Today Is Our Independence Day...Independence From Delusion And Denial

Today is the day to face our biggest problem head on. which happens to be us, and the lies we tell ourselves of which there are several.

First, is that the liberal mainstream media was somehow going to serve as a vanguard of truth and accuracy for Americans in search of factual reporting with which to counter the blatant lying propaganda of the Trumpworld/Murdoch press. Now you are seeing the base corruption of "both-sidesism" taking hold of the editorial boards of the New York Times, Washington Post, etal, and realize you've been had. They are mainstreaming Trumpism as their "hedge bet," just in case he comes back to power, hoping to make sure they aren't put on his "list." This should not be surprising, since most major media are now owned by hedge funds and the people who profit from them.

Second is that somehow the Supreme Court would be constrained by the traditional checks and balances system of our government, the societal norms of public opinion, and historical precedents which would function as guardrails for holding them somewhat accountable to the American people, history, and the future of the US system of law. Instead, our great media waits until AFTER their latest legal atrocity to show us the video of them sitting in Congress twenty, or ten, or two years ago, lying under oath to get confirmed by swearing their deep opposition to the very things they just turned around and did. It's so nice of the media to hold off on putting these things out until after the damage is irreversible. And they publish photos of Alito's flags supporting January 6th AFTER sitting on them for three years gathering dust in their files. And it takes even more years for our so-called "watchdog groups" to discover that these Justices are completely bought and paid for by fascist billionaires, in order to make exactly the wide variety of corrupt rulings that they've made. If the media are really our "watchdogs," they have spent the last 20 years laying around licking their balls.

And thirdly, there is our shared delusion that the Democratic leadership, liberal pundits, former Presidents, Governors and Congressmen, along with top officials, would function as our "heroes," defending the "rule of law" and would save us from the fascist cult of Trumpism. And it turns out that most of them have been more concerned with the "optics" of what they do than the actual effects of what they do. Or won't do. Instead they measure their impact not by how it affects real people in the present and the future, but by counting the money rolling in and the latest poll results.

Now we at least know that we have been badly deluded. Americans today are finally forced to confront those factors of extreme peril which they have carefully avoided for many years. We are like the person who is despondent about having blurry vision, who is panicked about possibly having glaucoma and dreads their Opthamologist appointment. That is, until one day they decide to take their glasses off and realize they haven't cleaned them for days, and once they do, puts them back on and can see everything clearly. "Hello world!

Wishful thinking, delusion, and denial, each are the cultural markers of a society which has descended into egoism and parochialism, preoccupation with personal life and the desire to self-isolate. It is a self-induced myopia in which we choose to only deal with those tangible things in our immediate environment, with the hope that "somebody" out there is going to take care of the big stuff for us. It is the symptom of a social illness in people who increasingly believe that they can live a separate existence, defined by "my truth, my reality, my wellness, my world, my personal space, my boundaries," ad infinitum.

And this factor of social atomization, retreat into our personal bunker worlds in order to hide from the approaching crisis, which in fact is the product of our own myopia and negligence, is the ultimate cause of our current political disunity. And when I say "our" I refer to those of us who supposedly represent the liberal/left opposition to Trump's war on democracy. Our current state of disunity (which we often mislabel as diversity) is a far greater danger than we wish to realize, second only to MAGA itself..

As a movement which ostensibly believes in democratic values, we have been a terrible failure, precisely because we have been so self-consumed, so ideologically divided, so belligerently opinionated, so unable to agree on much of anything other than that Trump and his cult are repulsive, an abomination in fact, that we have been unable to unify in the face of this threat. This has been the weakness which our enemy has exploited.

Now, this is changing, and hopefully not too late. You now have a unity of understanding that Trump is actually a satanic personality, almost a comic book villain like "The Joker," or a mad Emperor Caligula who is driven solely by homicidal rage and his desire to destroy the very empire which he wishes to rule over. But, there has also been a shift in thinking otherwise which is worth looking at.

The delusional beliefs by most people that Trump would be trapped, weakened, and soon defeated by a small army of courageous prosecutors standing for "the rule of law" is now just a puff of smoke drifting out the window. Many of you have shared memes on Facebook depicting Jack Smith and Fani Willis as superheroes in costume, complete with capes, coming to our rescue. You have religiously followed Trump's legal cases, sharing posts by your favorite legal commentators and pundits, hoping against hope that somebody other than you would bear the brunt of finishing Trump off. You have been spectators watching your team from up in the cheap seats and eating popcorn, betting on the game's outcome, and now, thanks to the fascist renegade Supreme Court's immunity ruling, there is no courtroom remedy. The clock is expiring on that game.

Rather than saying I told you so and rubbing it in that this is precisely what I've said would happen, I'll take this as potentially good news. Many of you who pride yourselves on being "woke" are finally coming awake. The combination of Trump's threats of dictatorship and retribution, the reality of what Project 2025 represents, the recent rulings of SCOTUS, and President Biden's apparent recent decline, have forced people to confront the fact of their own egoism, isolation, fearfulness, myopia, and desire to avoid those things which exist outside of their small personal worlds, events which are about to crash headlong into their personal spaces through their living room windows.

You prayed for divine intervention and justice from the court system. Now, New York, Georgia, Florida, DC, each and every case, has gone "pfffft" thanks to the rogue SCOTUS' immunity decision, who were always going to intervene to rescue their personal project for imposing a New American Confederacy. You hoped "super-lawyers" and news media/celebrity saviors like Rachel Maddow and Taylor Swift would save us from Donald Trump and the fascist oligarchs behind him. You waited for the newest books by investigative journalists and historians to be published, believing that just "getting out facts and information" would defeat the man of 30,000 lies and his movement of 81 million liars. That set of delusions is now another popped balloon, one which should no longer be obstructing your view.

And now, we find ourselves cheerleading for Biden to stay in the game, like he's an injured Baseball player, while at the same time privately thinking that he is likely going on the disabled list and wondering who is "next one up" from the bench to come into the game to replace him. Without even realizing it, we tend to turn life and death reality into sportsbook fantasy games and exercises in online gambling. Another self-consoling game we play for which the time is up.

The debate catastrophe has delivered a political shock to the world, not only because Biden lost and how he lost, but because it has exposed decades of the worsening state of our democracy itself, in that so much of it is dependent on one or a few handfuls of people that are thought to be the leaders of it. That is the opposite of what participatory democracy is supposed to be. Democracy, to the extent it has existed, should not hang solely upon the actions, health, or effectiveness of its leaders, but upon the intellectual vitality and engagement of the people that it ostensibly serves.

The issue is not and was never President Biden's age, or health. It is what we who are younger, healthier, and more knowlegeable have done or not done over the years to prevent this calamitous situation. The worst tragedy in all of this is we have been spectators to history, cheering from the sidelines for "heroes" to fight for and defend the values and rights which we wish to enjoy, without ever considering the need to risk ourselves.

Now, the good news in all of this, my message of optimism and hope on this Independence Day, is that the self-delusion and game-playing is over. The events of the recent weeks have forced you to take your glasses off and clean them, and see the world around you as it is. Your heroes are not going to save you. You are going to save you, with a little help from your friends. Or, you won't.

Most people's involvement in political campaigns and activism has been through posting on social media. Some of you have done the legwork of voter registration, pollwatching, mailing postcards, donating, going to events and caucuses here and there. Myself, having had a long career in politics with my wife Martha, have experienced almost every type of political activity there is, that is, except running for office. I can tell you that nothing any of us has ever done in politics in our lifetimes, myself included, has prepared us for this moment in our history, with the possible exception of the still living Civil Rights Movement veterans who fought the KKK to get voting rights and end segregation, or the serious anti-Vietnam war leadership from the 1960's. Even still, we live in a different world in which the old methods and strategies no longer work, because we are now fighting an actual domestic enemy, no longer just partisan political rivals. There is no manual for how to do this, except for the one we are now writing.

Don't try to make our current crisis all about President Biden's situation. The more relevant crisis is what you, the reader, are currently experiencing in your own personal struggle over what you should do if anything about this. Each of you are likely fighting an internal war with yourselves. You know you have to do something because the other strategies have all collapsed. And you find yourselves hitting a wall of fear, cynicism, self-doubt, and asking the question, "is there is anything left in the United States, it's people, or it's history, which is worth putting yourselves at risk for, or not?" I know this personally because I have fought this same battle with myself many times, both winning and losing it on occasion, and yet sometimes I still descend into doubt.

The fate of humanity, and the United States, depends not upon the decision President Biden makes this week about whether to step aside. It depends on you winning the war with yourself so that you can answer the question I just raised. That is reality, and it is what very few of your favorite pundits and experts will write or say out of fear of "turning you off." I have no such fear. There are things that scare me, but turning people off isn't one of them.

Your decision on this means more than Joe Biden's. Embrace that fact for the next few days, and see what side of the fence you come down on.

The events of the recent weeks have "cleaned your glasses." Take a good look around, and you might find new hope in the potential for change that hopefully you can now see.

Have a great July 4th, and let's declare our independence from tyranny. They had the right idea, let's make it live again.