Civic Witness Series - Questions from the Attic
What happened to us?
Civic Witness Series: Questions from the Attic, is founded on a simple premise: the people living through democratic erosion have questions the ‘experts’ aren’t addressing; it is inspired by and in honor of Adia in the Attic. Those questions matter because they provide an opportunity for sharing and documenting what democratic erosion feels like to people living through it. We don’t pretend to have “The Answer” to these questions, but we hope to stimulate the conversation her questions have prompted.
Please enter the conversation. Please ask us additional questions
”The worship of the golden calf of old has found a new and heartless image in the cult of money and the dictatorship of an economy which is faceless and lacking any truly human goal.” Pope Francis
I am an American who currently resides in Italy. Europeans always knew that the United States was flawed, but one that generally wound-up on the right side of history – meaning Western, liberal, and democratic. Now, these heady days appear to be gone. A new self-interested and unfeeling quasi-ideology has arisen led by the narcissistic conman, Donald Trump.
The MAGA Cult
My initial observation is that the United States is in the hands of a cult leader. I avoided calling the Make America Great Again (MAGA) a cult for a long time. My conception of cults had previously been formed by such as Jim Jones, who literally convinced his followers in Jonestown, Guyana in 1978 to “drink the Kool-Aid” laced with cyanide killing over 900 people – a mass-suicide. The idea of a cult consisting of millions of so many die-hard Trump voters struck me as absurd. Tragically, I have been compelled over time to recognize that if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is likely a duck. MAGA is a cult. There appears to be a confluence of several negative influences that made possible the absurdity of “President” Donald J. Trump, not once, but twice, because of that cult.
Rupert Murdoch and Fox News
If there were no Rupert Murdoch and Fox News, Donald Trump’s political ascendency to the White House would not have been possible and the MAGA political movement never would have been born. However, it should be clearly understood that as a Capitalist, Murdoch is simply in the business of making money. Fox News created “niche reporting” that essentially told Republican Party members that they are always right, and the left is always wrong. News programming under the umbrella of Constitutionally guaranteed free speech was weaponized in pursuit of profit. Fox News attacks on everything on the left side of the political spectrum made those who lean to the right feel good about themselves. This sort of reporting is seductive and profitable. This means that Fox News never attempts to provide “fair and balanced” reporting, which is their laughable motto. Proof of my assertion is all too easy to provide. A US court ordered Murdoch to pay three-quarters of a billion dollars for outrageous lies told by his on-air personalities concerning Trump’s clear loss to Biden in the 2020 presidential election – a loss that the current Oval Office occupant contests to this day – otherwise known as “The Big lie.” Fox News supports Trump because it makes the Murdoch Family rich. There is no morality here and no journalistic ethics, just naked greed. Rupert was a successful propagandist for two Trump presidential campaigns and was made richer in the process.
Corruption at the Top
Having lived and worked in seventeen countries, I had the opportunity to learn a key lesson regarding government malfeasance: When a corrupt man is at the head of government, he corrupts all beneath him. Yes, it is usually men. That is precisely what has happened within America’s executive branch. The Attorney General, and Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, along with many other appointed officials within Trump’s cabinet are all now complicit in that corruption. Proof is everywhere apparent. Let’s begin with a little history - Trump is a convicted criminal and rapist. He is suspected of being a major participant in Jeffery Epstein’s trafficking of underage women. He was fined in civil court twenty-five million dollars for fraud over his Trump University. The remaining list is far too long to be placed here. American society is wrong to lionize felons.
Celebrity Does not Suggest Merit
There is little doubt that Americans glorify celebrities. Those celebrities can be famous for being famous, as is the case with the Kardashian Family. Or, by achieving fame firing people in front of a national audience on reality TV, as did Mr. Trump. Tragically, the rich in America are sometimes gifted into the pantheon of star status, inherited and unearned or self-made. They constitute what I call the New Nobility. Their influence is enormous because they provide the lion’s share of election funding for US politicians. Tragically, wealth is wrongly associated with merit among the MAGA cultists, when one has no relationship to the other. Billionaires and Millionaires rule America now. Many believe that Elon Musk essentially bought the Oval Office for Trump for approximate sum of a quarter of a billion dollars. All of this is legally permissible because Trump succeeded stacking the Supreme Court with die-hard right-wingers. Celebrity worship lacks a moral center. American society is wrong to lionize those who are merely wealthy.
Ignorance is Commonplace
Per the writer and author Isaac Azimov, “There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.” Azimov discovered a grain of truth here. I know this one well. As a long-time commentary writer and vocal critic of both of Trump’s administrations, I have received considerable hate mail from the MAGA faithful. Interestingly, those who would condemn me are often ungrammatically profane, and near-universally make personal attacks on me as opposed to my positions. Such actions are not beneficial to a democracy. In other words, MAGA egos at some point became attached to their political positions and regrettably one man. Psychologists call this condition “identity fusion.” In this case, Donald Trump. Another term that might be accurate is “tribalism.” Tribalism is exclusive and not inclusive, making it non-democratic. Tribes are subject to emotional manipulation. I saw this up close and personal when serving in the developing world with the United Nations, where tribal membership was often considered to be more important than individual critical thinking. The group provided tribal members with an identity and a guard-rail for their emotions and person. The good news is that ignorance is a correctable circumstance if one can find the courage to admit the possibility of fault. Regrettably, blinding self-righteousness - often - seems the MAGA norm. Attacks on academic institutions and their professors by cultists are all too common. Cultists’ rejection of knowledge and expertise is legion.
Labels and Demonization are Cult Weapons
All cults need to demonize individuals or groups. Although I spent a significant proportion of my life as a conservative-centrist Republican, upon the ascendency of the first Trump Administration, I became a political independent. I noted that MAGA followers demonstrated a propensity for labeling anyone not in agreement with them as Commies, Marxists, Socialists, and much worse (profanities unnecessary here). The labels provided an immediate means of invalidating anything said by anyone thusly identified. Think of the labels given American battlefield enemies: Rebs (Confederates), Huns (Germans), along with equally dehumanizing names for Japanese and Arabs. Once dehumanized in this fashion MAGA cultists can more easily ignore the fact that homo sapiens are genetically 99.5 % the same, and permitting them to, quite literally, morph political adversaries into the equivalent of war-time enemies. “The Others,” then, for reasons of race, religion, political leanings, color, or creed, once stripped of their humanity, can even be reviled as “evil.” The predictable result is hatred.
Violence is the Result
Resentment and feelings of grievance found throughout the MAGA landscape tend to create a self-righteous breeding ground for violence. Self-righteous individuals seldom admit being wrong. That means that they are nearly always - in their own minds - right. Where does that leave everybody else? They are no longer adversaries, but enemies. The January 6 Insurrection is an excellent example of this phenomenon. Violence is also found in the extra-judicial killings of persons accused without evidence of transporting drugs into America; the multiple and egregious instances of ICE agents dragging people off the streets of the nation because of their skin color; the Oval Office’s unconditional support of the Netanyahu government while Israel killed many tens-of-thousands in Gaza, far too many were women and children. White House inspired violence is often catnip to Trump’s minions. But the current unnecessary war with Iran may mark a turning point for some MAGA loyalists.
An Unfortunate Conclusion
MAGA is a cult. Trump is a cult leader. Like all cult leaders he is a narcissistic grifter, who lies to his flock of “marks.” He does not pretend to represent all Americans. He plays only to his base a seductive tale of resentment, grievance, and victimhood to those who have demonstrated a penchant for embracing his many and egregious untruths, and while demonizing his adversaries with outrageous labels. Those labels led inevitably to the violence of the 6 January Insurrection. A variation on a quote originally credited to Jonathan Swift, the author of Gulliver’s Travels, suggests that: A person who did not arrive at a political position by reason, will not be swayed by reason—and so it goes.
Regrettably, I sense more violence in future with the coming midterm elections.
