Thread by @mhbx

@moondancer_co I think you are properly terrified. I think we are at, or more likely, approaching a tipping point where such pleasantries as polls become a tool rather than a spotlight. But, I don't think we are there. There is this election that will be, perhaps, the last possible brake on

@moondancer_co the decent. I have posted a number of twits recently that I think are relevant to your reaction. Here are a couple of them.

This one is the big picture and most useful. If you have not get his book. Its small, but spot on.

https://twitter.com/mhbx/status/1244684611197624320?s=20

@moondancer_co 3/ I posted this re the question "what do people get..."

I think we are in a realm where we are provoking the very core of human nature. Maslow & the pyramid of needs comes to play. We are being regressed to survival mode, & looking for a leader.

https://twitter.com/mhbx/status/1244808531091447808?s=20

@moondancer_co 4/ There is a books worth of issues, insights to work out just what is happening from that perspective.

I think about the action-reaction function, looking at the big picture, From a time of Obama & Hope, Possibility to this time of Trump & fear, dystopia, contraction, blame

@moondancer_co 5/ Looking at it from a POV/context larger than the simple (& superficial one that has us enthrall now, political parties, & deeper tribal affiliation) there was a different energy, a different context from which these two paradigms existed.
I think having in some way rejected

@moondancer_co 6/ the one (hope and change) we were going to get the alternative, and that turned out to be Trumpism. (I make a distinction between Trump, the man, and Trumpism, the underlying system that he is in essence instantiating.

I consider Trumpism to be the deeper viral condition

@moondancer_co 7/ of the country now. There is a global aspect to it as well. This drift toward the authoritarian, the xenophobia & created hatred of the "other"...along w the astonishingly unwarranted hagiography of "dear leader". Fortunately, our system is not yet so riddled that we have

@moondancer_co 8/ fallen to that level. But Trump does ask for it. Demands it. And it is those who need one that you are properly concerned about...

Finally, in this off the top response to yours <g>, There is this from @HC_Richardson. She addresses your questions
directly.

@moondancer_co 9/ I recommend this article of hers to you. I recommend that you subscribe to her daily journal where she reviews the days events in light of history.
It will give you firm ground from which to grapple with some of these confusing questions.

heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/march-28-202…

@moondancer_co 10/ Anyway that’s my 2 bits out of a 100bit question.

We are in a profoundly tumultuous time. Now Trump has his "war" which he hopes will propel him to victory, being a "war president". He is the most sick of Machiavellian demagogues. But as you fear, none of that matters when

@moondancer_co 11/ people are in subconscious fear for basic survival. They will follow the leader in the most inscrutable ways. Later, as @davidfrum posts "When this is all over, nobody will admit to ever having supported it".

We are in a time that has an identifiable pattern.

@moondancer_co 12/ This pattern is what people like @TimothyDSnyder are writing about. The great question that is embedded in your question is whether we have the grit to actually reject this virus of Trumpism.
It is not clear. We may, as we are being told regarding Covid, have to go through

@moondancer_co 13/ it, get it & develop the immunities we did not have that got us here in the first place.

The parallels are direct & ominous. I think Trumpism is more dangerous. But, as w Covid, if we do the right things, we will get through it. &when we do, everything will be different.
~m