filled diapers he must wear!
He filed for bankruptcy six times for his casinos. just how do you lose money running a casino, where the house always has an edge?
Grizz, Hitler may have liked dogs, but I don't think they liked him. In all the films at his mountain hideaway, the dog shies away from him, and when it approaches Hitler its head is lowered. The dog was obviously afraid of the man, maybe due to past abuse, maybe because it sensed the evil.
DeleteSmart dog. Kitties will do the same thing...or just run like hell.
DeleteExactly. On hearing the verdict I felt empty, resigned to all of the same that would come next. Indeed: "Once you get in the habit of ignoring reality, the specifics of the reality being ignored hardly matter." And "... the media, which display a startling inability to grasp the situation here," yes, since 2015 and continuing today, aiding and abetting our march toward fascism.
ReplyDeleteIt’s divided my family in a way that I couldn’t have imagined ten years ago. We are divided as a nation, and we are doomed to fall. I’m too tired of getting my hopes up. It’s emotionally draining, and will dread the next four years if he wins. I never really thought that this nation would be this divided, but we’re here. Sadly.
ReplyDeleteI have a first cousin, a bit younger than I am. Army lifer, veteran of three wars. We were like brothers for half-a-century. Until Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh (I called them Glenn Dreck and Lush Rimjob). He became a devoted fanatic of both, and moved even further to the right. We ended up not speaking for 14 years. Reconnected, but it's never been the same. Can't handle his drinking and his ranting anymore. Now that he's become a widower, i can only imagine where his head is at. I never thought things would come to this state. Golden years? Like hell.
DeleteAmd every year after. It won't stop there.
DeleteIt's good that he was convicted, but in the long term it hardly matters. He will appeal and appeal and appeal all the way to the horribly skewed Supreme Court, 1/3 of which he appointed. If he loses in November, please please, he and his acolytes will wreak havoc on us. If he wins, it will be devastation and destruction. The restructuring of SCOTUS and the elimination of the Electoral College should have been a priority but Democrats dithered about bipartisanship while Republicans took over state governments. Now it's too late. It's good he was convicted, but .....
ReplyDeleteI remember the killings in every decade since 1960 by self-proclaimed righteous. I can't run or hide or fight back like I might have back then. You?
DeleteKing said that “The Arc of the Moral Universe is Long, But it Bends Toward Justice.” I think it bends whichever way we push it. At the moment Yeats' worst are doing most of the bending, here and elsewhere. A lot of people find the idea of tearing it all down intoxicating. The idea of a fair, liberal, rules-based society was a long time coming, and when it's destroyed it will be a long time gone.
ReplyDeleteAgree with everything stated here, but how is it we are so unable to stop this runaway train of lies, rage, mania, and mayhem? Why weren’t we able to redirect the millions of radio listeners who were indoctrinated by Rush Limbaugh’s destructive, hate-filled rants over the years or the behind the scenes anti-government plans developed and implemented by the likes of Steve Bannon (a true evil genius unlike Trump who’s a demented buffoon with some sort of charismatic ability to tap into the unhealthy psyche’s of his millions of followers)?
ReplyDeleteRight wing radio proliferated due to deregulation of radio ownership laws. Dark money allowed the likes of Limbaugh and Hannity to reach thousands of small audiences in markets that otherwise might have avoided their foul message. It was a for profit alternative to NPR with malevolent purpose.
DeleteAmen
DeleteYeats is a very apt reference to describe our times. So is Matthew Arnold’s”Dover Beach” and T.S.Eliot knew a thing or two about times like this.
ReplyDelete“A lot of people find the idea of tearing it all down intoxicating”…. Well, I’m concerned that the tear down will kill government funding, and programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, school meal programs, food stamps, the VA, and many other programs the “tear down” artists rely on for survival. Chaos will be catastrophic for all of us. Just like in Greece and a number of Eastern European countries. We must rally to kill this movement.
ReplyDeleteWell said, Neil.
ReplyDeleteSinger/songwriter Mark Erelli wrote a great little song that aligns nicely with these words you wrote, "Once you get in the habit of ignoring reality, the specifics of the reality being ignored hardly matter." called By Degrees, the proceeds of which went to The Courage to Fight Gun Violence. I am now reading Erik Larson's new book The Demon of Unrest. Seems nothing has changed in the past 170 years.
I do wonder when we will finally gain the courage to say what needs to be said. A vote for a republican is a vote against the united states of america.
ReplyDeleteSome people imagine that everything that they think is right is right and that no one else could possibly be right about their contrary point of view. Liberal progressives.
ReplyDeleteWhen these people gain control of the levers of government And try to jam their notion of fairness, Justice, and Liberty down the throats of every single person in the country. There's a backlash.
Maga is that backlash.
Another group of people who think that everything that they think is right is right and that nobody with a contrary view could possibly be right.
I'm pleased that as the wheels of Justice spun, a clear verdict came to pass that Trump is guilty on all counts.
Insisting that this was the case before the trial doesn't mean that you're correct about every other speculation you have about the former president and everything else.
Hopefully there will be more trials and more convictions but some of the things won't go to trial and some of the trials won't end in convictions.
It's not what we think as individuals or groups that matter. It's what courts decide. These are the arbiters of the law in our nation.
The mega crowd should accept that in this circumstance, And liberal progressives should accept it when things go against them. Fat chance in either case.
Liberals and progressives are not synonymous. Do some research and some homework, and you'll get an explanation about their differences, and how those differences are dividing the Democrats, perhaps fatally .It's too complicated to go into at EGD.
ReplyDeleteThe way power grabbers misuse terms all the same sentence and get away with it freaks me out. Communist fascist socialist liberal is just one example. I understand the manipulative powerful flinging word vomit in the great tradition, but i am [ridiculously] amazed at the numbers of supposedly educated middle and lower class that not only give it a pass, but embrace such garbage .
DeleteI was surprised at the speed and totality of the verdict. But it gave me little hope in a positive outcome in November. About those women in Texas, recently a close relative in Chicago had an ectopic pregnancy. Because she lives in a civilized state the necessary medical care was available. Were she poor and living in Lubbock, she might not have a second chance at motherhood like my cousin. People will die because Trump chose unqualified judges to the Court. I fear many women will die before we can rectify the situation, so we are a long way from celebration.
ReplyDeleteMy SC niece had an incomplete miscarriage and could not a standard post-miscarriage DNC for weeks after until it literally threatened her life.
Delete