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Us Against The World

Before the shameful bullying session in the Oval Office, President Zelensky sent a memorandum to Trump, in which he detailed the numerous talks between Russia and Ukraine since 2014– talks that resulted in twenty cease-fire agreements, every one of which Russia violated. 

Sentient Americans–a category that excludes MAGA Republicans–know that Trump has absolutely no understanding of history or diplomacy, not to mention a lack of competence that those in his clown show of an administration clearly share. Consequently, the United States is going down the path of the British Empire, which was once a global power covering around a quarter of Earth’s land surface and ruling over 458 million people before it lost its dominance. Perhaps our own nation’s decline would have occurred in due course in any event, but the would-be autocrats busily demolishing our democracy have certainly accelerated the process.

A newsletter I receive (link unavailable) has reported on the reactions of our (former) allies to the embarrassing spectacle.

After Trump and Vance’s disgraceful Oval Office ambush of President Zelensky, major world players just came out to defend Ukraine and Zelensky:

– POLISH PRIME MINISTER DONALD TUSK: “Dear Zelensky, dear Ukrainian friends, you are not alone.”

– PRESIDENT OF LITHUANIA GITANAS NAUSEA: “Ukraine, you’ll never walk alone.”

– Denmark Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen: “Dear Zelensky, Denmark proudly stands with Ukraine and the Ukrainian people.”

– FRENCH PRESIDENT EMMANUAL MACRON: “There is an aggressor: Russia. There is a people being aggressed: Ukraine. We were all right to help Ukraine and sanction Russia three years ago and to continue doing so. We, that’s the Americans, the Europeans, Canadians, Japanese, and many others… Because they are fighting for their dignity, their independence, for their children, and for the security of Europe.”

– PRESIDENT OF MOLDOVA MAIA SANDU: “The truth is simple. Russia invaded Ukraine. Russia is the aggressor. Ukraine defends its freedom—and ours. We stand with Ukraine.”

– SWEDISH PRIME MINISTER ULF KRISTERSSON: “Sweden stands with Ukraine. You are not only fighting for your freedom but also for all of Europe’s. Slava Ukraini! ”

– INCOMING GERMAN CHANCELLOR FRIEDRICH MER: “Dear Zelenskyy, we stand with Ukraine in good and in testing times. We must never confuse aggressor and victim in this terrible war.

– CROATIA’S PRIME MINISTER ANDREJ PLENKOVIĆ: “Croatia knows from its own experience that only a just peace can last. The Croatian Government stands firm in its belief that Ukraine needs such a peace – a peace that means sovereignty, territorial integrity, and a secure Europe.”

– FINLAND’S PRIME MINISTER PETTERI ORPO: “Finland and the Finnish people stand firmly with Ukraine. We will continue our unwavering support and work towards a just and lasting peace.”

– ESTONIAN PRIME MINISTER KRISTEN MICHAL: “We stand united with Zelenskyy and Ukraine in our fight for freedom. Always. Because it is right, not easy.”

– IRELAND’S DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER SIMON HARRIS: “Ukraine is not to blame for this war brought about by Russia’s illegal invasion. We stand with Ukraine.“

– LATVIA’S PRESIDENT EDGARS RINKEVICS: “Ukraine is a victim of the Russian aggression. It fights the war with the help from many friends and partners. We need to spare no effort for just and lasting peace. Latvia stands with Ukraine”

– PRIME MINISTER OF THE NETHERLANDS DICK SCHOOF: ”The Netherlands supports Ukraine as firmly as ever. Now more than ever. We want a lasting peace and an end to the war of aggression started by Russia. For Ukraine and its people, and for Europe.”

– PRIME MINISTER OF LUXEMBOURG LUC FRIEDSEN: “Luxembourg stands with Ukraine. You are fighting for your freedom and a rules based international order. ”

Trump and MAGA may live in an alternate reality, but Europe doesn’t.

Rational Americans are appalled by Trump and Vance’s fact-free, transactional assault on a country fighting for its democratic sovereignty. (In the wake of that embarrassing display of pro-Putin bullying, Vance took his family to Vermont to ski, where thousands of outraged protesters lined the streets, calling him a traitor and telling him to go ski in Russia.)

Republicans, however, continue to pander to Trump’s cult.

Indiana’s odious governor, Mike Braun, issued a statement characteristically at odds with reality, saying: “President Trump and Vice President Vance are showing the world what strong, accountable, America First leadership looks like.” Senators like Lindsay Graham are scrambling to adjust their beliefs to Trump’s fantasy world. (Graham’s old friend John McCain is undoubtedly spinning in his grave at Graham’s policy U-Turns.)

Today’s elected Republicans fall in one of two–and only two– camps: clueless/fanatic White Christian Nationalists and spineless sycophants.

When the megalomaniacs said they were going to “move fast and break things,” too few voters understood that what they were breaking was America.

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If you want to understand the disastrous budget Republicans are trying to pass–and the process they’ll need to negotiate to do that–I will be doing a Zoom interview of Economics Professor Denvil Duncan from 7:00 to 8:00 on Wednesday night, for the Central Indiana Indivisible chapter. You can register here.

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The Real Problem

Bingo!

That was my reaction when I read the title of this opinion essay in the Washington Post: “Can we find common ground without a shared reality?” The author, Kate Cohen, identified the fallacy at the heart of multiple liberal admonitions to “listen to” and “try to understand” the grievances motivating MAGA Trump supporters. She began by reporting on one such well-meaning example, in a recent book, Kurt Gray’s “Outraged: Why We Fight About Morality and Politics and How to Find Common Ground.”

According to Gray,

Liberals and conservatives arrive at different moral conclusions because we weigh harms differently based on whom we believe to be vulnerable. Take the issue of abortion: I am more concerned for the pregnant person; a pro-lifer is more concerned for the fetus. But we both want to prevent harm.
 
Gray calls harm “the master key of morality”; it unlocks our understanding of moral judgments. “When someone has an opinion we find immoral, we can ask ourselves, ‘What harm do they see?’”

Cohen says she can try to understand that her neighbor isn’t purposely voting to harm her gay son and teenage daughter, but rather to prevent harms that the neighbor believes are posed by acceptance of LGBTQ+ folks and a woman’s right to make her own reproductive decisions. But then she asks the “bingo” question: “what if the harm she sees … isn’t real?”

Thus Gray points out that antigay crusader Anita Bryant “saw gay rights as a threat to her children” — he’s not saying she was right, just that she was acting from sincere concern. His research similarly refrains from privileging what I would call “fact.” One study he designed flip-flopped gun control statistics to see if people were worse at math when they didn’t like the answer; another, measuring how online outrage is built, included tweets about “the dangers of critical race theory.” It’s the perception of harm that matters…

I think we’re in this mess because one side’s perception of harm is increasingly disconnected from reality. I’d happily live in a world where my neighbor and I could discuss which harms concerned us more: the suffering of refugee children or the burdens on border-town citizens. The livelihood of coal miners or the warming of the globe. But in the world we live in — the world that reelected President Donald Trump — there’s a strong chance she believes that immigrants are eating pets and that climate change is a hoax.

And that –the refusal of millions of people to accept facts, evidence and demonstrable reality and opting to reside in a fantasy universe–is the crux of our current problem. 

On this blog, I have repeatedly argued that the information environment we inhabit enables a large percentage of the population to indulge in confirmation bias. Granted, there have always been sources of disinformation, but never before in history has it been so easy to access “evidence” that confirms one’s desired beliefs and prejudices.

Has your life failed to unfold as you hoped? Are you convinced that some “other” is to blame for your disappointments? There are literally hundreds–probably thousands–of websites that explain that the Black person or woman got the promotion because of “wokism,” and why the elevation of that non-Christian is evidence that “DEI hires” have replaced merit.

Is your livelihood or comfort level connected to the prospects of fossil fuels? There are plenty of “sources” that will confirm the perfidy of scientists who are “in on” the “global warming hoax.” 

Are you suspicious of all science–especially when it is based on empirical data that conflicts with your “biblical” understandings? “Bible-believing” websites will explain why the doctors trying to explain why abortion bans threaten women’s health and lives are just anti-religious liberals intent on killing babies and allowing women to ignore their God-ordained submissive roles.

Are you uncomfortable around gay folks? Lots of “religious” sites will confirm that they are “ungodly groomers,” (and that all those mainstream media reports implicating youth pastors and other pious church folks are exaggerated).

I could go on. And on.

We live in a world where technology–and yes, free speech–facilitates the construction of fantasy realities. And as Cohen accurately notes, finding “common ground” with folks who live in alternate universes simply isn’t possible.

Thanks to well-meaning liberals trying to reach that “common ground,” we are now inhabiting a country that–as Paul Krugman recently wrote– is being ruled by a mad king living in an alternate reality and a erratic, ketamine-fueled oligarch — and it’s not clear which is the other’s sidekick.

Finding “common ground” with madmen is suicidal.

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The Assault On Science

Facts exist whether you acknowledge them or not.

Among Trump’s blizzard of demented, anti-American Executive orders were several that attacked science and evidence. The declaration of an energy emergency was one–no such emergency exists. Asserting that the southern border is under invasion conveniently overlooked the fact that there are far fewer immigrants there than when he left office. The airy dismissal of climate change and the withdrawal from the Paris accords are part and parcel of a diseased mind that rejects irrefutable evidence of what is currently the single largest threat to human life on the planet.

Trump’s attacks on medical science were especially breathtaking, and enormously consequential.

As Talking Points Memo put it, the new administration has “turned off the spigot of funding for a huge amount of cancer research and various other health fields and diseases, and all signs point to a cutoff that will be thorough-going and draconian.”

This comes after a similar halt to the weekly MMWR report which CDC sends to hospitals and doctors every week with information on flu, COVID and other infectious diseases.

I think we’re at the point in this where you can’t yet categorically say that this is being done for RFK Jr.-adjacent anti-research nuttery, but basically all signs point in that direction. And there is at least a temporary and disruptive halt to how health research gets funded in this country.

The American Prospect reported on the assault on NIH.

All travel has been canceled, ruining many important conferences. All agency communications have been banned until further notice, blocking a highly anticipated report on the festering avian flu outbreak that has killed millions of birds, and could cause another pandemic if it mutates to enable human-to-human transmission. Worst of all, all study sections, which are required to disburse NIH’s $40 billion in grants—supporting some 300,000 working scientists at thousands of universities—are also halted indefinitely.

Before 1933, Germany was the clear world leader in academic research and achievement, winning far more Nobel Prizes than any other country. Hitler and the Nazis blew that up in a crusade against liberalism and “Jewish science,” driving most top researchers across Europe (like Albert Einstein) to Britain or the U.S., where many of them worked on the Manhattan Project. German science never recovered fully…

All agency communications have been banned until further notice, blocking a highly anticipated report on the festering avian flu outbreak that has killed millions of birds, and could cause another pandemic if it mutates to enable human-to-human transmission. Worst of all, all study sections, which are required to disburse NIH’s $40 billion in grants—supporting some 300,000 working scientists at thousands of universities—are also halted indefinitely.

As the Prospect concludes, Trump heads up a “rising tide of vengeful, crackbrained irrationalism” that is likely to end American scientific pre-eminence.

The Week reported on the Executive Order withdrawing the U.S. from the World Health Organization.

The problem is there is no similar organization ready to take its place. Meanwhile, global health threats continue to proliferate thanks to mass travel, rising urban populations and human encroachment on wildlife habitats. Without WHO, we leave ourselves unprepared.

Why, you might ask, has Trump withdrawn us from an organization that might protect us from (or at least alert us to) the next pandemic? Evidently, because the organization’s acceptance of medical science on matters like abortion and gender care is “woke.” (That’s the trouble with science and reality…they do tend to be “woke.”)

Trump hasn’t simply disrupted ongoing medical research–he has also censored medical information. Federal health agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes for Health, have all been ordered to pause all external communications, including health advisories and scientific reports.

So–American doctors and scientists not only won’t be pursuing research into diseases and public health, We the People won’t be informed about evidence they’ve previously uncovered. If we experience another pandemic, we will once again be told to ingest bleach or a horse medication–or perhaps, given the overwhelming influence of anti-science White Christian Nationalists–we may just be told to pray the disease away.

Trump’s cuts to foreign aid included numerous assaults on global heath. He’s stopped bird flu monitoring in 49 countries; halted efforts to eradicate polio; cut off support for vaccination of 90 million women and children; halted drug supplies keeping 20 million people living with HIV alive, and services for 6.5 million children affected by HIV in 23 countries.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has been recognized as central to both America’s prosperity and its geopolitical influence. As one article put it, the social and strategic benefits of owning such an immensely successful research complex are immense.

The benefits to individuals of living in a humane and fact-based world are also immense.

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Actions We Must Take NOW

Thus far, there hasn’t been a single admirable or even minimally fit Trump Cabinet nominee –but even among the clowns, buffoons and conspiracy theorists who are likely to dominate the upcoming administration, four stand out: Tulsi Gabbard, Kash Patel, Pete Hegseth and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. 

I’ve used the term “resistance” a lot since the election, without suggesting concrete steps to take. But Simon Rosenberg has outlined two in a recent Hopium newsletter, and I heartily endorse them.

  • Call your Senators and Representative to let them know your dissatisfaction with the rapist, fraudster, traitor and 34 times felon’s pick of Tulsi Gabbard, Kash Patel, Pete Hegseth and Robert Kennedy; and to inform them of your expectation that they will leave it all out there on the playing field to block these profoundly dangerous nominations whether they have a vote on them or not.

  • Contact the White House and ask President Biden to order the FBI to begin background checks into Trump’s nominees immediately and before Trump installs Patel to disable the process.

In case you are unfamiliar with these nominees, Robert Hubbell has offered a description of the terrifying Kash Patel, noting that Patel wants to destroy the FBI while converting it into a weapon of political vengeance.

Patel has promised to “shut down” the FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. on his first day as director of the FBI and re-open the FBI Headquarters the next day as a “museum to the deep state.” He said,

“I’d shut down the FBI Hoover Building on day one and reopen the next day as a museum of the deep state. And I’d take the 7,000 employees that work in that building and send them across America to chase down criminals.”

But he has also threatened to use the FBI to harass journalists and politicians who sought to hold Trump accountable for his crimes. Patel said,

“[W]e’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections — we’re going to come after you. Whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’ll figure that out.”

Patel’s nomination is also an assault on the US intelligence community; the FBI plays a critical role in counterterrorism and intelligence gathering. Hubbell links to a number of other resources for background on Patel.

Speaking of the intelligence community she would head, Tulsi Gabbard is widely considered to be a Russian asset. As the Independent has reported, 

Even before Gabbard left the Democratic Party, ingratiated herself with Donald Trump and secured his nomination to become director of National Intelligence, she was known as a prolific peddler of Russian propaganda.

In almost every foreign conflict in which Russia had a hand, Gabbard backed Moscow and railed against the US. Her past promotion of Kremlin propaganda has provoked significant opposition on both sides of the aisle to her nomination.

The media has been full of reports about Pete Hegseth–all negative. The New Yorker has issued an updated review of the behaviors that caused him to be forced out of prior positions. Those disclosures–unethical behaviors, sexual misconduct, egregious drunkenness–added to the already widely reported and salacious details of this nominee, who at this point, is not expected to be confirmed.

It is hardly necessary to update my prior comments about Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. His brain worm is insufficient to explain the conspiracy theories and anti-vaccine fixations he’s embraced. Even Trump’s former FDA commissioner has expressed significant concerns about naming him health secretary.

So here’s the assignment, as Rosenberg outlined it.

We need to inundate our Senators and Representatives with letters, emails, phone calls–any and all methods of communication decrying these nominees and demanding that they be properly vetted. Those of us fortunate enough to have Democratic Senators and/or Representatives can simply affirm our deep concerns and urge them to do whatever they can to derail what are actually attacks on the agencies involved.

Those of us unfortunate enough to be represented by Republicans have a trickier task. Here in Indiana, for example, we have two Republican Senators. Todd Young is relatively moderate (he’s a policy person and refused to endorse Trump)–letters to him should urge him to do what he probably knows is the right thing, and oppose these unfit nominees. Our other Senator (replacing Trump-complacent Braun) will be Jim Banks, who is certifiable. Banks is a lost cause; he will support anyone Donald Trump wants. Letters to him should set out the demonstrated flaws of these nominees and call on him to explain his support for any of them. Copy the news media with all of it.

Bury them with protests. I’m starting mine now.

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Bread And Circuses

“Bread and circuses” is a phrase referring back to the Roman Empire. Rome’s rulers distracted the public from corrupt and/or autocratic rule by giving the population free food and violent entertainments. They distributed grain to the poor, and provided entertaining distractions– chariot races, gladiatorial combat, and wild animal hunts, among others–to keep the masses from getting bored and restless, and to divert them from engaging in political activity. 
That time-honored tactic is still being employed.
In yesterday’s post, I shared my  observation that Americans no longer occupy a democratic system–that  gerrymandering, the Electoral College, Citizens United and various other elements of our electoral system have allowed the cult that is now the GOP to assume control of our government, and to rule without concern for the opinions of the citizenry. (Indeed, rather than a citizenry, we “voters” have more in common with subjects than with those who wield the power originally reposed in “We the People.”)
As the Trump administration takes shape, we can see that those who have secured the right to rule are the plutocrats. Assuming most of his proposed nominees are confirmed, America will be ruled (not governed) by billionaires pursuing further tax cuts and privileges–appointees ranging from obviously corrupt to ethically challenged and rife with conflicts of interests.
We have come to this sorry end of the American Experiment thanks to our current version of “bread and circuses.”
There have always been distractions and methods of promoting disinformation, but the Internet and the ubiquity of devices with screens that constantly occupy us have massively multiplied the diversions. Most readers of this blog are all too aware of the wealth of political propaganda promoted by Fox, et al, but that is a relatively minor aspect of the overall environment. Fox and its clones merely misrepresent the political world we occupy; it’s the growth of the entertainment world, the so-called “influencers,” the proliferation of celebrities who are famous for being famous (Kardashians, anyone?), that truly provides the “circus” that prevents most of us from recognizing the degradation of our own influence as citizens charged with choosing people to administer the powers of our governments.
Most observers of America’s political landscape recognize the decline of democratic decision-making. On this platform, I have repeatedly pointed out the very negative consequences of our structural deficits–especially gerrymandering, which allows legislators to choose their voters rather than the other way around. But it was only with the 2024 election of Donald Trump that I fully recognized what should have been obvious to me previously: American government is no longer even remotely democratic, and America’s economy is no longer an example of functioning market capitalism.
We are a plutocracy and a kakistocracy, and our economy is corporatist, not capitalist.
A kakistocracy is defined as rule by those least competent or suitable; corporatism–sometimes called “crony capitalism” –is control of the state by special interests. Honest observers have chronicled the country’s descent into those unfortunate categories for several years, only to be ignored by a population diverted by its own varieties of bread and circuses.
I will admit to being one of the people who didn’t sufficiently appreciate that descent. In my case, I focused far too much attention on the largely positive cultural changes that have allowed civic participation by previously marginalized folks–women, LGBTQ+ citizens and people of color–and far too little attention on the steady erosion of democratic citizenship.
The only salutary outcome of the 2024 election is the consequent inability of any sentient American to ignore the extent of that erosion.
Thanks in part to voters’ constant diet of “circuses,” Republicans were able to conduct a pivotal and monumentally successful gerrymander in 2010.–an actual, victorious, bloodless coup. The REDMAP program radically altered America’s electoral map, insulating the GOP and its wealthy donors from popular democracy. The book Ratf**ked “pulled back the curtain on that coup,”  explaining in detail how a group of Republican operatives hijacked democracy.
The question now, as always, is “what can be done?” Can We the People regain control of our government?
I will readily confess that I don’t know. Gerrymandering will continue to work so long as there are an adequate number of voters to be deployed who support the racism, misogyny and plutocracy championed by today’s GOP. The only “fix” I can envision is a significant reduction in their number.
It is possible that the pain likely to be caused by Trump’s administration will shake some folks loose. Meanwhile, it will behoove those of us who understand the problem to figure out how to break through the pervasive misinformation and distractions that keep too many voters content with being subjects rather than citizens.
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