TDS and Other Derangements

[TOC: all blog posts]

Garrison Keillor is one of many accused of Trump Derangement Syndrome. He does not deny it. He even leans into it a bit and suggests a remedy. (He also flips the script and refers to Mr Deranger in a later post.)

I too have been trying to deal with my TDS. It is easy to get bent out of shape by the ravings of an old man in a position of inflicting cruelty on millions, and I have been bent too often. Has anyone changed a madman by telling him to stop acting crazy?

Better by far to tell others around him not to encourage the nonsense. But they seem caught up in it, taking pleasure in the permission they have been granted to despise and abuse those they swore to serve. Still, they are a bigger audience than one and they can be held accountable for their own faults as well as for cheering those of their archetype.

Repetition can be used for good as well as for ill. We can stop trying to address each episode of madness and just repeat the essentials, without letting ourselves sound too deranged.

Alexei Navalny characterized the United Russia party as the "Party of Crooks and Thieves." The phrase was repeated so often that "if you started typing the words 'United Russia' into a search engine the first suggestion would be 'party of crooks and thieves' " (Patriot, p. 215-216). Part of the phrase's popularity was its succinct accuracy.

Putin was (and is) the heart and soul of the United Russia party, but effective criticism was of the party itself. We would do well to follow this approach. Without the backing of the Republican party, its reckless leader would falter. And defending an entire party of crooks and thieves is more difficult than defending its figurehead. Let's put the whole party on the defensive for defending deranged mayhem.

What words sum up the Republican party? It's tempting to use the strongest of terms, such as fascist. But this word and others like it have been overused to the point of losing meaning. Can we pinpoint the essential characteristics of (current) Republicans? I recommend liars, cowards, and cheats. You may have better options; list them in the comments.

I wonder if I could get into some good trouble for sponsoring a billboard along the freeway:

Republicans

The party of

• Liars
• Cowards
• Cheats

The opposition could pretty much classify any action of Republicans backing the current administration with one of these three words. And addressing the party shifts the blame to where it belongs. No tyrant ever achieved dominance without help.

There is some validity to accusations of TDS. The irony is that we are deranged by the words and actions of a deranged man. Derangement begets derangement.

The setting of Ian McEwan's novel, What We Can Know, is 100 years from now. Our era is referred to as the Derangement. Historians of 2125 marvel at how this Derangement occurred. Many of us marvel already. We hope we come to our senses on time to salvage decency.

Dissidents

[TOC: all blog posts]

Two Russian dissidents, armed only with words and the force of public opinion, faced authoritarian regimes. Both were imprisoned for speaking out. One was exiled, the other killed.

I recently read their memoirs:

• Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: The Oak and the Calf
• Alexei Navalny: Patriot: A Memoir

Navalny makes the point that the Soviet regime, which persecuted Solzhenitsyn, was worse than Putin's oligarchy. Yet Navalny was the one to die in prison.

One could argue that it was his own fault. After an unsuccessful assassination attempt through poisoning, he returned to his homeland. He didn't have to. But he was in no way at fault. His death was the fault of the regime that poisoned him, imprisoned him, killed him.

I reread The Oak and the Calf because I remembered a reference to "conservatives" in the government who did not want to allow publication of Solzhenitsyn's books. This struck me at the time as strange, because I thought of Communists as left-wing, which is another word for liberal, which has commonly been thought of as the opposite to conservative. In his memoir, I think, Solzhenitsyn uses the "conservative" label for stick-in-the-mud fuddy-duddies who wouldn't change their ways rather than as an indication of their political ideology. But Navalny too accuses Russian Communists (after the Soviet Union) of being "more conservative than even the American right" (p. 186).

Solzhenitsyn's title is from a Russian proverb about a young calf head-butting an oak tree, presumably with some delusions of winning the battle.

In America, we like to think President Reagan brought on the fall of the Soviet empire. I'm pretty sure Solzhenitsyn was even more responsible: the oak fell. And he was rewarded with the opportunity to return home. His assessment, too, was that Putin's regime was better than the Soviet era. I suspect that even now, after the imprisonment and murder of a man whose efforts were so like his own, Solzhenitsyn would still prefer Putin to the USSR. But I expect he would be outraged and would speak up. Or would he be more "conservative"?

Navalny's memoir is more relevant than that of his predecessor. The iron fist now wears a glove, but it is still ruthless and it has more propaganda tools than ever. "In the twenty-first century you are confronted not just by the machinery of a repressive state but by the PR machinery of that state." (p 138) "Propagandists," he says, "create a public opinion that no longer simply enables Putin to commit war crimes but demands them." (p. 430)

The courage of one man to speak up against a corrupt government and against its stupid, unjust war against Ukraine is an inspiration. We should all aspire to his persistence, determination, fearlessness, patience, faith, and humor.

Buy Navalny's book. Support his widow and his children made fatherless by Putin. A simple purchase can be another piece of the puzzle of describing and protesting autocracy.

Our country is not as far gone as Putin's vast fiefdom, but not for lack of trying by the current administration. There are too many similarities. Shutting down and shutting up the opposition is reaching new heights in the land of the free. Let's learn from dissidents and at least remain the home of the brave.