Month: January 2021

The American Abyss

Jason Preu, 3 Comments

America will not survive the big lie just because a liar is separated from power. It will need a thoughtful repluralization of media and a commitment to facts as a public good. The racism structured into every aspect of the coup attempt is a call to heed our own history. Serious attention to the past helps us to see risks but also suggests future possibility. We cannot be a democratic republic if we tell lies about race, big or small. Democracy is not about minimizing the vote nor ignoring it, neither a matter of gaming nor of breaking a system, but of accepting the equality of others, heeding their voices and counting their votes.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/09/magazine/trump-coup.html

This is a sobering assessment of recent events and things to come. I can highly recommend Snyder’s book, On Tyranny, in addition.

The American Abyss

Nothing says I love you

Jason Preu, , , 1 Comment 
It was a moonless night
Not a star in the sky
No one around
But you...and I

On the back porch
Bathed in candlelight
Neighbors fast asleep
Dreams in their eyes

Our bellies full
From all that cabbage stew
Than a'rumblin' began
From that devil’s brew

Oh ...

I used to wonder what it'd take to prove this truth
I used to wonder how to make a mark
But now I know now how simple that it really is

Nothing says I love you 
like farting 
in the dark
Nothing says I love you

You’re Picking a Fight…and You’re Losing That Fight

Jason Preu, Leave a comment

Why hold them so tight?

Why not let them go into the wild world

for which they are not prepared?

Why argue their nation of smoke, mirrors?

Aided by machines into an early grave,

buried under rounds of unspent ammunition,

cameras at the ready,

revolution of righteous ignorance.

When the air clears,

the unshaved wave

returns home, confused, provisional victors,

keepers of a false faith.

When the police arrive,

they do not run.

This is because they

have never understood the luxury of choice.

You’re Picking a Fight…and You’re Losing That Fight

The coming confrontation between the American press and the Republican Party

Jason PreuLeave a comment

The GOP is increasingly a minority party, or counter-majoritarian, as some political scientists put it. The beliefs and priorities that hold it together are opposed by most Americans, who on a deeper level do not want to be what the Republican Party increasingly stands for. A counter-majoritarian party cannot present itself as such and win elections in swing districts. So it has to be counterfactual too. It has to fight with fictions. Making it harder to vote, and harder to understand what the party is really about— these are two parts of the same project. The conflict with honest journalism is structural. To be its dwindling self the GOP has to also be at war with the press, unless of course the press folds under pressure.

https://pressthink.org/2020/11/the-coming-confrontation-between-the-american-press-and-the-republican-party/

The coming confrontation between the American press and the Republican Party