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.

Dirty

Russia is warning of a dirty bomb. It's the Ukrainians, Putin claims, who are planning this dastardly deed.

Putin's playbook includes accusing someone else of what you plan to do. Then when you do it, you have already set the stage to blame them.

Sound familiar? We don't know what our former president and Putin talked about, but they may have shared strategies. Remember the fake hullabaloo about a rigged election? Turns out the rigging was being done by the one whinging about how it was going to happen. As it turned out, the election was enough of a rout that they couldn't pull off their nonsense, so they interrupted certification of the election with a riot. 

And the lies continue…  Some who claim to worship truth are OK with that.

This time it could lead to nuclear disaster. Oh well, at least Putin won't have to admit he made a mistake or lost a war. Better to kill hundreds of thousands of people than that!

The Soul of a Nation

[TOC: all blog posts]

Volodymyr Zelensky has purportedly been offered an escape from his beleaguered capitol. He turned it down. He has what Putin will never have: courage.

Putin is a powerful man. He has made sure of that by changing the rules in his country and by silencing those who protest. But power is not courage.

When a small country next door to Russia got rid of Yanukovych, the corrupt president who bowed to Putin and attempted to replicate his power grabs, Putin worried that Russians might notice. They might turn toward justice and demand true representation counter to his personal plans. They might heed Russia's own great literary giants* and protest against the system. So Putin decided to put an end to the offending country's elected government and install another of his toadies.

Putin is not alone. President Xi of China has made similar moves to consolidate power. This powerful man is so scared of simple stories that he has systematically forced Hollywood to say nothing about his and his country's offenses against its smaller neighbors. He has the power to do so, and he knows how to manipulate those who worship a major god of our country, money—another form of power. There is no courage involved in that manipulation, only greed.

Zelensky knows his days are likely numbered. One of the world's most powerful military forces is out to get him, and most of the world (perhaps wisely) has decided not to offer direct military aid. He could follow the route of many in power who convince themselves that they can do more for their country alive than dead. He could run, but he has chosen a different path. 

If Russia is successful in subjugating its non-compliant neighbor, as it most likely will be, the soul of the country will not die. It will live on in the hearts of a people who elected a comedian as president and then watched him choose country over self and laugh at a murderous power. They will follow his lead.

From far away most of us root for the underdog and are inspired by acts of courage. Notably, a few of us admire the cowards who choose personal power over country. People who sit in gilded towers rooting for liars and thieves. People who long for power and will sacrifice truth and country to get it, one of whom sought not long ago to corrupt Zelensky by withholding aid that could help Ukraine defend itself against its monstrous neighbor. People who may very well change their tunes because they haven't the courage of conviction.

Perhaps Zelensky will eventually choose exile, but I don't think so. I think he understands that his country cannot be saved without sacrifice. He will stay. He will sacrifice himself for his country, just as he has asked his soldiers to do. He could be like Putin and Xi and other heads of state. He could sit in a place of safety and order others to take chances for a country he thinks belongs to him. But he sees what the powerful cannot see: he belongs to his country, and he will act like it. He will let his sacrifice exemplify the soul of a nation, no matter the outcome for himself.

-----------------------

* In all history there is no war which was not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful. 

-Leo Tolstoy