After a lifetime of hearing that my family is made up of second class citizens who don't deserve rights, it's so refreshing to read this. Thank you Evan, your mother should be so insanely proud of you!
Kayfabe, the basic tenet of TFG's entires campaign and public persona, has taken over the entire movement. He has weaponized the shared delusional suspension of disbelief of pro wrestling.
The Hero/Martyr complex is classic kayfabe: The brave hero enters the ring and the perfidious heel trips them up and knocks them down again and again, then cheats by bringing in other heels to fight.
It also goes to one of the foundations of fascism: the hated other is simultaneously an existential threat to society and also weak and decadent.
When my better angels are active and I can see through my blistering anger at and contempt for people like Alito, I can feel sorry for them. What a narrow, small world they live in. Everything is zero sum: "if someone else has that thing (a right, a voice, respect, love, etc) I do not have that thing." It explains so much about their warped version of love (and makes me wonder how they can ever have more than one child): for most of us, love is expansive. When we fall in love with someone, find our life partners, have children, have pets, make friends....our hearts and worlds and capacity for love grows and expands. We become less important, less central, and those we love become MORE important. (George Saunders Class Day Speech at Syracuse is an amazing exploration of this: https://jamesclear.com/great-speeches/failures-of-kindness-by-george-saunders). For people like Alito, their "love" box remains narrow, small, locked and everyone else has to fit in it or else they are massively threatened, scared, furious. Which in my mind means it's not a love box, that they have no access to the concept. Their version of love is simply ego.
Always the heroes or the victims. That is exactly it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some planks to tend to and some sitting with uncomfortableness to do.
Oh, it's very important! And I try to be mindful when i'm quoting the work of somebody like that to make sure I am not personally being like "Look at me, a white man, elevating others' voices!"
But going back to exactly what she said and saying, yep, this fits into my thesis BUT HOWEVER LET'S NOTE that she said "white Christianity" in general.
I probably spend too much time trying to figure out what's going on with these Yahoos (or perhaps Brobdingnagians), and why they can't manage to remove the beams from their eyes, and so on. I spent some time this morning pondering D-Day and that whole war against authoritarianism and anti-democratic rule, and how an increasingly large number of folks don't really understand why we fought with the Allies in Europe, or why that moment yesterday between Zelensky and U.S. Veteran Melvin Hurwitz was so moving, and why for so many of us these struggles share deep ties.
Your article, Evan, tackles things from a different angle, but I believe they are tied together. Sure, we get all up in our "we're the heroes!" mood when looking back on WWII, but putting that aside, a massive number of Americans, Canadians and European soldiers went to war to keep fascists from gaining more control, to remove them from power, to keep people at least somewhat in charge of their own destinies, their own governments.
Using fewer bullets (but not none, says the woman who worked in the abortion care world for some years), the current crop of autocrats and autocrat-adjacent-sycophants are trying to push out democratic representation and a multicultural society because... because... because?
And here's where the princess/hero/victim thing is so helpful: this is a framework for filling in some of the blanks in my understanding. These folks want a world in which they are always right, always secure, never challenged. I can't identify with wanting that, but I can strive to understand it. So, again, thank you Evan.
I’d strongly recommend Dan Carter’s book The Politics of Rage: George Wallace, the Origins of New Conservatism, and the Transformation of American Politics. Everything we see with MAGA is the same as Wallace voters in 1968.
Samuel is truly a victim of Chrono Insympatico. He'd be much more venerated if he could dispense his judicial wisdom alongside such legal luminaries as Judge Jeffreys and Matthew Hopkins.
I'll make it a point to recommend "Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do" by Michael Sandel to Sam and Martha-Ann the next time they exhibit ironic detachment..... so, probably, in about fifteen minutes.
I’ve always thought it would be cute to fax the right wing justices the Thomas Jefferson quote from the southeast portico everyday for a year/s.
But it’s not like they actually care.
"I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as a civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."
It is confirmed that despite his own genetic superiority Trump's MAGA Bewegung is comprised entirely of the newly identified "Homo Not-So-Sapiens" species, already classified as an evolutionary cul-de-sac.
After a lifetime of hearing that my family is made up of second class citizens who don't deserve rights, it's so refreshing to read this. Thank you Evan, your mother should be so insanely proud of you!
I hope so! Dang.
I have no doubt that Alito is truly a victim of his wife, Martha Ann. I’m sure he deserved it.
Has anyone checked to see if John Roberts is even alive?
Kayfabe, the basic tenet of TFG's entires campaign and public persona, has taken over the entire movement. He has weaponized the shared delusional suspension of disbelief of pro wrestling.
The Hero/Martyr complex is classic kayfabe: The brave hero enters the ring and the perfidious heel trips them up and knocks them down again and again, then cheats by bringing in other heels to fight.
It also goes to one of the foundations of fascism: the hated other is simultaneously an existential threat to society and also weak and decadent.
When my better angels are active and I can see through my blistering anger at and contempt for people like Alito, I can feel sorry for them. What a narrow, small world they live in. Everything is zero sum: "if someone else has that thing (a right, a voice, respect, love, etc) I do not have that thing." It explains so much about their warped version of love (and makes me wonder how they can ever have more than one child): for most of us, love is expansive. When we fall in love with someone, find our life partners, have children, have pets, make friends....our hearts and worlds and capacity for love grows and expands. We become less important, less central, and those we love become MORE important. (George Saunders Class Day Speech at Syracuse is an amazing exploration of this: https://jamesclear.com/great-speeches/failures-of-kindness-by-george-saunders). For people like Alito, their "love" box remains narrow, small, locked and everyone else has to fit in it or else they are massively threatened, scared, furious. Which in my mind means it's not a love box, that they have no access to the concept. Their version of love is simply ego.
My compassion for them ends at the point where they start hurting innocents.
If you covered him with garbage George Sanders would still have style (I know it's not the same George but still...)
Always the heroes or the victims. That is exactly it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some planks to tend to and some sitting with uncomfortableness to do.
Excellent article, Evan. Thank you!
When I read that line, I thought "I wonder how many of us had to pause here?"
Oh, it's very important! And I try to be mindful when i'm quoting the work of somebody like that to make sure I am not personally being like "Look at me, a white man, elevating others' voices!"
But going back to exactly what she said and saying, yep, this fits into my thesis BUT HOWEVER LET'S NOTE that she said "white Christianity" in general.
Ain't none of us perfect here.
Excellent article. Thank you!
Thanks, Evan.
I probably spend too much time trying to figure out what's going on with these Yahoos (or perhaps Brobdingnagians), and why they can't manage to remove the beams from their eyes, and so on. I spent some time this morning pondering D-Day and that whole war against authoritarianism and anti-democratic rule, and how an increasingly large number of folks don't really understand why we fought with the Allies in Europe, or why that moment yesterday between Zelensky and U.S. Veteran Melvin Hurwitz was so moving, and why for so many of us these struggles share deep ties.
Your article, Evan, tackles things from a different angle, but I believe they are tied together. Sure, we get all up in our "we're the heroes!" mood when looking back on WWII, but putting that aside, a massive number of Americans, Canadians and European soldiers went to war to keep fascists from gaining more control, to remove them from power, to keep people at least somewhat in charge of their own destinies, their own governments.
Using fewer bullets (but not none, says the woman who worked in the abortion care world for some years), the current crop of autocrats and autocrat-adjacent-sycophants are trying to push out democratic representation and a multicultural society because... because... because?
And here's where the princess/hero/victim thing is so helpful: this is a framework for filling in some of the blanks in my understanding. These folks want a world in which they are always right, always secure, never challenged. I can't identify with wanting that, but I can strive to understand it. So, again, thank you Evan.
I’d strongly recommend Dan Carter’s book The Politics of Rage: George Wallace, the Origins of New Conservatism, and the Transformation of American Politics. Everything we see with MAGA is the same as Wallace voters in 1968.
Outstanding. Very well done.
Samuel is truly a victim of Chrono Insympatico. He'd be much more venerated if he could dispense his judicial wisdom alongside such legal luminaries as Judge Jeffreys and Matthew Hopkins.
He does give off a certain “why can’t I just burn these witches?” vibe.
Boy howdy!
I’m glad you too relish this exclamation, Evan.
It's a necessary phrase.
All the real Disney princesses are horrified by this metaphor.
Though what you say is so true.
And thanks for the luxury button idea, I will try it.
Thank you!
Ok, that picture is going to haunt me for the rest of my life! 😂
Very nice work here, Evan!!
I'll make it a point to recommend "Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do" by Michael Sandel to Sam and Martha-Ann the next time they exhibit ironic detachment..... so, probably, in about fifteen minutes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justice:_What%27s_the_Right_Thing_to_Do%3F
I’ve always thought it would be cute to fax the right wing justices the Thomas Jefferson quote from the southeast portico everyday for a year/s.
But it’s not like they actually care.
"I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as a civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."
Sam Alito is team “barbarous ancestors.”
I love that quote too. Thank you.
It is confirmed that despite his own genetic superiority Trump's MAGA Bewegung is comprised entirely of the newly identified "Homo Not-So-Sapiens" species, already classified as an evolutionary cul-de-sac.