What should I do?
I want to leave.
I want to go now.
I want to leave now.
What good could I do?
I want to go now.
I give
The country is falling to the evil.
I don’t have the wisdom
to help
or the money
to leave this clanging port for a quieter haven
And of course, you can’t flee the world’s superpowers — together they fill the globe and dance the jig.
What should I do?
Julian of Norwich says sin was nothing — too insignificant in relationship to God’s love to worry about (or something like that); and that everything comes from God and is in accordance with God’s eternal plan and is done by God and that all is well, and all will be well and all shall be well
Then, later in the book, she says that sin is not done by God, but is allowed by God to happen — but still all is in God’s hands and is and will and shall be well.
Which feels like a contradiction from her earlier statement, where I thought we were agreeing that God does everything.
Oh, but look at this: earlier she calls sin “no thing”; later she says God isn’t doing sin. Now let’s say God is all, and yet sin happens, but not done by God or claimed by God as his own. That can only mean that nothing is doing the sin and that the sin doesn’t exist. Sin is an illusion? What is real is God = Love, and everything is illusionary to the degree it strays from this Love that is All?
The evil destroying our democracy — which, like all liberal democracies, is a tool whereby humans non-violently nudge their shared governments away from corruption and madness, and thus away from systems that reward and follow folly and punish and undermine wisdom; and which therefore constitutes a spiritual good — is mostly the fault of Republican politicians, media, and voters. They should say NO to Trump and to the kinds of autocracy that he and Ron DeSantis are packing. But they’re not doing that. They are woefuly failing in their fundamental duty of acting as a final check against madness and corruption in government. Instead, they’re doubling down on the evil.
Trump is leading in the polls. DeSantis is number 2.
Republican politicians are carrying on about Adam Schiff claiming Trump colluded with Russia and that Trump tried to get Zelensky to dig up and dump dirt on Biden, while skipping past how Russia did interfere in the 2016 election on behalf of Trump, Trump’s campaign knew about this and was glad of it, not all questions surrounding meetings between members of the Trump team and people connected to Russia were resolved, and there is a lot of evidence suggesting Trump obstructed Mueller’s investigation into these matters (all of this in the Mueller Report, and not discredited elsewhere); and also skipping past the fact that there is plenty of evidence that Trump went so far as to withhold Federal funds to pressure Zelensky into digging up dirt and dumping it on his political rival; and that, most to the point, Trump worked to undermine democracy for four years and then when he lost a fair election, he employed the classic dictator tools of calling the election unfair while pressuring election officials to cheat for him, and then reveled in an unlawful, dangerous, and potentially catastrophic storming of the Federal government by suckers for his bogus claims of a stolen election.
Should Adam Schiff have been more careful in his characterization of the relationship between Russia’s interference in the 2016 election towards Trump and the Trump campaign? Should he know, after much though not all dust is cleared, revise his position?
Perhaps, but there is a giant log in the Republican eyes when it comes to truth, good government, and democratic rules and norms. This log is threatening to destroy the nation, and they trying to obscure that reality by making a crime out of Schiff’s imperfect, but typical-politician slant-reasoning.
What Trump has been doing and DeSantis threatening is not typical-politician slant-reasoning; it is straight-up falsehoods (well, that’s Trump; DeSantis is elevating election-deniers while refraining from discussing their claims — that amounts to sheltering and using lies to your advantage; but it is not the same as lying publicly — DeSantis is more thoughtful and subtle than Trump; but Ahab’s outward competence allowed his inward madness to fool the ship owners into letting him steer it, and it helped him destroy it) us-vs-them, winner-take-all, tilt-the-system-itself words and deeds.
Here’s Schiff in a January 2023 interview:
“If you read the Mueller report, he makes clear even in the first few pages of the report that he states no conclusion on whether Donald Trump and his campaign colluded with the Russians.
“But what he does reveal in his report, what we found in our investigation is that Donald Trump’s campaign manager was sharing internal campaign polling data and a strategy for key battleground states with an agent of Russian intelligence, while that same unit of Russian intelligence was helping the Trump campaign, both with the hacking-and-dumping operation, as well as a social media operation to elect Donald Trump.
“To most Americans, that is collusion. Now, whether it’s proof beyond a reasonable doubt of the crime of conspiracy — that’s what Bob Mueller was talking about — I have always distinguished between the two.”
[Everything except the part about “sharing internal campaign polling … with an agent of Russian intelligence” is in the Executive Summary of the Mueller Report. We need to look for the other claim. And this line is “the same unit of Russian intelligence was helping the Trump campaign” is — at least on my understanding of the proven facts of the matter — potentially misleading. Yes, Russian intelligence was helping the Trump campaign by trying to interfere in the election in his behalf, but that’s not the same as “helping” the campaign in the sense of “coordinating with them on a shared goal”.]
Now we have the Durham report, which accused the FBI of “confirmation bias”, but stopped short of making a case for “partisan bias”.
Here’s Anna Paulina Luna, who introduced a bill to formally censure Schiff and fine him $16 million for falsely claiming the Trump campaign colluded with Russia’s interference in the 2016 election:
Schiff “lied to the American people. He used his position on House intelligence to push a lie that cost American taxpayers millions of dollars and abused the trust placed in him as chairman. He is a dishonour to the House of Representatives.
“The Durham report makes clear that the Russian collusion was a lie from day one and Schiff knowingly used his position in an attempt to divide our country.”
[How can she use the Durham report to make the claim? The Durham report accuses the FBI of procedural errors and confirmation bias; it does not corroborate Trump’s claim that the concern over Russian collusion was a lie. It doesn’t even go so far as to accuse the agency of partisan bias. We know (as we did prior to the Durham report) that some lies were given to the FBI, but that is not the same as knowing that either the FBI or Schiff knowingly pawned off lies as facts. We will have to figure out what exactly she means to refer to in the report, but it seems likely that she is conflating the fact that dishonest statements were made to the FBI with a claim that Schiff knowingly mislead the American people.]
Only 20 of the 222 Republican members of the House voted against the completely nihilistic, democracy-bleeding $16 million censure of Adam Schiff for arguing that the evidence outlined in the Mueller Report — there for all to see, and far from clearly exonerating Trump or equating a lacks of proof with confirmations of disproof — points to collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia. A $16 million fine is for many a sentence to a lifetime of monetary hardship (not for Schiff, but once the precedent is established, will the House first ascertain each member’s financial situation before fining them? Schiff’s net worth was not mentioned in the proposed bill, nor was any particular reasoning given for the amount of $16 million). How will there be meaningful conversation between the parties if the party with the majority starts fining members of the other parties into poverty over disagreements? (And Schiff is not a billionaire, or even a hundred-millionaire; $16 million he would feel.) In the name of protecting democracy, the Republicans in the House fiddle around with tunes that, fully realized, would burn Washington down; and this distracts from the reality that they are accepting and (here and elsewhere) aiding a candidate with no moral compass and with a proven track record for attacking the foundations of our democratic order. What they are doing here is evil.
Trump has no interest in or insight into making things better for everyone. And DeSantis’s record in Florida (promoting election-deniers while remaining silent about Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election were stolen; financially punishing Disney for daring to publicly disagree with his policies; etc) and statements such as his intent to clean out career bureaucrats and replace them with partisans also encourage the conclusion that he also lacks interest in and insight into how a leader can make things better for everyone by working gently and carefully within democratic rules and norms.
Trump would burn all for pride and power. DeSantis would more systematically exploit and twist the rules to crush the libs — whatever those are. We know how far Trump would go to gain and keep power. With DeSantis, we are more guessing, but electing him President seems like a foolish risk — especially since what we do know is that he seeks to hold even more power than the executive branch already has.
What are libs? They are not these strange caricatures that desire only to force sex-change operations on kids and demand white people take oaths of guilt for stealing everything good. You are dismembering the republic in the name of the strawiest of men.
What the Republican are doing is evil. They are my fellow Americans. What should I do? A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.
What is the relationship between individual sin and group evil? And at what point does incompetent politics shade into political evil? What the Republicans are doing is evil; but that does not mean that they are being evil. They are lost in some mixture of accidental and willful incompetence, but that is true of everyone. The distinction here is that the set of circumstances they are playing into are affecting political evil. This is because they are playing into the hands of and even encouraging the authoritarian directions chosen by Trump and, to a less-established but still clearly disquieting degree, DeSantis. At some point, if they continue to side with forces that choose power over process and victory over helping, they will break our democracy. Because this is a two-party system. It’s a two-party system, people! So if one party keeps doubling down on anti-democratic jams, the whole thing will collapse sooner or later.
What can I do that would do any good?
And how can I get enough money to go someplace quiet?
And how can I ever talk to you again and talk to you in a good way?; and if all that is impossible, what do I do?
The way forward is the way forward for everyone.
The Republicans are going down a zero-sum scorched-democracy path.
This is bad for everyone.
Once democracy is gone, thuggery reigns and thuggery just keeps grabbing for more power — it has neither interest in nor aptitude for competently leading everyone towards what is best for all. Thuggery is inherently incompetent because it wants power, not Beauty.
What does God want me to do here and now?
A million billion miles of only-lonely.
What for?
What now?
I’m tired and my knuckles are as white as Show White’s.
You see the above was not perfectly fair, not entirely adequately researched; and this is the trouble: who can hold it all together? The Republicans are on the whole headed in the wrong direction, and the Democrats are on the whole more on the side of a sustainable democracy. But every little detail; every little cut; every little twist and turn, with humans always at the rudders: it is too hard to deal with. And yet we must; we must be info-warriors for an adequate sketch of relative truth, as well as wisdom-warriors for an adequate sketch of Truth and Its general relationship to relative truth. OH, heavy burden! OH, scary dance! God, grant us all the light touch, the song that holds, the tune that lifts; grant us gentle hands, open eyes, tender hearts, and careful minds.
This is driving me crazy. There’s no perfection, and part of the toolkit of autocrats is to find imperfections on the other side and blow them out of proportion. So how to arbitrate fairly? We want to put the breaks on madness and corruption; not catch every little flaw. We want to help the Republican Party return to a basic acceptance of the rules and norms of a functioning representative democracy — a functioning republic. But they are working against us at every turn. Choosing Trump as #1: clamoring for evil. Choosing DeSantis as #2: needlessly risking evil. Coming up with witch-hunts over alleged voter frauds that never pan but that are used to disenfranchise millions of voters: evil, or at least evil-ish.
What am I to do? We’ll make no straight thing out of the crooked timber of humanity, but we can have a functioning republic, if we collectively agree to prioritize good government, clarity, honesty, and good will.
What is the way forward here?
Are Republicans sinning? If not, we can only conclude that people can support evil without sinning. This is perhaps plausible in cases where people have no idea about what is going on, but that’s not this situation:
This situation is that there’s too much information, too many conflicting interpretations, and too much opportunity to escape into group-think bubbles — as well as too much motivation to do so (since talking to people from the other party has become so completely demoralizing, disorientating, and lonely-ifying).
In this situation, people can still find their way to truer accounts; but that requires considerable intellectual and emotional effort — particularly for Republicans, as their party-center has slid away from facts and competence: The Republican center-of-weight is choosing Trump’s dishonest incompetence, DeSantis’s competent undermining of democratic norms (and thus ultimate incompetence: being good at forcing laws into existence and punishing political rivals is a competent manipulation of the system, but competent government is competently using the system to work with everyone to together find what is best for all: it requires conversation and compromise, not “Fuck you!” and “Take this!”), and the Republican leadership’s implicit and explicit acceptance of undemocratic norms as the party’s norms.
What is to be done? Partisanship is out of control. Both parties are susceptible to it and it’s reality-twisting effects. But the Republicans really have completely lost their minds and souls. Some more their minds than their souls; others more their souls than their minds; but together, in the stew of group-think, the end result is the same: corruption and madness, and unless unchecked within the party itself, this will lead to the destruction of democracy in the USA, which will be bad for its citizens and the wider world.
But how to help? I’m not a Republican. How could I be? They are not resisting Trump and DeSantis and their empty lie of us-vs-them. The country cannot survive if half the country thinks they are at war with the other half. You can’t be president for only half the country — that’s not a president, and such a one cannot hope to get and maintain power within a functioning republic. And that’s the concern: that Trump and DeSantis know this and are still planning on getting and maintaining power while serving only “their side”. Or so it seems. Certainly with Trump. And DeSantis probably; anyway, I can’t see the wisdom of wagering on giving him four years to prove himself more pro-democracy and pro-one-nation than he seems. One nation under God: The nature of God is an eternal mystery, but “One nation” is a clear concept: In a coherent nation, communicating with and doing what is right for the whole nation is more important than partisan victories. Our nation is increasingly incoherent. As internal incoherence grows, so does corruption and madness: without wisdom steering, what logic remains but power, greed, pride, and all the other caprices of the human animal?
I don’t know what to do.
Author: UHGH!
Editors: BW/AW
Copyright: AMW
Solace: Julian of Norwich
Notes
From our Let’s Make a Deal:
Update 6/12/2023: Ron DeSantis thinks Trump didn’t go far enough / DeSantis finds a new set of laws to ignore / DeSantis privately elevates election deniers while publicly staying mum on 2020 / DeSantis would kill Democracy Slowly and Methodically
Oh, hmmm. What has happened? Republican voters seem leaning towards a clearly established would-be tyrant; but their number two guy is arguably also a serious threat to our democracy. He has bent Florida and its legislature to his will, punished politicians and organizations that disagree with him, flouted campaign laws, exerted pressure on the legislature to pass a partisan gerrymander of his own making, and “Two months before he was Gov. Ron DeSantis’ pick to oversee Florida voting, Cord Byrd was a featured speaker at a seminar for people who falsely believe the 2020 election was stolen and wanted training to stop it from happening again.” [that quote is from “DeSantis privately elevates election deniers while publicly staying mum on 2020” linked to above.]
[End of extract from “Let’s Make a Deal”]
– – – – – – –
In October 2020, Trump signed an executive order establishing a new Schedule F job classification within the federal government’s excepted service for federal workers in policy-related jobs that would exempt their positions from most civil service rules. The edict ordered agencies to identify positions that would qualify for the new job category and convert employees in those jobs to Schedule F, effectively making them at-will employees.
….
“Well, there was a proposal that I think a lot of us wanted to see under the prior administration to do a Schedule F,” DeSantis responded. “So anyone who has any policy role is classified as a Schedule F, and they can be removed by the president. The left would litigate that, but I honestly think we would win on that in the Supreme Court.”
….
“I also think that it’s one thing to have some type of job rules for the bowels of the bureaucracy like your supervisor and what they can do,” he said. “But the president has Article 2 power. Who controls the executive branch: is it the elected president, or is it some bureaucrat in the bowels of the bureaucracy who can’t be fired? So I think that push needs to come to shove on this, but whoever gets a majority in the electoral college has the right to impose their agenda through the executive branch. …Re-constitutionalizing government starts with re-constitutionalizing the executive branch under Article 2.”
[DeSantis & Schedule F]
I think a professional bureaucracy guards against corruption in government. We need more research here.
——
From a January 2023 Interview of Schiff:
DANA BASH, CNN: I know that there’s a lot to talk about in terms of the politics of what’s happening here, but I want to air out some of the substance of the Republican allegations.
And, Congressman, I will start with you.
You said that there was direct evidence of the fact that Donald Trump colluded with Russia back in 2016. Special counsel Robert Mueller said in his report — quote — “The investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government.”
Republicans argue that’s proof that you used your position on the Intelligence Committee to intentionally mislead Americans, which is why you should not be on that committee.
REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): If you read the Mueller report, he makes clear even in the first few pages of the report that he states no conclusion on whether Donald Trump and his campaign colluded with the Russians.
But what he does reveal in his report, what we found in our investigation is that Donald Trump’s campaign manager was sharing internal campaign polling data and a strategy for key battleground states with an agent of Russian intelligence, while that same unit of Russian intelligence was helping the Trump campaign, both with the hacking-and-dumping operation, as well as a social media operation to elect Donald Trump.
To most Americans, that is collusion. Now, whether it’s proof beyond a reasonable doubt of the crime of conspiracy — that’s what Bob Mueller was talking about — I have always distinguished between the two.
We need to find the parts of the Mueller report that relate to what Schiff claims above. The final three claims are mentioned in the Executive Summary, but what about Trump’s campaign manager sharing polling data and battleground-state strategy with “an agent of Russian intelligence”?
[Schiff on CNN]
– – – – –
Here is Luna, who introduced the bill:
Schiff “lied to the American people. He used his position on House intelligence to push a lie that cost American taxpayers millions of dollars and abused the trust placed in him as chairman. He is a dishonour to the House of Representatives.
“The Durham report makes clear that the Russian collusion was a lie from day one and Schiff knowingly used his position in an attempt to divide our country.”
What part of the Durham report is she alluding to in that second statement?
But to me, here is the deeper problem: The Durham Report does not prove what Luna said it “makes clear” anymore than the Mueller report proves that there was collusion. In either case, charges would’ve been brought. But Luna is trying to fine Schiff $16 million for his interpretation of the facts inside the Mueller report. What is to prevent a Democratic-majority House from fining Luna $16 million for her interpretation of the facts inside the Durham Report? And further, politicians often don’t tell the complete truth all the time. Would fining Schiff $16 million scare everyone into finding only the most perfect statements, or would it just be a way to frighten people into submitting to whatever reality those with power, or perceived as being destined to gain power, were pushing? And also: This is an effective side-show to confuse US Americans about the relative nature of truth and fair play. Trump doesn’t just slightly confuse or exaggerate facts, he throws them out the window. That is the problem. And Trump doesn’t just bend situations and rules a little his way; he blatantly tried to pressure foreign governments into digging up dirt on his rivals and US election officials into cheating for him — as just a couple of samples (maybe here we link to the list of Trump’s anti-democratic activities that we were working on prior to the 2020 election).
– – – – – –
