We Had a Good Run

Au contraire, aphorism!

I am, by nature, an optimist. To be more specific, I'm lazy, so I assume most things are likely to work out, so I expect the best. With a few exceptions, mostly concerning things that don't matter all that much in the grand scheme of things, that philosophy has worked for me.

This places me at odds frequently with lawyers who work for my company. I argue on the regular that the risks they're pointing out in customer contracts are extremely unlikely to be made manifest, and regardless, they're risks I'm willing to accept. Out my way, counselor! I've got a business to run.

On that front, I've yet to be caught out. Largely because experience tells me that even if we screw something up with a customer, if we've built a good relationship, we can work it out without running the contract or the company into a ditch.

I say all this as preface to the main point of this essay, which is that our society is fucked because our collective experience doesn't matter at a time when too many of the foundational norms of our body politic have turned to quicksand.

It's been coming for a minute. We were shocked when Newt Gingrich decided to shut down the Federal Government back in the 90s because such a thing was unthinkable. (Whitney was less shocked than really happy for the time off.) Imagine what we'd have said back then if we were told that a sitting Congressman had Tweeted an anime video depicting the murder of a colleague and a threat to the President?

First, we would've said, "what the fuck does 'Tweeted' mean, and what is an anime?". But then after someone explained those post-modern societal features, we'd have not believed such a thing possible. Surely, though, we'd expect such a norm-violator to be roundly and unanimously sanctioned by fellow legislators. 

And just as surely, we'd have been wrong. 207 members of the House of Representatives, all Republican, did not see fit to censure Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) for Tweeting such a video about fellow Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). I understand political opponents strongly disagreeing with Rep. Ocasio-Cortez's policy views, because she's on the leftmost side of the spectrum. I do not for a moment understand how even jokey threats of violence became acceptable political discourse among adherents of one of our two major political parties. For her part, AOC's words are hard to argue with, and fell entirely upon the deafest of ears amongst those who most needed to hear them.

After his censure, Gosar once again Tweeted the offending video. Because he's a toddler meathead fuck.

Outside of the realm of politics, outrage has become one of the surest paths to profit. Alex Jones, Charlie Kirk, Jason Whitlock, Clay Travis, Jack Posobiec, and the retinue of grifting angermongers that queue up alongside them to monetize our divisions are as smart as they are opportunistic. There's gold in them thar clicks. 

Good job, good effort

This reliable group of rage amplifiers team up with shadowy manipulators like the Koch Brothers to drive real outcomes in our world. The wholly specious Critical Race Theory nonsense centered in my county this autumn was birthed by a dude named Christopher Rufo, funded by a Byzantine network of folks who couldn't find Loudoun County on a map, handled poorly by Terry McAuliffe, and deftly exploited by Glenn Youngkin all the way to the Governor's mansion in Richmond.

Tom Nichols, author of The Death of Expertise and a reliable chronicler of the decline of civil engagement assesses things well in an excellent newsletter piece in The Atlantic.

Unfortunately, we’ve become a nation, to steal a line from Peggy Noonan, of “sullen paranoids,” in which millions of us have embraced a toxic combination of fantasy and stupidity. This is more than just the revival of conspiracy theories, which always lurk just beneath the surface of every society. This is far worse. From “microchips in the vaccines” to QAnon, from Venezuelan voting machines to Russian-hacked voting machines, from faked moon landings to “January 6 was antifa or the FBI or maybe both,” too many of our fellow citizens are adrift, lost, freaked-out, and willing to believe almost anything, especially if it helps to support their preexisting political narratives and tribal loyalties.

I could go on, but most readers of this here blog have at least a passing understanding of the things Dr. Nichols and I describe. That's all setup for this punch line.

I don't think there's a way back, at least in my lifetime.

Partisan division was once about policy with a soupcon of racism thrown in. And yes, the Democrats were the racists. Or, to be clear, the more racist party. Now division a cultural touchstone. 59% of Republicans in a recent poll agreed that supporting Donald Trump was a prerequisite to being a member of the GOP. Not supporting a strong military, or lower taxes, or small government. Supporting Donald Trump. To harvest liberal tears, one assumes. A goddamn vaccine, something we give our children 29 times before they're 18 months old, became a symbol of which team you're on. We are a deeply unserious people.

And given the state of legislative gerrymandering, the GOP's generally better organization, the pandemic's continued drag on...well, everything, it's highly likely that the 2022 elections are dismal for Democrats. Which will send us into a deeper spiral of bad governance, rewarding political extremism  and escalating anger on both sides.

It will, my friends, get much worse before it gets better.

Reasonable minds may disagree, and Nichols suggests a path, saying, "But I am convinced (and I’ll return to this theme in the future in this newsletter) that the remedy for saving our corroded public life lies within ourselves rather than through the law and regulation. Turning to someone you know and telling them that the Earth is round, that vaccines work, that JFK Jr. is as dead as Julius Caesar—and that you are not willing to argue about it for three hours—is not an act of hostility. It’s an act of civic virtue, of friendship, even of love. And we need to do more of it."

I hope he's right and I'm wrong. But history suggests I rarely am, at least in matters of Trump-inspired politifuckery.

I'm having a hard time staying optimistic. I hear people in Norway are pretty happy with their lot in life. And if we keep fucking the environment, it'll be a lot easier to get my hygge on with the new climate in my pad in Oslo. Doors always open for you lot.