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a mystical möbius — curating facts, ideas, text, and media to create a contemplative space.

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Focus

By “reality in two pieces” here, I’m not talking about the long standing two-worlds reality that exists between “the haves” and “the have-nots” as the meme above decries. Rather, in this piece I’m briefly acknowledging that media, and political technologies, have effectively divided the American people. 

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Monetizing political grievance 

It began 40 years ago, and was largely the product of Republican political strategy and “news” media chasing profits. Arguably, while obviously being leveraged by politicians, it’s mostly a media-driven phenomenon in its current form.

Then, along came DJT leveraging our polarization for extremely cynical ends (e.g., ‘political technologies‘) and he basically finished the job of ripping American reality into two separate pieces—Earth I || Earth II, each with their own media outlets.

Frankly, two sets of facts are not sustainable. Yet, incredibly, many Republican “leaders” still argue to maintain DJT‘s “stolen election” (Earth II disinformation) efforts (see, a moral failure).

And Republicans saying “Democrats Cancel Dr. Seuss” (Vox-The Fox News meltdown over “cancelling” Dr. Seuss) is simply a way that Earth II media-narrators subtly demonize Earth I people as those monsters who are so tyrannical they would cancel America’s beloved Dr. Seuss and his stories. 

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“Election irregularities” weaponized by DJT

Let’s make no mistake, there were lots of people who truly believed DJT‘s political technologies and got spun-up anticipating January 6. They genuinely believed that the election was stolen and that VP Mike Pence and legislators who wanted to certify the election as a win for Joe Biden were traitors. As hard as it s to imagine, many people still believe that. 

So, “widespread voter fraud” did not occur. That doesn’t mean a look at tuning-up the system is not in order. However, the gerrymandering and voter suppression tactics engaged by Republicans over the past few decades are the far more significant concern regarding “election irregularities.”

Is the dust settling yet?

The hearings this week were disturbing in that, once again, we could plainly see how very close we came to a democratic authority crisis of existential scale. I shudder when I think that, analogously, we were nearly this close to tipping – Unstoppable:

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It would have been nothing like a dance party, but if DJT‘s anti-democratic moves to overturn the 2020 election would have drawn particular kinds of timely support, and if real patriots like Republican election officials who courageously stood up against DJT hadn’t done so, then Qanon would have been one of the least of our troubles.

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It is what it is

I wrote a piece just after the events of January 6 (Black and White protest), in which I describe how I think racism, through unconscious bias, caused leaders to help stack the deck, not-consciously making overall security totally ill-prepared.

So, what seems very plain now (and supports my earlier analysis, “Black vs White protest”), e.g., even if General Walker had a green-light at 1:15 p.m. when Captain Sund begged for help, Walker had no way, no way available to prevent what happened at the Capitol. 

Don’t believe your lying eyes

I think Senator Ron Johnson’s basic intent was to defend MAGA voters. His far-fetched story is meant to vindicate DJT supporters, to keep them from being lumped-in with the Capitol terrorists. That’s understandable as not everyone at the January 6 protest was a MAGA-terrorist bent on violence. However, there’s still a problem with Sen. Johnson’s reasoning (Q-logic).

The problem is: any of the “innocent” MAGA crowd who didn’t turn and run away as fast as they could in the opposite direction, when they saw what was happening, condemn themselves by remaining in the midst of what was obviously a violent problem. 

You know, I don’t remember seeing a lot of folks running away as we all watched on that dreadful day. Some. A few. But not many. 

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Monetizing the culture wars

Sadly, politicians have figured out, tested for, and proven that fear and anger are the most powerful triggers to produce political contributions. I’ve said before that Republicans have realized that an aggrieved DJT, a DJT-as-victim, is the fund-raising goose that lays the golden eggs. Democrats use Republican’s grievance/anger issues as foil to raise money from their base. [Ironically, Friday DJT told GOP to quit using his name/likeness]

As alluded to above, the dynamics are apparently not lost on the estate of a beloved author and his publisher. Perhaps they just figured out that it could be a win–win–win if they creatively address the awkward, culturally insensitive dimension of Seuss’s body of work. 

What if Dr. Seuss’s Estate and publisher found a way to help American society confront our history of White supremacist racism, address the artifacts still expressing the bigotry, and promote the remaining work of Dr. Seuss? The Earth II grievance machine has spiked sales, and that could easily have been predicted.

Win for family and publisher. 

Win for anti-racism.

Win for society. 

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Next week: No idea. Come and see. 

[this post approx. 850 words (3 min. read)]

Your thoughts? 

I never know what I’ve said till I hear the response. What did you hear me say? 

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