Wisdom of the Aged by Craig Hattersley - HTML preview

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

—Dylan Thomas

By December 2020 the Mad King had hunkered down at Mar-a-Lago, giving up any semblance of governing while the pandemic raged and the economy teetered (only grudgingly signing a skimpy relief package for millions on the brink of disaster in a conspicuous example of Covid capitalism). Then, in a typical display of their patrician concern, Trump went golfing and VP Mikey Pence, the human Q-tip—he who ostensibly led the pandemic task force—emplaned for a ski vacation in Vail, Colorado.

Don the Con had wheedled his way into the presidency with his brand of sloganeering and snake oil, smearing opponents with snide names and claiming he would “make America great again,” baldly lying in a steady stream of “populist” sputum and saying he would “drain the swamp.” What he delivered was more trickle down, less regulation, and a heapin’ helpin’ of gangster radical right. Then, in the face of a thumping in his reelection campaign, he went full il duce, yapping to the rabble about a stolen election, spouting full-bore fabrications about voting irregularities (the Big Lie)—while at the same time attempting behind the scenes to strong-arm election officials to reverse clear losses in battleground states.

The chaotic culmination of this sad debacle unfolded on January 6, when Congress met to certify his defeat. Trump, returning to the capital to exhort a frenzied mob of worshipers who had followed him down the rabbit hole, spurred them to march, saying “We’re going to the Capitol.” He then slunk back to the safety of the White House to gleefully exult in what he wrought, in his power—until, maybe, it became all too apparent that his putsch had careened out of control. He awakened the beast but then it had to be fed.

The ensuing riot at the Capitol, where lawmakers huddled in fear over what had been unleashed, led ultimately to nine deaths and an initially small but steadily growing number of arrests (as mobster selfies led to positive IDs and apprehensions). Over the weeks that followed, stark video proof emerged of the murderous frenzy of the rioters, the wanton violence visited upon those of the Capitol police who tried in vain to stem the tide. Images of thugs with zip ties (apparently to take congress people captive), a noose strung up outside the building, flooded the airways. Some supporters of the Big Lie began to weasel away from blame as an inexorable FBI investigation began in earnest, and Newsweek reported that tens of thousands of Republicans have since changed their party affiliation following the riot.

As condemnations flooded in over the insurrection, the first time the Capitol had been occupied since the War of 1812, it seemed that Trump might have finally stepped on his own dick. This was, for many, a boogaloo too far, and when the House vote on a second impeachment of the Donald, ten Republicans signed on. A majority of Americans polled said they favored his removal. As the sun set on his presidency, his popularity fell to its lowest point ever, some thirty-four percent, according to a Gallup poll. And two-thirds of respondents to a Pew poll said Trump should not continue to be a major national political figure.

What is puzzling, though, is what the Donald, in the grip of his Trumper tantrum, sought to gain by enlisting and inciting his thug rabble to exercise their propensity for violence (a group once derided widely by liberals as “Meal Team Six” or “Y’all Qaeda”). Did he really think himself such a charismatic character that millions of his supporters would then ignore the mayhem and rise up to acclaim him president anew? Instead, the whole grim episode fostered a wave of investigation into the roots of the lawlessness, the money and supervision behind the riot—as well as a proliferation of black-humor memes (e.g., one lamenting that we as a country spend $750 billion a year on defense and the center of American government fell in two hours to the Duck Dynasty).

Yet a majority of Republican congress members clung to his skirts, fearing the backlash from his mass of diehard (if misinformed) supporters. A large segment of his devotees still believed the election to be illegitimate. As Vladimir Lenin once noted, a lie told often enough becomes the truth. A Quinnipiac poll found that nearly three-quarters of Republicans believed there was widespread voter fraud, thanks in large part to a right-wing media machine that has yet to be called to account for its role in the spread of Trump disinformation. Nor will it in the foreseeable future.

After all was said and done—and some 25,000 National Guard troops poured into D.C. for the inauguration—the Democrats assumed power, faced with the daunting prospects of an economy on the verge of collapse and a rampaging pandemic. Not to mention a populace bitterly divided over what exactly is truth. One ray of light: A Washington Post report noted that online misinformation about election fraud plunged 73 percent after several social media sites (including his drug of choice, Twitter) suspended President Trump and allies, underscoring the power of social media to curtail the spread of the Big Lie.

Now remains the task of coaxing a large segment of the population out of the rabbit hole. I’d first like to see a reclamation of the term “populism” so bastardized during this misbegotten regime. Nothing in Trump’s short brutish reign (however never-ending it sometimes seemed) offered anything for the average American, the populace. It functioned rather as the end game of the Reagan revolution, serving up a government small enough to drown in a bathtub—and weak enough to leave a legacy of gross incompetence in dealing with a pandemic. What has Trump actually done in the last four years that could remotely be seen as populist?

Rather, he fabricated a coalition of the well-heeled with the disaffected and those slugs wed to alt-right lunacy, adroitly fanning the flames of racism, nationalism, and ritualized religiosity with wedge-issue distractions to modify policy—all too often to the detriment of what a majority of Americans might actually wish. As philosopher Eric Hoffer opined, all mass movements are born of the frustrated among us who make holy causes out of their grievances.

The powers that be must face these resentments, the problem of winning back those enraptured by the fever dreams of a faux populism espoused by Trumplicans. To begin with, that entails providing hope where promises only flickered. Max Brooks, son of comedian Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft, likened the task to how we dealt after World War II with Nazi zealots who had taken to the hills to fight on. The U.S. Marshall Plan induced extremists to return to civilized society by providing them what they need—jobs, education, a chance for a better life.

A modern-day version of the Work Projects Administration, for instance, directed to providing jobs—and training—in developing industries might serve, as opposed to the empty Trump promises of work in new coal mines that never materialized. Further, millions could be enlisted to deal with a crumbling infrastructure, something promised from time immemorial by innumerable politicos.

In short, a Democratic party that purports to be “of the people” needs to consider what they actually want (or need) politicians to do. Providing for the common weal fits the traditionally accepted role of government, however novel that notion now seems, and would go a long way to restoring faith in a system that too many see as rigged for the benefit of a fortunate few.

What else might serve the interest of the many today? Consider just this one common concern: The CEO of GoFundMe said recently that one out of three of their campaigns now go to pay medical bills, making GoFundMe one of the biggest insurers in the country. Nearly two-thirds of all personal bankruptcies result from medical debt and loss of income. A majority in this country favors universal healthcare, though monied interests (who fund campaigns in both parties) to date have managed to deflect conscious efforts to that end. Even a Fox News exit poll from election night showed that more than 70 percent of voters favored some form of government-run healthcare plan.

An interesting sidelight of that poll found that the same percentage of respondents favors public investment in decarbonization—one indication that maybe the Biden administration, with its attention to environmental concerns, might be listening. According to a Gallup poll, six out of ten Americans, including 80 percent of Democrats and 37 percent of Republicans, say they would favor policies that would reduce emissions to address climate change.

Wielding only a slim majority in Congress, however, the Biden administration (should the spirit be willing) will find the going tough against an entrenched system funded by monied interests. Money talks. This overwhelmingly mitigates against progressive reform and serves to thwart the will of the people, many of whom are now aware: In a study from the University of Maryland and nonpartisan research group Voice of the People, three-fourths of survey respondents, including 66 percent of Republicans and 85 percent of Democrats, back a constitutional amendment outlawing Citizens United. The study also noted that most Americans (88 percent overall) want to reduce the influence large campaign donors exert over lawmakers at a time when congressional races can cost tens of millions of dollars.

The question then becomes how do you translate popular opinion into legislative change—particularly when a large swath of the electorate can be gulled into thinking a conman and swindler is the one to “drain the swamp.” What does it take to idiot-proof a democracy? Is the Big Lie to become an insuperable weapon in the hands of duplicitous politicians? Not necessarily. As a team led by Lisa Fazio of Vanderbilt University found, with or without repetition, people are still more likely to believe actual facts as opposed to lies. The problem is, then, where do people get their facts, when so many get their information exclusively from a Fox News or the One America News Network—which served as a bullhorn (or an echo chamber) for seditious conspiracy theories.

Some have suggested that a modern version of the Fairness Doctrine (which, however, applied only to broadcast news) might seem in order, though the proliferation of sources for information compounds the problem and careens quickly into First Amendment arguments. The advent of social media introduced whole new worlds of fantasy fabrication, also opening up the prospect of foreign actors weaponizing sites such as Facebook and twitter, as highlighted in the 2016 election—fevered protestations of “witch hunt” notwithstanding.

Which leaves the polity prey to the next scam, and the GOP gave every indication of sticking to the gameplan—shrinking the electorate enough to drown it in a bathtub. Immediately following the election, more than 400 bills designed to restrict voting access were introduced in 48 states. The battle rages on, with Republicans miming the role of the sorely aggrieved party beset by an embroidered electoral malfeasance.

This time, perhaps, their counterparts in the Democratic party show signs of being woke to the gambit. Some glimmers of hope shone in Georgia, where a determined effort by voting-rights activist Stacey Abrams (cheated in her run for governor) and journalist Greg Palast succeeded in regaining the vote for enough purged citizens to turn the state blue. Both Democratic candidates for Senate won their elections, as did Biden—the first in the Georgia presidential race since the 1976 election of Jimmy Carter. Their efforts to expand the voter base could offer a roadmap for reclaiming the vote in the myriad states where GOP gerrymandering and blatant voter suppression have congealed into de facto one-party rule. But first they face new bills designed to thwart that effort.

Still, the knowledge that blood-red Georgia can be turned by grassroots organizing is indeed heartening, triggering similar activist action in other locales and challenging Republican strangleholds in states like our Texas—where the Snowpocalypse of 2021 served to illustrate what the excesses of a rampant free-market capitalism has wrought and what little our elected representatives did to prevent it. The battle turns to a state-by-state struggle, as the razor-thin margin in the Senate and a reduced majority in the House don’t otherwise bode well for pushing through any hint of a progressive agenda.

It falls to progressives themselves to pound the pavement, reform-minded journalists to pry into the political perfidy plaguing our nation. Nothing in Washington comes easy anymore. No false hopes of a bright new day dawning this time, as shown in the pollyanna optimism that suffused liberals following the 2008 election of Barack Obama (before running head on into the obdurate obstruction of the Mitch McConnell Senate).

For me, the year 2008 also brought a seismic change in my happy space. I discovered that changing economic times threatened my safe harbor at G&S Typesetting—the firm soon to be sold to an Indian firm as everywhere publishing houses sought cheaper (and less fastidious) sources. Time to rework the résumé . . .

Already mired in middle age, I didn’t entertain any thoughts of finding an editorial position where I could start afresh and somehow rejoin the battle, given the paucity of said jobs. (Over the last fifteen years more than a fourth of America’s newspapers and half of its journalists have “disappeared.”) I took a flyer on a job listing and ended up working as communications director for the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association (TCDLA), an estimable organization that’s the oldest and largest of its kind in the country. Its mission can best be expressed in the words of the late great TCDLA Hall of Fame member Stuart Kinard: “Protecting the Lord’s children who have fallen short of perfection from the wrath of those who believe they have attained it.”

For the next twelve years, I found myself doing my small part in forwarding the good efforts of a hard-working bunch of true believers fighting the good fight in a decidedly hang-’em-high state. Their work, though often derided by the public (as in “how can you defend that kind of person?”), has led to a spate of exonerations and even changes to constitutional law. I took vicarious enjoyment seeing the wrongs of a baked-in two-tiered justice system made right by the warriors in TCDLA.

At the same time, I expanded my own need for social involvement through the very platform so used and abused in the new-age media: Facebook. Rather than spending an inordinate amount of time as I did on the internet chasing down truth (to no good end), I determined I could at least do something by providing a place to compile what I thought to be the best of available progressive material. So I opened a Facebook page, “Seniors for a Democratic Society,” quite a tongue-in-cheek contrivance given my aforementioned abortive go at the original SDS in the Sixties.

In a decade now acting as admin for the site, I’ve found some comfort in the fact that more than 60,000 followers check in to see what I’ve found, an audience for progressive thought. And amongst the regulars lurk some seriously discriminating newshounds, calling me on the carpet whenever something I’ve posted turns out to be stretching the truth, necessitating a quick deletion or modification. The upshot of that: I rely almost totally on trustworthy sites for information.

A good number of the best sources hide behind pay walls, however, limiting access to many of the seniors following the site who might be on limited income. I soon discovered ways around these, when necessary to cover the best stories, or alternate means of discovering when other free sources cover the same information.

All in all, the process allows for rapid dissemination of good info—as well as getting and posting tips from other serious devotees, who range from priests to businessmen to a cadre of hyper-motivated retirees. The time I spend policing the site represents the downside—the daily excursion through comments to ferret out trolls for deletion. No discouraging words, bad vibes, or Trumpublicans allowed. Almost a part-time job in itself, but hey: What can a poor boy do (who’s too old for a rock’n’roll band)?

Better to stay involved in whatever way possible, given the parlous age we live in. As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who faced his share of hard times, once expressed in his 1972 Nobel lecture:

The simple act of an ordinary brave (human being) is not to participate in lies, not to support false actions! (Their) rule: Let that come into the world, let it even reign supreme—only not through me. But it is within the power of writers and artists to do much more: to defeat the lie! For in the struggle with lies art has always triumphed and shall always triumph! Visibly, irrefutably for all! Lies can prevail against much in this world, but never against art.