The Historic Cult of Ignorance in America

If we are to understand why it is that demagogues like doughfacedonny have such an easy time manipulating the simple-minded authoritarian followers in this country and others, then we have to look backwards to the founding of the republic for some of the reasons. Inertia in history is an overlooked category in inquiry for many people looking for answers. Bad ideas can become entrenched as tradition and then mutate into inverted perversions of good intentions.

I do not intend to deconstruct Asimov's wisdom concerning the "cult of ignorance" in America. I merely wish to wield it as guidepost for this essay. I share many articles from Esquire's resident wise man Charles Pierce, but here we need to reference his excellent book called Idiot America. If you want to scratch the surface of this cult of ignorance, you have to look at empirical history and Pierce does a great job in his book (I recommend the audio version for the entertainment value, being narrated by Balki Bartokomous is also a plus) of examining that history. He peels back this disgusting crust of gleeful ignorance enveloping the founding fathers' enlightenment values. From the Amazon description:

The culture wars are over and the idiots have won. This is a veteran journalist's caustically funny, righteously angry lament about the glorification of ignorance in the United States.

The three Great Premises of Idiot America: · Any theory is valid if it sells books, soaks up ratings, or otherwise moves units; anything can be true if someone says it loudly enough; "fact" is that which enough people believe. And "truth" is determined by how fervently they believe it.

Charles Pierce has led a career-long quest to separate the smart from the pap, and now it's time to try and salvage the Land of the Enlightened, buried somewhere in this new Home of the Uninformed. With his razor-sharp wit and erudite reasoning, Pierce delivers a gut-wrenching, side-splitting lament about the glorification of ignorance in the United States and how a country founded on intellectual curiosity has deteriorated into a nation of simpletons more apt to vote for an American Idol contestant than a presidential candidate.

With Idiot America, Pierce's thunderous denunciation is also a secret call to action, as he hopes that, somehow, being intelligent will stop being a stigma and that pinheads will once again be pitied, not celebrated.

I so wish he was right about the culture wars being over. Of course, you can lay a great deal of the responsibility and blame for why the moldy crust of idiots grew so exponentially over the great experiment in liberty and self-government in the lap of Thomas Jefferson. The American Sphinx, as biographer Joseph Ellis , was just as enigmatic in his own time as he is to Americans today. All things to all people, Jefferson is invoked by the Federalist Society (the irony of being idolized by the namesake of his enemies would not have been recognized by him) on the right all the way to Noam Chomsky on the left. They all take what they want from him, except the context of his times.

Jefferson's conception of the United States as a loose confederation of strong member states and populated by a disinterested yeomanry, self-sufficient and self-reliant, pursuing national concerns with enlightenment and wisdom, never really existed. Sure, yeoman farmers existed and we could think of them as part of the middle class. America did have a greater proportion of freeholding farmers than any European or offshoot county. But it also had subsistence farm families who had neither the time, resources, communications, or education to contemplatively ponder what it means to live in a republic. There were ambitious merchants on the coast who were full-blown capitalists and not interested in the high-minded pursuit of knowledge, rather they were interested in profit and bending the state to their will, such as the state was. Also, speculators and planters who were less interested in "all men are created equal" and "endowed with... rights" than in exploiting people. So a comparatively small portion of the American polity was in any position to really be Jefferson's virtuous yeomen, free from dependence or want, to execute his vision of selfless service to building democracy and the good society.

If you are interested in a glimpse of what politics was like in Jeffersonian America, I suggest Without Precedent: Chief Justice John Marshall and his Times. Marshall was a Federalist, and before becoming Chief Justice he served in many public offices and capacities that put him at the center of politics in the young republic. Although Jefferson's victory in 1800 was the first peaceful transfer of power in a modern republic, Without Precedent details all the ways that it was not frictionless, many of the facets of democratic governance that we took for granted before doughfacedonny came along and shit all over them very nearly failed to take hold in the first place because the Republicans (Jeffersonians, who evolved into today's Democratic Party but had many temperamental characteristics of today's Republicans) tried to take everything built by Washington and Adams apart, in many cases out of simple spite. American government would have evolved along much more demagogic lines, charisma and personal vendettas being the central tenet of statesmanship if Marshall had not insisted on rule of law in place of petty whims.

The point being that even at the beginning, there were politicians who acted like politicians. They were even petty, vindictive, corrupt, selfish, and uncompromising like today's republicans. And there is a hapless party of responsible adults who actually believe in governing on the other side that is forever hopelessly chasing a responsible, enlightened citizenry which doesn't exist. The first party system in America was a lot like the ridiculous system of today, the Federalists tried in vain to defend the values of a bygone age, and the Republicans (Jeffersonians) were committed to tearing it all down. Tomorrow perhaps we can explore why average American citizens failed to live up to Jefferson's idealistic naivete.

It Will Happen Here

Paul Krugman is doing his best Driftglass impression today:

And it could all too easily happen here. There was a time, not long ago, when people used to say that our democratic norms, our proud history of freedom, would protect us from such a slide into tyranny. In fact, some people still say that. But believing such a thing today requires willful blindness. The fact is that the Republican Party is ready, even eager, to become an American version of Law and Justice or Fidesz [the ruling parties in Poland and Hungary, respectively], exploiting its current political power to lock in permanent rule. [emphasis mine]

 Then of course he sounds like he was paraphrasing me, just a little bit but infinitely more erudite and eloquent:

Many Trump critics celebrated last week’s legal developments, taking the Manafort conviction and the Cohen guilty plea as signs that the walls may finally be closing in on the lawbreaker in chief. But I felt a sense of deepened dread as I watched the Republican reaction: Faced with undeniable evidence of Trump’s thuggishness, his party closed ranks around him more tightly than ever.

 Yes, it was definitely dread. Thank you Dr. Krugman, your economic insights are always on the mark but now you've added psychological analysis to the roster. This is exactly why I am increasingly tense, it let up a little when we weren't faced with immediate death squads but the slow tightening is starting to really show. I wrote on Facebook that the republicans are really testing the theory that conspiracies are impossible because no one can keep secrets for long. One time and one senator could make a huge difference. One republican senator on the finance committee could vote with Democrats to get doughfacedonny's tax returns. The $64,000 question is what is being held over their heads?

The Failure of Optic-based Governing

In any other reality it would be the end of 'the president.' But I'm just not sure that any optics-based norm enforcement can be effective against the shameless liars anymore. The Cohen and Manafort guilt only served to suck the air out of the Omarosa claims of an "N-word" tape for doughfacedonny.

Nothing has really changed. The same brain-dead re-programmable meatbags that believed their god-emperor was simply the victim of a witchhunt by angry Democrats yesterday still believe that today and will tomorrow. The rest of the world knows he's a crook and that hasn't changed.

Republicans still chant "Lock her up!" at doughfacedonny's fascist rallies. Glassy-eyed true believer trolls commenting on Facebook news stories make sure to work Hillary and Barack Obama into their screeds. How many are actually Russian or 'bots created by them? It's a nonzero number, but these are your grandparents or your weird uncle. Sometimes it's your boss or your neighbor but living next to !shock! !horror! Democrats or worse yet brown people is something residents of Alt-America generally avoid. Self sorting and autosegregation is practically the rule in real life as it is online.

I had something of a meltdown over the reaction to Cohen and Manafort, and now soon-to-be-ex-congressmember Duncan Hunter. Who is now the second congresscritter in the last month to be indicted for financial shenanigans, after Chris Collins was caught insider trading. These two idiots, who believed they were now above the law, have something else in common: they were the first two congressmembers to endorse doughfacedonny. Amazing right? It's as though the republican party really and truly is rotten down to its core.

Optics just doesn't work anymore if the republican meat covered robots can be programmed to simply not accept facts. Now, why didn't the jury convict Manafort on all 18 counts? Answer, one robot snuck onto the jury and refused to believe any evidence of Paulie's wrongdoing.

The meltdown came from the optics-obsessed Chris Cillizza's "analysis" of these "two massive clouds hanging over Donald Trump's presidency broke open... and poured rain all over the president."

First, you need functioning eyes to see those clouds. Second, you need a functioning brain to process what clouds are and what they are likely to mean. Third, you need the sensory capability to register that rain is wet and unpleasant. Then you still need a functioning brain to process what that sensation means.

Which the reprogrammable republican meatbags do not possess. They are literally Aristotle's prisoners watching the world through shadows cast on the wall. All sensory information is filtered through fox news and right wing media and cast upon the wall in pre-chewed form to mean whatever authoritarian leaders want it to mean for these prisoners. Alt-America exists comfortably in its own self-imposed prison, they have no idea how the real world works beyond the cave wall. The pain from their republican leaders' actions certainly affects them, but they turn to the same people hitting them for answers. And those answers are always the same, "it's the Democrats fault, it's brown people's fault."

Optics mean nothing when there is no sensory processing to interpret meaning. So Cillizza can write about and interpret the meaning of disastrous weeks, days, hours for doughfacedonny but they don't mean anything. Laws of physics operate no matter what, if you knock the supports out from under a weight then gravity will bring it to the ground. But laws of social science cease to operate if belief in them is undermined by an alternate reality. The constitution established and centuries of application solidified a system of government institutions that functioned under laws of physics. Doughfacedonny's republicans have replaced it with subjective laws of social science which are malleable and largely insulated from the laws of physics.

Partisanship, tribalism, and authoritarianism have congealed the republican party into an occupying force that has at least momentarily suspended the laws of physics. Optics disappear into this black hole of republicanism like light waves, outside of the black hole we can observe where those optics disappear but we can't do anything about it.

So I ask again, what is the roadmap of making those laws apply again? How do real world events, like several republicans going to real world prison and doughfacedonny's own actual confessions to illegal acts (sorry, paywall) put rubber to the road? In other words, how do we make sure Cohen, Manafort, Collins, and Hunter among other things, stick and really get some traction towards prying these fucking ticks out of office?

A Dark Day of Nothing

I hate to be cynical, but what exactly is there to be excited about when the clueless pundits get up on their little hind legs and bark about "the worst hour of Donald Trump's presidency" or "Donald Trump's nightmare news day" or even "a dark day for Trump"? How does this translate to staunching the bleeding of Lady Liberty on the courthouse steps? How does this present the roadmap to excising the festering boil of authoritarian nincompoops infesting our republic? A couple of pathetic excuses for criminal masterminds are going to jail, maybe.

Does that somehow reunite refugee children with their parents? Does this horrible day for Doughfacedonny somehow put some stolen tax revenue back in the treasury? Does it get Kavanaugh out of consideration for the Supreme Court? For that matter, does it undo the stolen Supreme Court seat currently occupied by Gorsuch?

Are we so hard up for victories that Cohen and Manafort finally, maybe, possibly, exiting stage right qualifies as one? There have been so many false dawns, so many first dominoes falling on this criminal conspiracy occupying the Executive Branch that I've lost count. Doughfacedonny is so goddamn oily that nothing makes a dent. Scandal after scandal, screwup after screwup, blatant cruelty, openly flouted racism, and utter incompetence has racked up for almost two years; what is there to show for it?

I just don't see the roadmap for prying these fuckers out of office.

So What?

And what are you going to do about it libtard?

Joy. The outrage overload just ramped up another notch. #Doughfacedonny, Jeff Sessions, and Stephen Miller got "caught" separating immigrant children from their parents when caught crossing the US border without documentation. Those questions are the likely answers after you strip away all of the rationalizations, qualifications, and obfuscations so enjoyed by republican authoritarians.

Ask if they support putting children in cages.

If they say, "Obama did it," ask them again if they support putting children in cages.

If they say, "it's their parents fault for bringing them here," ask them again if they support putting children in cages.

Just keep asking.

— Nick Jack Pappas (@Pappiness) June 18, 2018

Certainly these are good suggestions. But trying to have a moral argument with authoritarians is pointless. One of their defining characteristics is self-righteousness. Another is in-group/out-group Manichean thinking. "Illegal" immigrants are a great test group for the Donny's regime, it gives his bigoted followers the perfect excuse. "But they're breaking the law!" It doesn't matter what the actual situation is. This is what the red hats want. This is what Donny telegraphed from the day he announced his campaign. So how do decent people fight this?

There doesn't appear to be any way to fight it. You can't appeal to their humanity. Republicans do not see immigrants and brown people as equal to them. This has been a decades-long process by right wing media to dehumanize all sorts of groups. Undocumented immigrants have always been pretty high on the list, at least since the "superpredator" gambit largely failed. But each step has raised the bar of unnecessary cruelty. It is difficult for decent American citizens to understand this thought process. Republican authoritarians hate brown people the way you hate mosquitoes or wasps and basically for the same reasons. It isn't right, it isn't just, it isn't rational but it is. So think for a moment how you would react if someone said "don't swat that mosquito" when you have been primed by media or peers and personal experience to understand that mosquito bites itch, are unsightly, and sometimes carry disease. Of course it isn't the same thing, and of course there is no excuse for treating fellow human beings like lower lifeforms but that is how dehumanizing works.

It is heartening to see the vast outpouring of outrage. And how easily evidence of the conditions in these camps for children forcibly taken from their parents has entered the debate. Social media can help hone the liberal talking points since our side doesn't have access to billion dollar consulting firms. The temperature was raised pretty fast, as it has been with the Muslim ban, Obamacare repeal, #metoo, and others. Popular pressure to restrain Donny and the authoritarian regime from doing too much harm may buy time. But in the end it is up to you and me to get out and vote. Vote for Democrats and only Democrats, there will be time in the future to improve the Democratic Party once the authoritarians are out of power. I am gladly eating my words. I was afraid that day one of Donny's regime would be death squads and people being disappeared. It has been 17 months and they are having trouble abusing the most vulnerable people out there. That is thanks to you, and all of the hard work you and other activists have done on behalf of democracy and the rule of law. They will never stop of course, one thing decent Americans should understand by now is that about a third of the people in this country viscerally hate the other two thirds. We can't come to an understanding, meet half way, or reach a compromise with authoritarians they simply need to be removed from politics.

In a republic, we have no king, no parent figures, and no teachers. When bullies and brats say "so what?" when asked to care about others and "what are you going to do about it?" the time for politeness has passed. There is no higher authority to appeal to, we have to govern ourselves. Separating children from their parents and throwing them in cages is unacceptable, no matter who they are or what they have done. People are not mosquitoes. Authoritarians do not reason or think life is or even should be fair, they only respect the law of the jungle; might makes right. That has no place in a civilized society.

Professionalism and the triumph of surrender

American journalism is in crisis, under attack and literally shutting down across the vast news deserts of a country where citizens are no longer getting coverage that is sufficient to sustain democracy. So DC journalists have rallied after the #WHCD to condemn... a comedian.
— John Nichols (@NicholsUprising) April 29, 2018

So today the fallout from the mean comedy lady's stand up routine at the White House Correspondents Dinner finds unconditional surrender from spineless professionals masquerading as journalists. Brother Charlie Pierce laid it out: 

Faced with an administration* and a president* dedicated to poisoning both the spirit and the institutions of free government, and faced with an administration* and a president* dedicated only to looting those institutions that it cannot destroy, the representatives of the elite political media, through the woman at the head of their formal association, Margaret Talev, have determined that bowing to the fauxtrage aimed at a comedian on behalf of the administration*’s paid liar is the proper way to respond to the weekend’s festivities. The commitment to a free press is not common to this nation’s people any more, if it ever was, and it damn sure doesn’t have any fans in this administration*. Anyone who thinks that “a vigorous and free press” and “honoring civility” are equally desirable goals doesn’t love the former enough to deserve the latter.

One does not even have to look at alt-twitter and the troll feeds to know that thin-skinned MAGA hats were and are continuing to screech about how horrible, partisan, and completely one-sided Wolf's monologue was... without having watched more than a few seconds of it. Seriously, she went on for almost twenty minutes and Huckleberry Sandbag (h/t Stephanie Miller) was only the butt of a few jokes. Wolf went after Congress, Roy Moore, Pussy Hats, Reince Priebus, "liberal media" orgasms over Russia, the Clinton campaign for "not being in touch with Michigan", and many more before ever getting to SHB. I'll admit that the jokes about lies turned into something called a "smokey eye" fell with kind of a thud, and not simply because the crowd suddenly clutched their pearls for dear life. They weren't that good, but how do you knock one out of the park about a woman who is paid out of our tax dollars to lie... constantly? Wolf then immediately turned to CNN and kicked them square in the nuts. Ed from Gin and Tacos, whom I have yet to discover an adequate nickname for (God Professor perhaps?) did however knock it out of the park with this one:

"All these guns can't protect my feelings" pic.twitter.com/WFbolkaQlq

— Ed Burmila (@gin_and_tacos) April 30, 2018

And this one:

24 hours in pic.twitter.com/wEN1DZMxOX

— Ed Burmila (@gin_and_tacos) April 30, 2018

 Let's keep in mind who the offended people are:

At what point will the professional journalist class realize they are in danger? The re-programmable meat-bags that have been conditioned all these years by Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, and the entire wingnut propaganda complex aren't kidding. Charlie Pierce alluded to an earlier time when journalists were not afraid to take a stand against evil by quoting the radical abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison in defense of the First Amendment. In another time of repression and conspiracy Edward R. Murrow had the courage to stand up to the bully Joe McCarthy. Walter Cronkite was unafraid to speak out on the quagmire of Vietnam. Woodward and Bernstein followed the money to unravel Nixon's corruption and abuse of power.

But in this time of darkness... we have professional detachment decrying anything that "divides" Americans. America stands as a one party state in 2018, and that party hates anything that does not serve or flatter it. Now is the time to speak truth to that kakistocracy, now cower behind some ephemeral concept of "civility". Look at those pictures above again. Now add 62 million more. Do you honestly think they give a damn about your principles? Has the MAGA hat mob ever shown anything approaching "civility"?

I have been wrong all these years on two counts. This is not a war. A war is when two sides fight. Unilateral disarmament doesn't cut it either. Brother Charlie calls the statement by WHCA president Margaret Talev to be articles of surrender. I am not one to quibble with Brother Charlie's judgment but this event leads me to a conclusion that I dread. This is the second count.

Thomas Frank was right. It is not easy to swallow what tiny amount of pride I possess and go back on what I once stated, but there it is. The most obvious supporting evidence of Dr. Frank's thesis in Listen Liberal. Professionalism has hijacked liberalism. The values he laid out that are shared by professionals and establishment liberals, the examples he gave, the repercussions it has led to, and especially his tale of how the DC press corps finger-wagged the Democratic Party into abandoning the New Deal. I was in denial, well maybe not but I wasn't exactly open to the thesis. My tone did not appreciably change about the book from before to after the election (was stolen). But this was my hero talking and I was far beyond the young radical I once was. The guy who couldn't stand Al Gore in 2000 couldn't wait to get Hillary Clinton in office and get back to the real work.

The real work involves deprogramming enough of the meatbag republicans to defuse the overwhelming authoritarianism driving the republican party. The "professionals" in the WHCA have set that back considerably. First with the supine obeisance to corrupt liars. Now with throwing the entertainer that they invited to their own event under the bus for... words. "Fuck your feelings" has really come of age hasn't it?

Keep on fighting

It has been so long since I actually finished writing a post here that I cannot remember where to begin. So maybe I just need to stream my thoughts out for practice. Bob Cesca refers to this steady deluge as "The Fire Hose of News" where it just keeps coming, the porn stars, the graft, the shameless corruption, the firings, the provocations of foreign powers, the malice, the gun massacres, the abject cruelty towards their fellow Americans, and HOW IN THE FUCK CAN THIS VULGAR TALKING YAM ENJOY A 40% APPROVAL RATING FROM THE AUTHORITARIAN FOLLOWER MOUTH-BREATHING HYPOCRITES!!! They do not deserve to be called Americans anymore. The best case scenario is they become so embarrassed by their outspoken support of such a vile excuse for a human being and the entire party and ideology he adheres to that they just go away.

That is the takeaway from this national nightmare, no liberal should ever give the benefit of the doubt to anyone calling themselves a conservative or libertarian or even independent. Nothing they say should ever be given any credence, no concern trolling or whataboutism should be listened to by anyone. There has to be some kind of shorthand to address their lies so we don't waste time bailing out the ocean of MAGA hat malice, that never ending cacophony of bullshit and bad faith arguing that heretofore derails every attempt at serious discussion on any social media platform. I DON'T OWE YOU A DEBATE could be a start.

How accurate these proportions are is open to honest debate but one of those thirds is certainly aware of it. Which third are you in?

It must be said as well that the elite seem to believe that when the time comes, they will be able to point the dangerous third away from themselves. Or at least hire enough of them as guards to fulfill Jay Gould's infamous anecdote. One by one the fascists residing within America's borders will realize that their god emperor was always in it for himself. Then what?

I doubt the "alt-right" meatheads or the bitter old boomers will realize how deeply they have been conned by Republican politicians all of these years to become Democrats. And I am specifically referring to the Republican base, that frothing mass of racist hatred who really though that Doughface Donny was the one to bring about the final solution in America. It would look different than in Nazi Germany, but extremists are nothing if not full of big plans for the rest of us.

Thankfully, as David Neiwert likes to point out, right-wing extremists have a pronounced weakness in their ability to organize and work together. However, like all good authoritarian followers, they will fall in line behind the next tyrant to come along and promise them the moon.

So until next time, give their pathetic mewling no credence. You do not owe any right winger who is wasting your time with bullshit and bad faith arguing a debate. You do not owe any right wing authority figure any deference. And most of their power lay in intimidation and knowing that their cruelty and bigotry will not be questioned. Time to shatter that myth. As the Parkland kids are consistently showing. As Stormy Daniels is showing. And as Democrats are showing in special elections all around this republic.