Down-and-out and lonely

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“It’s [hard] to get a man to understand something, when his community and identity depends on his not understanding it. […] Instead of tie-dyed shirts, they donned red “MAGA” hats. Instead of being young adventurers running away from their parents, these “front-row Joes” (as he calls them) tended to be people who were “retired or close to it” and “estranged from their families or otherwise without children”; they also had “plenty of time on their hands.” What they found was that “Trump had, in a surprising way, made their lives richer.” His rallies gave them a “reason to travel the country, staying at one another’s homes, sharing hotel rooms and carpooling. Two had married—and later divorced—by Trump’s second year in office. […] Trump’s status as both a “rock star” and, simultaneously, a persecuted victim made him an attractive leader for this kind of movement.”

How Trumpists Prey on Loneliness, and Loneliness Preys on Trumpists

“It’s too late”

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AL.com: Dr. Brytney Cobia said all but one of her COVID patients in Alabama did not receive the vaccine. The vaccinated patient, she said, just needed a little oxygen and is expected to fully recover. Some of the others are dying. In Alabama, state officials report 94% of COVID hospital patients and 96% of Alabamians who have died of COVID since April were not fully vaccinated.

“One of the last things they do before they’re intubated is beg me for the vaccine. I hold their hand and tell them that I’m sorry, but it’s too late. I hug their family members and I tell them the best way to honor their loved one is to go get vaccinated and encourage everyone they know to do the same.”

“They cry. And they tell me they didn’t know. They thought it was a hoax. They thought it was political. They thought because they had a certain blood type or a certain skin color they wouldn’t get as sick. They thought it was ‘just the flu’. But they were wrong. And they wish they could go back. But they can’t. So they thank me and they go get the vaccine. And I go back to my office, write their death note, and say a small prayer that this loss will save more lives.”

Landslide

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Landslide: The Final Days of the Trump Presidency by Michael Wolff

To say that I “couldn’t put this book down,” is a time-worn cliche. And let’s face it, I can put just about any non-fiction book down. But I read this book in 24 hours which is really fast for me. I picked this book because I like the way Michael Wolff writes. I’ll let others judge his reporting, but the man knows how to tell a story. In Landslide, he comes as close as anyone could to making sense of the chaos and madness of Donald Trump’s final days. This book reads like a thriller (or a horror story).

The first book I read by Mr. Wolff was Burn Rate: How I Survived the Gold Rush Years on the Internet (1998).

“A new America”

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“Almost all historians agree that a major historical turning point took place between roughly 1968 and 1974—a “revolution,” a “renaissance,” a “fracture,” a “shock wave,” a point after which “everything changed,” creating a “new America.” Maurice Isserman and Michael Kazin, for example, argue that the Sixties ushered in a moment of historical rupture on the scale of the American Civil War, dividing the twentieth century into a pre- and post-Sixties world, a change from which “there is no going back, any more than the lost world of the antebellum South could have been restored after 1865.”

— The Upswing ( Robert D. Putnam)

“The Christian Right Is in Decline”

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New York Times: “P.R.R.I.’s 2020 Census of American Religion, based on a survey of nearly half a million people, shows a precipitous decline in the share of the population identifying as white evangelical, from 23 percent in 2006 to 14.5 percent last year. […] In 2020, as in every year since 2013, the largest religious group in the United States was the religiously unaffiliated.” […] “In addition to shrinking as a share of the population, white evangelicals were also the oldest religious group in the United States, with a median age of 56.” […] “This sense of ownership of America just runs so deep in white evangelical circles. The feeling that it’s slipping away has created an atmosphere of rage, resentment and paranoia.” […] “If they can’t own the country, they’re ready to defile it.”

 

“What Makes A Cult A Cult?”

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It’s a little surprising how many cults I’ve seen come and go over the years. Heaven’s Gate, Branch Davidians, Peoples Temple, Aleph (formerly Aum Shinrikyo), Moonies. And let’s not forget Scientology. Yes, most of the members considered these religious sects. But who you gonna believe, me or some guy in a cult?

A fascinating essay in The New Yorker Magazine (What Makes A Cult A Cult?) got me thinking about cults. A few of my favorite bits from the piece:

“One stratagem favored by Keith Raniere, the leader of the New York-based self-help cult NXIVM, was to tell the female disciples in his inner circle that they had been high-ranking Nazis in their former lives, and that having yogic sex with him was a way to shift the residual bad energy lurking in their systems.”

“A great many people were, after all, able to resist his spiral-eyed ministrations: they met him, saw a sinister little twerp with a center part who insisted on being addressed as “Vanguard,” and, sooner or later, walked away.”

“Few of us believe in our heart of hearts that Amy Carlson, the recently deceased leader of the Colorado-based Love Has Won cult, who claimed to have birthed the whole of creation and to have been, in a previous life, a daughter of Donald Trump, could put us under her spell.”

Easy to laugh at these folks but they were never funny (and getting less so). Down in Jonestown, old Jim sometimes conducted “White Nights.”

During such events, Jones would sometimes give the Jonestown members four options: attempt to flee to the Soviet Union, commit “revolutionary suicide”, stay in Jonestown and fight the purported attackers, or flee into the jungle.

The Soviet Union is no more so I’m thinking I might flee into the jungle.

WWI Hero: Warren Aaron Ransom, Jr.

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My friend Jamie shared with me a bit of family history that I found fascinating. With his permission, I’m sharing it here. (links at bottom of post)

It’s a letter from his paternal grandfather who fought at The Battle of Soissons in WWI. His grandfather received the Distinguished Service Cross from General Pershing for saving his commanding officer who was wounded under fire. They were forward observing (he was in the artillery unit that fired the first shot of American participation in WWI.)

Here’s an excerpt from the letter…

“Then, we were suddenly put into trucks, leaving the horses to follow behind us as fast as they could, and shot up to the big counter attack of the 18th of this month. We were on the left of the 1salient near Soissons, and fought along with some of the best troops France has – the Foreign Legion, the Moroccans, and the 20th Corps. You know all about the scrap from the papers. It was a wonderful experience but not particularly jolly.”

“The artillery followed the attack right up, and two hours after the first wave, we advance for 5 km into what had been German territory. It wasn’t jolly as I said, because both sides have good scrappers, and they scrapped! The first place we were er took up our advance position, was in a reserve German trench. They must’ve been preparing for breakfast, because they left us some good food and cigars, etc.”

You can read Jamie’s transcription of his grandfather’s letter here, and a scan of the original typewritten letter here.