And welcome to our annual victory celebration of the Great War on Christmas
Yes, it’s that time of year again and the holidays have never been more welcome. If we ever needed a break it’s now.
And here at Hullabaloo it’s the time of year I ask you, my loyal readers, to put a little something into the old stocking to keep us going for yet another year.
This is a tough one, I know. Anyone can be forgiven for tuning out politics and spending their time doing something that doesn’t make them want to put their foot through the TV. Many people have cancelled their subscriptions to this site telling me that they just can’t stand to read about politics anymore and I totally understand it. For the first week after the election I pretty much only watched Netflix and Animal Planet. This is a grim time and we have to do whatever we can to keep our sanity.
But it you are reading this it means that you are still engaging, at least with us, and I want you to know how grateful I am that you are. For me, it’s not possible to stop paying attention for long. It’s just who I am. I can’t look away.
Back in 2002 when I first started this blog, it was also a very grim time. It was just a little bit more than a year after 9/11 and we were about to launch a ridiculous war against a country that hadn’t attacked us. It felt as if the world was on fire. I said at the time that it didn’t look as if there was much we could do to stop it but we had a responsibility to document the atrocities and speak the truth. That was the mission then and it remains so today, even if political culture is as surreal and bizarre as it is today.
Those were heady days for bloggers. It was a new thing and people were intrigued by the idea of citizen journalism on the internet. But it was also a scary time. We all took pseudonyms for a reason — we didn’t trust that this new thing wouldn’t get us into trouble, whether it was with our bosses or the government. Remember, there was a whole lot of spying on Americans going on back then and the White House itself was telling people to “watch what they say.” (The guy who said that was Ari Fleischer, the presidential press secretary.)
I’m not worried as I was back then. I doubt anyone in the government cares about what I write. Trump has bigger fish to fry. But I do have a strong feeling of deja vu about our current circumstances. The capitulation from the media and many of the Democrats to the new Trump regime is less febrile and more resigned but it’s happening nonetheless. Today’s propaganda and disinformation environment is much more sophisticated but it’s also more fragmented and the rise of the tech-bro oligarchy is a much more obvious threat than it was back then. But still, it amazes me that just 22 years later we’re basically facing a similar folding of any institutional resistance in the face of a right wing assault on American values.
I know that’s depressing and I really don’t mean to be. The Trump assault is different and far less competent. We already know that. So this particular Idiocracy version of the right wing assault may not last longer than the first two years. But even if they can’t accomplish the worst of their agenda, it’s going to be a very difficult time.
I appreciate your sticking with us all this time and especially now. I think that once we’ve licked our wounds and recovered from the staggering disappointment of the last election requiring us to deal with that Orange Monster and his cult for another four years, we’ll all be ready to re-engage with the same commitment we’ve had in the past. What choice do we have?
I’m not going anywhere. Deja vu or not, I feel as I did 22 years ago when I started this thing. The perspective of people who are observing all this from outside the DC bubble matters. If you value the work that I do every day, that Tom Sullivan does every day or even if you just want to pop in on Friday to read the Soother or Saturday to see what Dennis Hartley has been watching and listening to, I hope you’ll throw a little something in the old stocking to keep this going through this tumultuous time. We’re all in this together whether we like it or not!
cheers,
digby
And Happy Hollandaise everyone. We’ll get through this!
*Keep scrolling for new stuff. 🙂