More resistance strategy.Understanding the Conservative’s Rock Solid Selfishness What’s at stake in our political stalemate is a conflict of values. We like to think that values are things we share. But, in fact, it’s on matters of value that we most likely differ, even to irreconcilability. It’s important then to try to think in terms…
Responding to a Post-Literate WorldTrumpspeak is Easy, What About Talking to Trump Supporters Why do we in the factual world find the alt-factual so impervious to argument or to, you know, facts? We need a language to reach them because they are expert at creating their own memes. I don’t mean Trumpspeak. There are apps…
My Morning with BreitbartNPR is for Facts, What You Need Are Some Alt-Facts Because I study religion for a living, I’m used to alt-universes, alt-facts, and other scams that direct hearts and minds to whatever people prefer to believe. You develop a tolerance for a special kind of impenetrability that can lead you to take…
Candide’s Advice and Gift of the Red Worm orHow to Swallow the News in the Age of Trump I’m well known for my immoderate indulgence in words and irritating syntax. When I don’t know what will quite else suffice to soothe my inner beast, I dulcify myself with literary desserts. Then I inflict the whole…
Trump’s first speech to a joint session of Congress last night was banefully familiar. I remember so vividly being appalled by the facile nostalgia of the Gipper. Reagan made up facts and used every dog-whistle he could. But above all it was that bit about “morning in America.” Last night Trump gave up a bit…
A VERY Brief History of Making America Great Again and a Bit of a Warning.This one is written with the gloves off.Ruminations on The Plantation Owner, Reagan, and White Supremacism First, have a look at the photograph I took at the local gas station donut shop parking lot. There are Confederate battle flags everywhere out…
In the Aftermath of Trump’s Press ConferenceFebruary 16, 2017 Not in the ol’Ripleys kinda’ way or even with a purely incredulous exasperation of WTF, there is something about watching Trump that speaks obviously to important features of the American character. Americans are crass, immature, centrifugal individuals: we designed ourselves to be our own arbiters of…
James Baldwin with prescient discernment once wrote, ““The subtle and deadly change of heart that might occur in you would be involved with the realization that a civilization is not destroyed by wicked people; it is not necessary that people be wicked but only that they be spineless.” We were handed a spine-ful Constitutional victory…
This morning Gail Collins of the NY Times writes a fine piece about wearing out the Republican madness by persistence and exhaustion. Can we exasperate them enough to bring attention to the country? Will Americans gather the message that their country has been taken over by an extremist ideology that is changing its institutions? Ms…
We need a nuanced understanding of censorship. For censorship to be truly effective in our digital age we must begin with the idea that no American can (yet) be completely silenced. But censorship does not require denial of access in order to be effective. It requires instead a deflection of attentions, a dulling of focus,…