The Deprogramming Dilemma - 10
Flood the Zone
By D-Jay
Remember back to the bad old days, about two whole weeks ago now, when not an hour could go by without the American psyche being assaulted by some new outrage perpetrated by a loud-mouthed, orange-tinged conspiracy crank who had somehow co-opted the office of the presidency?
For four long years, there was no escape from him. Day after day, hour after hour, he managed to capture the narrative of our nation…and we are far the worse for it.
One of his main techniques was to “flood the zone” – to simply put out, non-stop, such a huge volume of craziness, ignorant ramblings and lies that no one could keep up with it all, let alone subject any of it to anything approaching serious scrutiny.
Instead, we kept on following the next shiny object, while the man himself stayed constantly at the very middle of center-stage.
Everything was about him.
How delightful now to actually be able to feel again a little bit of the comfortable boredom that comes with a slow return to normality.
Have you been watching all of Uncle Joe’s policy statements and executive order signings, the personalized presentations of important nominees and, of course, Jen Psaki’s earnest, respectful and in-depth daily briefings for the press? I find myself wondering if Biden brigade might not have learned a useful lesson from the previous bunch on how to control the narrative.
How to flood the zone with the kind of information…and attitude…they want out there.
It’s a veritable orgy of the ordinary. A shotgun blast of basic competence and reality.
How soothing.
How refreshing.
Needless to say, none of this will have any impact at all on the core QAnon, MAGA mob crazies who now form the heart and soul of the Republican Party.
But will it turn down the rage meter a bit for at least a few of the elephant lovers who have yet to fall all of the way down the rabbit hole? Will those whose ability to discern fact from fantasy hasn’t been totally destroyed by the right-wing iron bubble of disinformation head, at long last, for the exits?
Maybe they are.
There have been reports that thousands of ordinary citizens in a number of states have been resigning from the Republican Party following January 6th’s Trump terrorist attack on the Capitol and the smooth inauguration of President Biden on the 20th. Let’s hope this signals the slow beginning of the deprograming of the right our country needs so desperately.
Mitt Romney and friends…are you listening?
Just don’t know if I would read things this way. I think it’s likely that we will see the Republican congress-people who voted for Trump’s impeachment get squeezed out in 2022. Lots of noise is being made about multiple primary candidates emerging to “primary” those folks as well as donations flowing to them. This situation isn’t supported by RNC types, they hate Trump. It’s at the real grass roots level. While many of the MAGA supporters are misguided they seem to be motivated. I think the groundswell against the Republicans who voted to impeach is a sign that we have a long way to go before things get better.
ReplyDeleteWhile reading this article on Chairman Xi Jinping, the new Emperor of China (Jongguo/Zhongguo): https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2021/01/xi-jinping-china-biography/617852/
ReplyDeleteIt dawned on me that voting President Trump out of office, while not placing any guarantee that he could run for office ever again (which is insane, as if summoning death itself to wipe out you and your family), isn't going to bring about any kind of salvation for the world.
The problem is that Donald Trump is really among the lesser problems the world is facing, largely because Trump himself is an idiot (an understatement).
The real issue with the world is that it is being consumed by darkness and despotism. Outside of the United States, the Commonwealth (New Zealand, Canada, Australia, etc.), Iceland, Continental Europe (only some portions, excluding places like Hungary, Poland & Belarus), and the British Isles (Ireland & the UK), the world is in a reversal of the progress made over the last few centuries (since the Enlightenment ca. 1680-1790, the French Revolution which saw the abolition of monarchy and separation of Christianity from state power, the American Revolution being the very first successful rebellion against a colonial power, etc).
China has relapsed back into its imperial mode. The Chinese Communist Party has abandoned Marxist-Communism altogether, instead taking up the very same geopolitical goals and ambitions of the former Qing Empire (officially the Qing Great-State). Their despot is Emperor Xi Jinping.
Russia's abandonment of Marxism-Leninism has devolved into full on Chekism, which is now blended with a virulent fundamentalist Neo-Orthodoxy (fundamentalist Russian Orthodoxy), essentially combining state power with Christian fundamentalist values. Their despot is Vladimir Putin.
Turkey, which was founded as a strongly secular state that abolished the position of Caliph (the nominal leader of the Muslim World), has no developed into an Islamic theocracy that has reconverted the Hagia Sophia into a mosque out of spite for Greek Christians. Their despot is the deranged and pathologically sick Recep Erdogan (who is truly insane, like the best religious fundamentalists).
All of Central Asia, without exception, is under the control of a despot. Some of whom are obsessed with building statues of themselves.
Belarus has been under a dictatorship since ca. 1994, having failed to transition from Soviet totalitarianism to liberal democracy. This is well known, but other parts of Europe (such as Hungary and Poland) are likewise falling to despots.
My point is, darkness is consuming the Earth. The light of reason and Enlightenment grows dimmer with each year.
Darkness is consuming the earth because people... the masses... in general have become lazy, ignorant and cowardly. It takes some combination of those 3 to allow a despot to take over your country. Why do a few million people allow one man.. a Putin or Trump to take over their country and tell them what to do? See the three points above.
ReplyDeleteIn my parts of the country it seems like Trumpers are just doubling down at the moment.
ReplyDeleteAnon@12.06, we think the world is failing because of the retreat of Enlightenment values but the decline is not due to moral failure but from external burdens. Our contrived 'explanations' merely tag along helplessly. Democratic values are retreating because the world is failing: overpopulation, the decline of the unifying post-WW2 peace, the neoliberal destruction of the middle class, corrupt ruling classes, environmental destruction and climate change all lead to refugees and broken political systems. Governments are not ethical systems but at their core service delivery mechanisms: food, security, livelihood. We don't have to go full Catherine Ingram to understand that liberal government systems cannot be expected to survive these kinds of economic and environmental pressures. That being said, we should still fight for some public values anyway. Maybe we can get lucky. Maybe the pandemic will wise us up that cooperation is the only tool left in the box.
ReplyDeleteThere is hope or maybe a chance for this craziness to subside according to this article
ReplyDeletehttps://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/01/30/heres-what-happens-to-a-conspiracy-driven-party-463944
Thank you for not using the non-word "normalcy."
ReplyDelete"Normalcy" is an actual word, although "normality" is still preferred. Many people ridiculed President Harding for using "normalcy" in a speech, but the OED found the word used (in mathemetics) as early as 1857.
ReplyDeleteI've used "normalcy" from time to time, just to be eccentric.