This is true and the root of our problem. I think if points to how we can best counter the madness, the best antidote.
I like the word ‘Legacy’ rather than ‘Heritage’ to talk about the best of our history, because the things we want to celebrate are gifts, from the past made to the future. It is all the aspirations and contributions of those who came before who believed in the promise of our country, the promise of Freedom, no matter how many times they were disappointed. ‘Heritage’, generally refers to something passed down by prior generations and can’t escape the connotations of attitudes and beliefs ossified by time.
We are trying, with all our efforts, to find ways to remind our people of the wonderful legacy we all share. It’s an anchor to hold onto against the flood of lies, hate, cynicism and apathy that beats against us all, these days. We are all responsible for protecting this legacy and must not let it be stolen.
Orwell reminds us in 1984 , that ‘those who control the past, command the future’. The incoherent fiction that the trump worshippers write of our history isn’t meant to convince any but their initiates. Like all mis-information, it is a mass of contradiction, not meant to convince any group of truth but to confuse and dispirit them so that they will give up on believing anything. The goal is to leave all but their true believers in a state of complete cynicism and apathy.
These selfish fools and corrupt confederates would author a new ‘Dark Age’. One that like Churchill warned, ‘might be made more deep and pernicious by the lights of perverted science’.
Let’s look to our history and every corner of our culture for the stories that can remind people what we aspire our country to be.
Even the MAGA know their confederate king would sell them out for a price. The best of our history is wonderful legacy not a casino’s winnings to squandered by cheats and fools…in their hearts they must know that too.
This is interesting, but like so many pundits, ignores the elephant in the room: That the radicalization of the right wing has been engineered through 40 years of nonstop propaganda.
Discussing “Red America” without mentioning that is like discussing a poisoning as though it were a mysterious illness. You might spin interesting theories, but you won’t stumble across a cure while refusing to look at the cause.
The absurdly expansive interpretation of the first amendment that has been in vogue for the last few decades has quite deliberately turned it into a suicide pact. After all, one thing you’ll never hear from the media is that the media is the problem.
This is an incredibly incisive constellation of the American experience. You and Mike Brock have your fingers on the pulse of this flailing beast we call a republic. I can’t wait to read Part III.
I agree with all you have written here, but I don’t see any reference to the malign influences of foreign players like Russia and Israel, social media algorithms, or the way the DNC swatted down the Sanders campaign in 2016…all very real pieces of the total picture.
When i was a student I encountered family and followers of the conservative writer Russell Kirk. All of them believers in American order. This is a highly illuminating and insightful analysis, and the new right radicalism is definitely light years away from traditional conservatism. But I do detect a faint echo of that earlier discourse, with its belief in a "natural" order of things.
Great analysis. It mirrors my thoughts entirely. I think that 2 supreme court cases mobilized the radical right: Board of Education and Engel v. Vitale (banning prayer in schools).
This is as cogent an analysis of what has and continues to plague the US. I do believe that the erosion of good public education and the proliferation of evangelical churches across the country have been two key factors in fertilizing the ground for this movement. I hope that the pluralistic version of the USA survives and that you begin the hard work of reconciling with the past to build a more just future for all.
This is excellent. I can’t help but wonder if we’ll ultimately get to just raw truth….will it become so volatile in America that the “messaging” from both sides will be stripped down to the essential truth of what we face as a nation: it’s racism.
Left: “No matter your color, creed, or identity, you belong”
Right: “If you’re not white (or Christian), you’re a blight. If you’re not straight, it’s you we hate”
The use of the phrase "persecution complex" alone was a lightbulb moment for me. Thank you for this piece as it really shed so much light on this cancerous MAGA agenda.
Thanks a lot for summing up the complex roots and contexts for the present mess. What about the new (?) strand of techbro ideology/politics of Musk, Thiel, Karp et.al.? To me it looks like they represent a new chapter.
Beautiful, sobering analysis of our current predicament in the U.S. and of the deep-seated historical forces that have brought us to this point in our history.
I cannot help but believe that the far-right has made a Faustian bargain with Trump, particularly the Christian-based element. Trump’s close involvement with the human trafficker and pedophile Epstein will inevitably be blown out into the open, effectively destroying his Presidency and bringing about his ultimate and irrecoverable downfall. Pedophilia remains one of the ultimate, unforgivable sins in America, and there’s almost never any coming back from it once convicted, whether that conviction happens in a court of law or in the court of public opinion.
The Christofascist pastors recently featured on CNN may be able to look the other way, but many of the rank and file of their flocks will reel in revulsion and disgust at Trump’s exposure and the pastors’ failure to rebuke and condemn him. Indeed, many Christians are already fleeing Churches that have sold out their witness for proxy and favor by the Trump regime. This exodus will only accelerate.
None of this will resolve the deep fundamental divide in this country, however. Trump’s collapse may only mark a temporary setback for the far-right until they can coalesce around a new movement figure, likely someone far more polished, shrewd and cunning. That won’t be JD Vance.
Moreover, the Democratic faction must quickly realize and come to terms with the fact that the GOP is in totality a party of bad faith actors who have open contempt for Constitutional rule of law and will continue to seek to undermine and destroy it. These people will not play nice and things wont go back to pre-Trump “normal” no matter how much we may wish it. Those of us who value democracy and plurality are going to have to appreciate the stakes and resolve to defend them as if our world and future depends on us doing so.
How do you factor in the legacy of the Know Nothing party? It seems to me that the current extremist war against the 'other' was always with the Republican Party. Remember the compromise that birthed the Republican Party was due to various factions who strongly favored a 'back to Africa' policy. This was in line with the Know Nothing's anti-immigration leanings. But the real, unsettled question for the KN's was who was considered 'White Christians'? Certainly they did not consider Irish or Italian Catholics (or the Melungeon) as either white or christian. Their 'back to' fervor wasn't only in regard to the soon to be freed African slaves. They were in favor of limiting and denying citizenship to all manor of Catholic immigrants, including those from what we'd currently consider 'white' Europeans.
After the Civil War when it became clear to the KN's that the South had no intention of falling in line with the 'back to' policy. And the Republican party also wasn't keen on losing cheap immigrant labor for the industrial boom that follow the war. That's when I would mark the schisms that would eventually realign both the Democratic and Republican Parties.
It's ironic that this current culture war has the Catholics and Protestants forming a detente of sorts in order to gain and hold power. They do have patriarchal ideology in common but in fact, they are widely separated internally and externally as to who they consider White and Christian. I wonder how long their detente can last given the Reformation's roots and power and money struggles predate our Revolution by hundreds of years.
And ultimately, their split will come down to who controls the indulgences (money) just as it was 500+ years ago. I cannot help wondering if the real reason we see so much politicking from the pulpit is because of the money that's going into campaigns instead of collection plates? Religion has become a major industry and media empire in the US. And that is driven by money, not piety. Which is why the true believers are so shocked about Epstein. They are as pissed at their leaders who have been holding Trump up as some sort of messianic figure as they are their Orange Idol God.
Outstanding, clear analysis. Thank you, I will be sharing this article. I write about climate change and overshoot. This takeover of science denying fascists couldn't come at a worse time. The entire concept of nation states competing with each other is deadly. If we can't see the planet as a whole living being, and live in unified support of her, we will likely be extinct in a handful of generations. The myopia of race, religion and politics is fatal.
Here's another angle on this smart appraisal. There are different sweeps of history, and they all help us understand the current moment. In looking from an evolutionary perspective, another dating for how our current situation originated would go back 2,000 years to when we stopped being matriarchal, where we were of the earth rather than competing with one another, like the indigenous cultures that carried on that way.
Two thousand years ago we got the sun god, where we put God outside ourselves and became subservient to it. Where we used to be divine creatures in a sacred universe, we became sinners looking for redemption, which led to all the sins of self-service that now eclipse our humanitarian proclivities.
If I ran the world, I’d have everyone listen to Anne Baring. This is her lifework and she is brilliant. Here’s the most recent of my Substacks with video of her:
How about NO concept of god ? Any history of religion is a study of evil. We don't need to believe in a mythical, never verified being to find purpose,or know right from wrong.
The next step is civil war. When there are two mutually incompatible views of reality, there are two separate nations. As long as Republicans tolerate the fire hose of lies coming from Trump and Fox News, America cannot stand united.
Give it some time - another six months. I don't mean that a civil war will break out then, but there will be a lot more signs and indicators by then that things are going in the wrong direction. The thing is, with Trump as President, I don't see a cooling down of passions, I see a constant rachetting up of threats and provocations, because that's what Trump does.
But you said civil war. That’s what I’ve been responding to. We’re not even remotely close in our resistance to that. And if over a third of my fellow citizens couldn’t even bother to show up to vote, they certainly aren’t going to raise arms against these buffoons.
I go back to my original comment: "When there are two mutually incompatible views of reality there are two separate nations." It feels inevitable to me. And the more that Trump tries to single out blue states for punishment, the stronger will be the impulse for the blue states to pull away from the federal government. In the original Civil War the rebel states refused to accept the possibility of a slave-free future. In the modern case people in the blue states will refuse to accept Trump's authoritarianism as a fait accompli.
I don’t buy that. Too messy for the performative Chump. More like an acceleration of the great sorting that’s been taking place the past few decades. Blue states and cities getting bluer despite federal meddling and red states getting poorer and more desperate facilitated by the big bastardized bill recently passed. They know how to destroy the administrative state and the welfare system that goes along with it but they’re too greedy and incompetent to replace it with a Fourth Reich. If they’re having a difficult time recruiting for their Stasi ICE, what are they going to do when their rural brethren start losing their jobs and their health insurance? If you wanted a Stalin or a Hitler, you don’t choose a Chump as your surrogate. Too stupid, weak and incompetent to fit the bill.
I think Trump is deliberately trying to incite a civil war by sending Ice and the military into blue states and cities. He's glorifying violence and poking a stick at democrats to try and get them to react. His whole "the enemy within" schtick and his attempt to purge non-loyalists from all public institutions is service to this goal. And what do you think project 2025 is about? It's to create an American society where half of America is permanently shut out of the political process. If this comes to pass it will lead to civil war.
Yes, I agree they’re “trying.” But it’s lame. It’s performative posturing thus far. And Chump’s too chickenshit to push it as far as the Heritage Foundation wants him to. That’s just facts on the ground observation. Is it annoying? Absolutely. Will it do long-term damage to the country? Certainly. Will it galvanize the apathetic Americans to rise up? No fucking way.
Way! Americans are rising up as we speak. Trump is leaving them no choice but to rise up and resist. For a different perspective, just look at my country - Canada. In six months Donald Trump has united Canadians in a way no other figure in our history has. Canadians are acting with their wallets and boycotting American business. He has had a profound and lasting effect here.
Excellent
This is true and the root of our problem. I think if points to how we can best counter the madness, the best antidote.
I like the word ‘Legacy’ rather than ‘Heritage’ to talk about the best of our history, because the things we want to celebrate are gifts, from the past made to the future. It is all the aspirations and contributions of those who came before who believed in the promise of our country, the promise of Freedom, no matter how many times they were disappointed. ‘Heritage’, generally refers to something passed down by prior generations and can’t escape the connotations of attitudes and beliefs ossified by time.
We are trying, with all our efforts, to find ways to remind our people of the wonderful legacy we all share. It’s an anchor to hold onto against the flood of lies, hate, cynicism and apathy that beats against us all, these days. We are all responsible for protecting this legacy and must not let it be stolen.
Orwell reminds us in 1984 , that ‘those who control the past, command the future’. The incoherent fiction that the trump worshippers write of our history isn’t meant to convince any but their initiates. Like all mis-information, it is a mass of contradiction, not meant to convince any group of truth but to confuse and dispirit them so that they will give up on believing anything. The goal is to leave all but their true believers in a state of complete cynicism and apathy.
These selfish fools and corrupt confederates would author a new ‘Dark Age’. One that like Churchill warned, ‘might be made more deep and pernicious by the lights of perverted science’.
Let’s look to our history and every corner of our culture for the stories that can remind people what we aspire our country to be.
Even the MAGA know their confederate king would sell them out for a price. The best of our history is wonderful legacy not a casino’s winnings to squandered by cheats and fools…in their hearts they must know that too.
This is interesting, but like so many pundits, ignores the elephant in the room: That the radicalization of the right wing has been engineered through 40 years of nonstop propaganda.
Discussing “Red America” without mentioning that is like discussing a poisoning as though it were a mysterious illness. You might spin interesting theories, but you won’t stumble across a cure while refusing to look at the cause.
The absurdly expansive interpretation of the first amendment that has been in vogue for the last few decades has quite deliberately turned it into a suicide pact. After all, one thing you’ll never hear from the media is that the media is the problem.
This is an incredibly incisive constellation of the American experience. You and Mike Brock have your fingers on the pulse of this flailing beast we call a republic. I can’t wait to read Part III.
I agree with all you have written here, but I don’t see any reference to the malign influences of foreign players like Russia and Israel, social media algorithms, or the way the DNC swatted down the Sanders campaign in 2016…all very real pieces of the total picture.
Sounds about right.
When i was a student I encountered family and followers of the conservative writer Russell Kirk. All of them believers in American order. This is a highly illuminating and insightful analysis, and the new right radicalism is definitely light years away from traditional conservatism. But I do detect a faint echo of that earlier discourse, with its belief in a "natural" order of things.
Great analysis. It mirrors my thoughts entirely. I think that 2 supreme court cases mobilized the radical right: Board of Education and Engel v. Vitale (banning prayer in schools).
This is as cogent an analysis of what has and continues to plague the US. I do believe that the erosion of good public education and the proliferation of evangelical churches across the country have been two key factors in fertilizing the ground for this movement. I hope that the pluralistic version of the USA survives and that you begin the hard work of reconciling with the past to build a more just future for all.
Church attendance overall has fallen to record lows.
This is excellent. I can’t help but wonder if we’ll ultimately get to just raw truth….will it become so volatile in America that the “messaging” from both sides will be stripped down to the essential truth of what we face as a nation: it’s racism.
Left: “No matter your color, creed, or identity, you belong”
Right: “If you’re not white (or Christian), you’re a blight. If you’re not straight, it’s you we hate”
Thank you, Professor Zimmer.
The use of the phrase "persecution complex" alone was a lightbulb moment for me. Thank you for this piece as it really shed so much light on this cancerous MAGA agenda.
Thanks a lot for summing up the complex roots and contexts for the present mess. What about the new (?) strand of techbro ideology/politics of Musk, Thiel, Karp et.al.? To me it looks like they represent a new chapter.
Beautiful, sobering analysis of our current predicament in the U.S. and of the deep-seated historical forces that have brought us to this point in our history.
I cannot help but believe that the far-right has made a Faustian bargain with Trump, particularly the Christian-based element. Trump’s close involvement with the human trafficker and pedophile Epstein will inevitably be blown out into the open, effectively destroying his Presidency and bringing about his ultimate and irrecoverable downfall. Pedophilia remains one of the ultimate, unforgivable sins in America, and there’s almost never any coming back from it once convicted, whether that conviction happens in a court of law or in the court of public opinion.
The Christofascist pastors recently featured on CNN may be able to look the other way, but many of the rank and file of their flocks will reel in revulsion and disgust at Trump’s exposure and the pastors’ failure to rebuke and condemn him. Indeed, many Christians are already fleeing Churches that have sold out their witness for proxy and favor by the Trump regime. This exodus will only accelerate.
None of this will resolve the deep fundamental divide in this country, however. Trump’s collapse may only mark a temporary setback for the far-right until they can coalesce around a new movement figure, likely someone far more polished, shrewd and cunning. That won’t be JD Vance.
Moreover, the Democratic faction must quickly realize and come to terms with the fact that the GOP is in totality a party of bad faith actors who have open contempt for Constitutional rule of law and will continue to seek to undermine and destroy it. These people will not play nice and things wont go back to pre-Trump “normal” no matter how much we may wish it. Those of us who value democracy and plurality are going to have to appreciate the stakes and resolve to defend them as if our world and future depends on us doing so.
How do you factor in the legacy of the Know Nothing party? It seems to me that the current extremist war against the 'other' was always with the Republican Party. Remember the compromise that birthed the Republican Party was due to various factions who strongly favored a 'back to Africa' policy. This was in line with the Know Nothing's anti-immigration leanings. But the real, unsettled question for the KN's was who was considered 'White Christians'? Certainly they did not consider Irish or Italian Catholics (or the Melungeon) as either white or christian. Their 'back to' fervor wasn't only in regard to the soon to be freed African slaves. They were in favor of limiting and denying citizenship to all manor of Catholic immigrants, including those from what we'd currently consider 'white' Europeans.
After the Civil War when it became clear to the KN's that the South had no intention of falling in line with the 'back to' policy. And the Republican party also wasn't keen on losing cheap immigrant labor for the industrial boom that follow the war. That's when I would mark the schisms that would eventually realign both the Democratic and Republican Parties.
It's ironic that this current culture war has the Catholics and Protestants forming a detente of sorts in order to gain and hold power. They do have patriarchal ideology in common but in fact, they are widely separated internally and externally as to who they consider White and Christian. I wonder how long their detente can last given the Reformation's roots and power and money struggles predate our Revolution by hundreds of years.
And ultimately, their split will come down to who controls the indulgences (money) just as it was 500+ years ago. I cannot help wondering if the real reason we see so much politicking from the pulpit is because of the money that's going into campaigns instead of collection plates? Religion has become a major industry and media empire in the US. And that is driven by money, not piety. Which is why the true believers are so shocked about Epstein. They are as pissed at their leaders who have been holding Trump up as some sort of messianic figure as they are their Orange Idol God.
Outstanding, clear analysis. Thank you, I will be sharing this article. I write about climate change and overshoot. This takeover of science denying fascists couldn't come at a worse time. The entire concept of nation states competing with each other is deadly. If we can't see the planet as a whole living being, and live in unified support of her, we will likely be extinct in a handful of generations. The myopia of race, religion and politics is fatal.
Here's another angle on this smart appraisal. There are different sweeps of history, and they all help us understand the current moment. In looking from an evolutionary perspective, another dating for how our current situation originated would go back 2,000 years to when we stopped being matriarchal, where we were of the earth rather than competing with one another, like the indigenous cultures that carried on that way.
Two thousand years ago we got the sun god, where we put God outside ourselves and became subservient to it. Where we used to be divine creatures in a sacred universe, we became sinners looking for redemption, which led to all the sins of self-service that now eclipse our humanitarian proclivities.
If I ran the world, I’d have everyone listen to Anne Baring. This is her lifework and she is brilliant. Here’s the most recent of my Substacks with video of her:
Really really really how we got into this mess
We need a different conception of God
https://suzannetaylor.substack.com/p/if-at-first-or-at-second
How about NO concept of god ? Any history of religion is a study of evil. We don't need to believe in a mythical, never verified being to find purpose,or know right from wrong.
Click my link. That's the story.
The next step is civil war. When there are two mutually incompatible views of reality, there are two separate nations. As long as Republicans tolerate the fire hose of lies coming from Trump and Fox News, America cannot stand united.
Yes. I think the sentiment is there. I’m not sure the will is there.
Give it some time - another six months. I don't mean that a civil war will break out then, but there will be a lot more signs and indicators by then that things are going in the wrong direction. The thing is, with Trump as President, I don't see a cooling down of passions, I see a constant rachetting up of threats and provocations, because that's what Trump does.
But you said civil war. That’s what I’ve been responding to. We’re not even remotely close in our resistance to that. And if over a third of my fellow citizens couldn’t even bother to show up to vote, they certainly aren’t going to raise arms against these buffoons.
I go back to my original comment: "When there are two mutually incompatible views of reality there are two separate nations." It feels inevitable to me. And the more that Trump tries to single out blue states for punishment, the stronger will be the impulse for the blue states to pull away from the federal government. In the original Civil War the rebel states refused to accept the possibility of a slave-free future. In the modern case people in the blue states will refuse to accept Trump's authoritarianism as a fait accompli.
I don’t buy that. Too messy for the performative Chump. More like an acceleration of the great sorting that’s been taking place the past few decades. Blue states and cities getting bluer despite federal meddling and red states getting poorer and more desperate facilitated by the big bastardized bill recently passed. They know how to destroy the administrative state and the welfare system that goes along with it but they’re too greedy and incompetent to replace it with a Fourth Reich. If they’re having a difficult time recruiting for their Stasi ICE, what are they going to do when their rural brethren start losing their jobs and their health insurance? If you wanted a Stalin or a Hitler, you don’t choose a Chump as your surrogate. Too stupid, weak and incompetent to fit the bill.
I think Trump is deliberately trying to incite a civil war by sending Ice and the military into blue states and cities. He's glorifying violence and poking a stick at democrats to try and get them to react. His whole "the enemy within" schtick and his attempt to purge non-loyalists from all public institutions is service to this goal. And what do you think project 2025 is about? It's to create an American society where half of America is permanently shut out of the political process. If this comes to pass it will lead to civil war.
Yes, I agree they’re “trying.” But it’s lame. It’s performative posturing thus far. And Chump’s too chickenshit to push it as far as the Heritage Foundation wants him to. That’s just facts on the ground observation. Is it annoying? Absolutely. Will it do long-term damage to the country? Certainly. Will it galvanize the apathetic Americans to rise up? No fucking way.
Way! Americans are rising up as we speak. Trump is leaving them no choice but to rise up and resist. For a different perspective, just look at my country - Canada. In six months Donald Trump has united Canadians in a way no other figure in our history has. Canadians are acting with their wallets and boycotting American business. He has had a profound and lasting effect here.