SHIFTING GEAR
Wednesday, January 20, 2021 - daily column #6643
I got into trouble.
A lot.
But probably no more than most average kids.
My mother would scold, then admonish me to admit I’d learned my lesson. Confession or words of contrition were painless; to escape or minimize punishment, to side-step the ultimate threat, “Wait till your father gets home!”
Denial of privileges was short-term, but having my mouth washed out with soap, was unforgettable.
And a spanking from dad was avoided at all costs …
Being in trouble, knowing there is no way out is frightening; most people figure their way out of trouble, some admit it and take their lumps. Sociopaths deny everything – because they believe that protestation will absolve them of responsibility.
Most of us get straightened around by the age of ten.
Some, never …
In a book or movie, we recognize the suspension of disbelief. We know that it is fiction, but we engage as if it’s real. We love page-turning/arm-rest gripping drama. In real life, however, dotted lines between truth, illusion, and delusion get fuzzy.
The parallel between fiction writing devices and propaganda-speak, one must ask – for Americans who believed, who still believe, their recent presidential election was not legitimate; did they trust that fiction, or did they just love the author/speaker, their president of puffery and preposterous patter?
Last week’s term-topping Trump-led recklessness and insurrection will neither be erased nor vacated from memory or consequence by installing a replacement president.
Not only politicians and media moguls need a pause to question their roles in causes-effects rippling through America. I remember so starkly, from Watergate hearings, Senator Baker, when speaking about President Nixon, “What did he know, and when did he know it?” and all that unfolded …
Today, for all Americans (Canadian watchers too), and everyone whose public-megaphone is as simple and innocuous as their keyboard, Twitter account, or Facebook page – when everybody is an author, everyone is a reader.
Discerning truth from Trump’s fiction feints, decoupling hyperbole from lies, is like picking pepper out of the dirt. Not an ancient Greek play, or something Shakespearean, not the Ides of March; history may record it as crisis narrowly averted. Crowd-think became mob-think. In the face of economic instability/crisis, a health emergency driven by a pandemic, and insurrection inside the Capitol of the most powerful country ever, it’s time for a re-set.
Will there be another Trump anytime soon?
Will the United States of America make that mistake again?
I doubt that, and here is why; Republicans, if they wish to retain popularity and ever regain power – in two years in the midterm congressional elections – will distance themselves far from Mr. Trump. In four years, he guided them to lose control of the House, the Senate, and the Presidency. He’s toast. A pariah. Or worse. Insurrection and political deceptions are not the deep roots under the problem. They are, startlingly, symptoms of a society in trouble. A warning sign, a loud cry for help …
Is he, was he, the underlying problem, and what lessons can we all learn from what we’ve seen play out as the ultimate never-ending Trump reality TV show?
No law of nature determines how we organize our lives, societies, or are governed. Words, laws, regulations, and free-press are anchored upon decisions made, choices of people who wanted their lives governed.
Not unrestricted. Balanced. One’s rights vis-à-vis everyone else’s rights. Most modern democracies, countries calling themselves civil societies, echo these values and mirror what we call the Judeo-Christian ethic.
Good.
Fine.
That should ensure peace, tranquility, and uninterrupted prosperity.
Oops …
Something happened.
It’s not Trump; he’s neither cause nor effect, not the architect, but indeed the puppet (or puppeteer?) for a while, of a school of thought, of a movement.
He stands accused, along with a few hundred who have been arrested, insurrectionist du-jour – his troubles are far from over. It would nice to believe it is over now for us all, that we’ve just walked out of a near-Rambo style movie, and we can go home to our everyday lives.
Those riotous events and movements behind them arose from passionate people, came out of periods in history where their lives were not free. Those watershed moments are not just found in history books. All of them, at one point or another, were the news of their day.
There is no guarantee in any constitution that any country will hold together but rules and laws alone; because countries are held together by other things. And there is no way to know what will pull them apart. Whether Trump is viewed by history as a hero or villain, tyrant or champion, aberration or breakthrough revolutionary is to be determined in the fullness of time. Still, for today, there will be one thing everyone will soon agree upon.
He’ll be out of his office.
Replaced.
That’s not the scary part.
Mr. Trump and those who follow him are not following a fiction from a compelling novel. They’re following a different ideology that is more about race and power than separating nuances of fact and lies, rhetoric, and taking the public’s pulse by social media. Hardly reliable or scientific, but not to be dismissed. The fear-factor for the world, far beyond economic concerns, is for disruption of stability for America. It’s not about whether they are great, greatest, or could be great again or slipping from supremacy everyone, once-upon-a-time, took for granted.
Canadians live next door, in democracy too, and we are not immune to lies, history, and the too-far swings of the pendulum from time to time. We cannot sit idly by and expect the world will return to calm this week. The threat to peace and prosperity for all of North America is a clear and present danger.
We are relying, for our comfort, not on headlines, inaugural addresses, nor the passage of time; what is at issue is the temperament of Trump followers, and how many of them continue in disbelief, and how many embrace ‘their version of the truth,’ and we nervously must worry what they believe and whether they still believe.
Yes, it seems evident that we want to be governed, and we go to ballot boxes to determine by whom we are led, but not very often do we have such fodder for debate in real-time about how we are governed and where we are headed.
Presidents, Prime-Ministers, Kings and Queens, Premiers, and Mayors – are important figureheads, but they are also just place-holders for a while. Whether their term is short or decades-long, their jobs are high-stress, high-reward, high-visibility, and rarely transparent enough. We get lots of words but not enough microscopic truth-telling. In a big-data world, that sand seems to be shifting.
Somewhere in my early education, I was taught to watch people’s actions rather than listening to their words as a better indicator of who they were. Indeed.
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