Grievances about imaginary enemies
Thanksgiving is over (even if leftovers may not be). It’s time to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and get to resisting what’s coming. Spocko has gotten after that message with both ears.
False narratives that sold half the country on Trumpism were not born yesterday. It took time, billions of oligarch money, and repetition, repetition, repetition. Propaganda succeeded, among other things, in convincing people that illegal immigration (a misdemeanor, first offense) was a “crisis” best dealt with by a career criminal with 34 felony convictions, dozens of other grand jury indictments (including for inciting an insurrection and theft of state secrets), and a civil penalty for sexual assault. Courts liquidated Donald Trump’s charitable foundation as a fraud, dismantled his “university” as a fraud as well, and banned him from doing business in the state of New York.
How the hell could Americans hire that guy as chief executive of the United States of America? A second time?
The answer, says Andrea Pitzer of the new Next Comes What podcast, is simple: propaganda works. Pitzer, author of “One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps,” studied the rise of concentration camps as a means of controlling large groups of “undesirables” with a small number of guards. The invention of barbed wire and automatic weapons helped the practice along. Take note. Trump 2.0 plans to erect them on the southern border.
I just finished Episode 3. Looping back to Episode 1: How We Survive This Mess. Good holiday weekend listening. Gear up.
(h/t JS)