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“How did we get Trump and why is a third of the country in love with him?”

I finished this book yesterday and it attempts to look at Trump through a more ominous but objective view of American History.  

It examines the roots of white supremacy, the outsized influence of Christianity, perception manipulation, and the “Noble Lie” of American exceptionalism. 

Good book, would recommend. 

Posted (edited)
  On 10/18/2020 at 7:07 PM, Hugo Stiglitz said:

the “Noble Lie” of American exceptionalism.

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As I grew into my adulthood, and my world travels stacked up, realizing that American Exceptionalism is a huge and embarrassing lie is one of the most transformative moments of my political evolution.

Most of what makes us "exceptional" is either luck/circumstance (it was nice having an ocean between us and our enemies in a war that destroyed much of the world's manufacturing capacity, it's nice having a huge swath of fertile land) or the product of some really nasty shit (all that fertile land?  We didn't exactly acquire it by the most ethical means; a lot of that infrastructure that we built up over centuries?  Yeah, slave labor was very helpful in doing so - as just a couple of examples).

We sell ourselves on the myth that we invented and perfected self-government.  We did neither.  Again, we had the luck of 1) winning a revolution we had no business winning, and 2) that resulted in a "clean slate" to create a system of government that we nonetheless based on numerous other existing ideas and systems.

Is America "great?"  At times, it has been.....but "great" is far from perfect.  In what a lot of people think of as the "great America" period....I wouldn't have been allowed in many hotels and restaurants right here in the state my family has been in for nearly 200 years.  Some of my friends wouldn't have been allowed in any such establishment throughout the American south.  They might have been lynched/murdered if they tried to register black voters.  So, forgive a metric shitton of us if we don't look back on 1950 with great nostalgia.

I love America.  America CAN be good.  America CAN do great things.  When we work together.  When we fight for the values we claim to believe in -- that is, when we don't just talk but commit to action.  Alas, in the past few decades, we have run as fast as we can from that model, from actually working to MAKE America great.  Instead, we gobble up bowls of nutritionally bankrupt revisionist history, happily lurching backwards towards an era that either never was, or never was what we imagined it to be.

Edited by Brisketexan
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Posted

Bringing the idea of american exceptionalism back to earth is a huge step in progressing. The very idea goes against progression. “We are perfect and the chosen people and nothing needs to change” is destructive to the progression of a democratic society. 

Posted (edited)
  On 10/18/2020 at 7:32 PM, Biff Tannen said:

Bringing the idea of american exceptionalism back to earth is a huge step in progressing. The very idea goes against progression. “We are perfect and the chosen people and nothing needs to change” is destructive to the progression of a democratic society. 

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Yeah.  Conservatism needs to revise its dedication to the status quo and more recently, to actual regression.  Applying the brakes to progression is one thing, coming to a full stop and throwing it in reverse are two other things entirely.

Also, I might note that one recent tendency in debunking American exceptionalism to to counter it with "America is exceptionally bad," and that's not true, either.

Edited by TwiceHorn
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Posted
  On 10/18/2020 at 7:32 PM, Biff Tannen said:

Bringing the idea of american exceptionalism back to earth is a huge step in progressing. The very idea goes against progression. “We are perfect and the chosen people and nothing needs to change” is destructive to the progression of a democratic society. 

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We elected our awful, loathsome id as president:  Moderator Frank Luntz asked Trump whether he has ever asked God for forgiveness for his actions.  "I am not sure I have."  Or another Trump statement: "One mistake and it's no good, but we just can't make mistakes right? So we don't make mistakes."

When you believe that you are the image of perfection -- effectively, supplanting God and the very idea of God -- then even the mere suggestion of an error is heresy.  The mere suggestion that America is not, in every single respect, "the greatest country in the world," is blasphemous.  It leaves no room for discussion, compromise, and most of all -- improvement.  Why move forward when you've already ARRIVED at nirvana?

Fuck that shit.

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Posted
  On 10/18/2020 at 7:36 PM, TwiceHorn said:

Also, I might note that one recent tendency in debunking American exceptionalism to to counter it with "America is exceptionally bad," and that's not true, either.

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To the extent that we are (or can be characterized as) "exceptionally bad," I attribute that to the same luck/circumstance, and some recency bias (after all, we're a young nation).  It's not like the Brits weren't busy shitting on indigenous people all over the globe for centuries, too, for example.  And hell, most any evil/crime you can attribute to America (native american genocide and slavery are easy ones), you can and should attribute that to the places that America and Americans were made of -- English, Dutch, German.....that's where our values were born, and made the trip over here.  And, I mean, let's be fair....Germany can point and laugh at us today (and they can, they really can), but dude.....their crimes are still alive in living memory.

We're not exceptionally bad, in general.  We are and have been bad in ways that most people/nations have been bad, at one point or another in history.  And a lot of the ways in which we have been bad -- colonialism, racism, indigenous oppression and extermination, well, enlightened Europe.....

Gy1.gif

 

Posted
  On 10/18/2020 at 7:45 PM, Brisketexan said:

To the extent that we are (or can be characterized as) "exceptionally bad," I attribute that to the same luck/circumstance, and some recency bias (after all, we're a young nation).  It's not like the Brits weren't busy shitting on indigenous people all over the globe for centuries, too, for example.  And hell, most any evil/crime you can attribute to America (native american genocide and slavery are easy ones), you can and should attribute that to the places that America and Americans were made of -- English, Dutch, German.....that's where our values were born, and made the trip over here.  And, I mean, let's be fair....Germany can point and laugh at us today (and they can, they really can), but dude.....their crimes are still alive in living memory.

We're not exceptionally bad, in general.  We are and have been bad in ways that most people/nations have been bad, at one point or another in history.  And a lot of the ways in which we have been bad -- colonialism, racism, indigenous oppression and extermination, well, enlightened Europe.....

Gy1.gif

 

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We are all just monkeys trying to figure out our world. Humans as a whole are deeply flawed and occasionally we have some really remarkable individuals and achievements, but as a whole, just dumb monkeys. 

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Posted
  On 10/18/2020 at 8:11 PM, Biff Tannen said:

We are all just monkeys trying to figure out our world. Humans as a whole are deeply flawed and occasionally we have some really remarkable individuals and achievements, but as a whole, just dumb monkeys. 

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And we have chosen to go the "poo flinging monkey" route instead of Dr. Zira.  And we are, as expected, covered head to toe in shit.

Posted
  On 10/18/2020 at 7:36 PM, TwiceHorn said:

Yeah.  Conservatism needs to revise its dedication to the status quo and more recently, to actual regression.  Applying the brakes to progression is one thing, coming to a full stop and throwing it in reverse are two other things entirely.

Also, I might note that one recent tendency in debunking American exceptionalism to to counter it with "America is exceptionally bad," and that's not true, either.

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America is exceptionally bad in a disturbingly large number of areas when compared to its peers.

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Posted (edited)

The book is rather harsh on the founding fathers in that they essentially set up an aristocracy and created an illusion of democracy (or flawed by design to advantage the wealthy), another one of Plato’s “Noble lies.”

Edited by Hugo Stiglitz
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Posted
  On 10/18/2020 at 7:32 PM, Biff Tannen said:

Bringing the idea of american exceptionalism back to earth is a huge step in progressing. The very idea goes against progression. “We are perfect and the chosen people and nothing needs to change” is destructive to the progression of a democratic society. 

Expand  

The problem with American Exceptionalism is it is a religion and part of the Christian mythology in this country.  How dare you question god’s plan? You see where this is going... 

Posted
  On 10/18/2020 at 11:23 PM, Hugo Stiglitz said:

The problem with American Exceptionalism is it is a religion and part of the Christian mythology in this country.  How dare you question god’s plan? You see where this is going... 

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Well I see where it’s gone from a Christian perspective: idolatry.

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Posted

I'll definitely read this. Jared Yates Srxton wrote a book called The People Are Going to Rise Like the Waters onn Your Shore, documenting his experience covering the Trump campaign. Excellent book. He's a gifted political journalist.

Posted
  On 10/18/2020 at 8:47 PM, David Dennison said:
America is exceptionally bad in a disturbingly large number of areas when compared to its peers.

To the point that it's unreasonable to call us peers of some of these places.

 

Posted
  On 10/18/2020 at 7:45 PM, Brisketexan said:

To the extent that we are (or can be characterized as) "exceptionally bad," I attribute that to the same luck/circumstance, and some recency bias (after all, we're a young nation).  It's not like the Brits weren't busy shitting on indigenous people all over the globe for centuries, too, for example.  And hell, most any evil/crime you can attribute to America (native american genocide and slavery are easy ones), you can and should attribute that to the places that America and Americans were made of -- English, Dutch, German.....that's where our values were born, and made the trip over here.  And, I mean, let's be fair....Germany can point and laugh at us today (and they can, they really can), but dude.....their crimes are still alive in living memory.

We're not exceptionally bad, in general.  We are and have been bad in ways that most people/nations have been bad, at one point or another in history.  And a lot of the ways in which we have been bad -- colonialism, racism, indigenous oppression and extermination, well, enlightened Europe.....

Gy1.gif

 

Expand  

It is probably unfair to compare American to its western European "peers."  Unfair to the peers, I mean.

Just about every civilization that has ever existed that began to expand its borders engaged in genocide and slavery.  And those that didn't expand their borders did it internally.

We're just human nature writ large.

Posted
  On 10/18/2020 at 11:48 PM, TwiceHorn said:

It is probably unfair to compare American to its western European "peers."  Unfair to the peers, I mean.

Just about every civilization that has ever existed that began to expand its borders engaged in genocide and slavery.  And those that didn't expand their borders did it internally.

We're just human nature writ large.

Expand  

And “every civilization” includes Native Americans too. They were killing and enslaving each other long before they ever encountered a European. But the myth of the noble savage is hard to shake.

Posted
  On 10/18/2020 at 11:59 PM, formermav43 said:
And “every civilization” includes Native Americans too. They were killing and enslaving each other long before they ever encountered a European. But the myth of the noble savage is hard to shake.

And yep, that’s the point. We aren’t special. The euros aren’t special. The native Americans aren’t special.

We are all greedy, tribal, murderous fucks.

Our species name should be Homo Homocidus.
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Posted


He does these lectures which are arguably better than the book b/c reading is hard but in this one he’s drawing on the connections between the confederacy to the modern Trump movement.  Worth a listen IMO. 

Posted (edited)

He is an interesting writer. This goes beyond partisanship. Both parties were co-opted by the policies of the Powell Memo. https://reclaimdemocracy.org/powell_memo_lewis/

Here is a recent opinion piece by the author, with reality based edits of his ideas. He is on the edge of understanding and communicating the problem, but he needs to remove the plank from his eye to see the whole picture. Thanks for the book suggestion. 

  Reveal hidden contents

The Powell memorandum is the playbook for the current political reality. President Obama admits the Washington Consensus (another term one should know) is the cause. 

 

Edited by washparkhorn


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