April 17, 2017
My
favorite genre of literature is dystopian fiction. Authors create worlds that could be, cautionary tales to warn us
away from pitfalls in our present that are driving us forward on a perilous
trajectory. We have not listened, my
friends, and now we find our fictional futures colliding frighteningly with our
unstable present. In the words of the
prescient authors past and present:
THE NEW STATE OF THINGS
“Sound bytes. Catch phrases. Sales
pitches. Words. All lexical legitimizing. ‘A rose by any other name…’ he said.
In the end it’s all propaganda.” –J.A. Willoughby, The Promised Land
“…dead to all things but greed and a
desire to rule over others.” –Arun D. Ellis, Corpalism
This is a game show to Trump, and has
been from the beginning. He thrives on
catch phrases, lives in generalities. He
has eschewed daily briefings because they don’t interest him; he has announced
his bafflement at the complex issues he is responsible for when he is made to
sit down and listen to the minutiae of the policies he must address. (Who knew healthcare was so complex? Everybody. Literally everybody except
you.) He couldn’t even be bothered to be
sure about which country he bombed, as a matter of fact, in a show of
power. Did he think about potential
consequences? Did he consider the complex political landscape he was walking
into? (Not to mention the fact that he had recently declared that Syria needed
to attend to their own problems without our interference.) I mean, who could guess that foreign policy
and diplomacy and acts of war could be so complex? Literally everybody, save
one, apparently. Honestly, it’s much
more fun to just think about how impressive that giant explosion will be, and
damn the consequences! Desire to rule
over others here means a show of force and might, but no real desire for governance
for and with the people.
“That was when they suspended the
Constitution. They said it would be temporary. There wasn't even any rioting in
the streets. People stayed home at night, watching television, looking for some
direction.” ― Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale
There
have already been little bends and fissures in the laws in place, including
healthcare, LGBT rights, and immigration, not to mention some pretty major
reversals of previously hard-won policies.
We’ve lost all semblance of “checks and balances” with a Republican
president, and a Republican majority in the House and Senate, as well as a
conservative majority sitting on the Supreme Court. (Gorsuch, by the way, was
confirmed after the rules were changed to go “nuclear” so that only a majority
vote was necessary. This, just shortly
after a highly contentious confirmation hearing for the Education Secretary,
DeVos, narrowly passed with a tie-breaking vote by Vice President Pence.) So despite dragging their feet for months on
a confirmation hearing for Obama’s Supreme Court pick, all it took to get the
Republican nominee in was changing the rules to suit their plan. Those in power are making changes to keep
themselves in power indefinitely, closing up avenues to challenge that
power. This should be very frightening
indeed. If we continue to sit back and
watch it unfold without raising our voices, soon there will be no place at all
for our voices. Once power is lost, it
becomes that much more difficult to regain.
“He who controls the past controls the
future. He who controls the present controls the past.”— George Orwell, 1984
Trump’s
heightened paranoia of his media coverage has become slightly ominous and
threatening. If he gets to ultimately
decide which media is “real” (Fox News, Breitbart) and which media is “fake”
(every other media outlet), he is effectively proclaiming that his truth, his
reality, is the only one that matters. One of the hallmarks of our democracy is
our multiplicity of viewpoints and our access to free press—that is, press that
is not forcibly controlled by our government in order to narrowly define and
disseminate state approved sound-bytes and propaganda. Continuing to foster a hostile stance against
free press and using the office of the president to attack any news source that
dares to question or hold him accountable for his actions or his words is
merely laying the groundwork for the hostile takeover of public information.
HOW DID WE GET HERE?
“He hadn’t realized that the ordinary little things that happened,
the ones that took place between the big events while waiting for something
more exciting to happen – they were the most important, after all.” ― Helen
Smith, The Miracle Inspector
“There was protest...There were those
who knew. Who saw what was coming. But their voices were mere whispers in a
crowd of roaring discontent. The surrender of freedom came in subtle stages,
not with an explosive arrival.” –Bard Constantine, Silent Empire
We
have spent years languishing in complacency as a society. We have the most abysmal voter turnout in
democratic nations. We do not seek out
active roles in our own governance; we do not educate ourselves about the
issues that regulate our world. We give
over—we have given over—our power to others who seem more invested and
interested, and we go on about our lives, confident that things will work
out. And mostly, until now, they
have. There were some small things, and
even some slightly bigger things, in the running of our country, that I might
have disagreed with here and there. On
the whole, though, I was satisfied, and my life didn’t alter significantly when
a new law was passed or a new representative hung his name plate on his office
in the House. And we got too
comfortable. I got too comfortable. By the time I realized it was time to call
the fire department, the whole house was engulfed. In hindsight, I smelled the smoke; I felt a
little warm. I didn’t, however, gather
the neighbors and sound the alarm before it got out of control. Hindsight does not help us—and here we are. (Months after the election, Trump himself is
the one who can’t seem to let it go. He
also seems to think any protest is “paid for” by…who knows? How is it possible
that he can’t fathom people coming together of their own volition to express
dissatisfaction? His narcissism makes it impossible for him to see dissent, and
the people with whom he surrounds himself provide a protective bubble to
engender that viewpoint.)
CONSEQUENCES
“When a man cannot choose, he ceases to be a
man.”—Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange
“I never thought it would get this
bad. I never thought the Reestablishment would take things so far. They're
incinerating culture, the beauty of diversity. The new citizens of our world
will be reduced to nothing but numbers, easily interchangeable, easily
removable, easily destroyed for disobedience. We have lost our humanity.”
―Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me
We
have lost funding to Planned Parenthood, and the government continues to
dismantle healthcare that will deny coverage to millions if they are
successful. Funding for schools, arts,
and social programs are all on the chopping block in favor of funneling
unimaginable dollars into an already massive military budget, because that’s
what Trump believes equates to power—force and might, not humanity and
culture. This is the path he has chosen
for us, but I refuse to be reduced to a number.
I will continue to fight for the beauty of diversity and the humanity
that is in us all. This is what I choose.
“For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great
mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become
literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done
this, they would sooner or later realise that the privileged minority had no
function, and they would sweep it away. In the long run, a hierarchical society
was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance.” –George Orwell, 1984
My bias may be showing here, but this
is where the importance of education comes in, both formal and informal. We have to ensure that the populace has the
security of a humane life and has access to education to become critical
thinkers and consumers of information in our world, so that we are not beholden
only to the information the Man Behind the Curtain wants to show us, but rather
that we are all able to discern and evaluate and assess on our own. We need to right the ship of power once again
so that the people are the captain and the president is the one following their
commands, rather than the other way around.
Our President and our elected officials are our crew; we cannot abdicate
our responsibility in telling him how we want to sail the ship. As of now, we have a mutiny afoot, and we
have to wrest control back before we lose it altogether. An ignorant populace breeds fear, contempt,
and hostility; an educated one recognizes that gain for each is a gain for all
and seeks to uplift and help one another for the greater good. A “leader” who is more interested in
maintaining power than in his constituents will do all in his power to foster
the former and not the latter.
WHAT DO WE DO NOW?
“Ignoring isn’t the same as ignorance,
you have to work at it.”—Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale
“There’s a big difference between being numb to something and
being immune to it.”
― Michael Monroe, Afterlife
“Nature never appeals to intelligence
until habit and instinct are useless. There is no intelligence where there is
no need of change.”—H.G. Wells, The Time Machine
It’s tough
in today’s world to be disaffected, to be ignorant, but some people still work
at it. We simply can’t afford it. Being numb to what is going on doesn’t mean
we won’t feel the consequences, and they are likely to get much, much worse
before they get better. It’s now several
months in, and some are weary of the continued calls to contact your
representatives, or to get out for the mid-year elections, or to continue to
write and speak your mind. They’re
counting on that. They want us to become
accustomed to the new normal, to sink into acceptance. We’ve done that for too long, and that stakes
are far too high. The battle will be won
with perseverance and persistence, not force.
“We can't be confined to one way of
thinking, and that terrifies our leaders. It means we can't be controlled. And
it means that no matter what they do, we will always cause trouble for them.”
–Veronica Roth, Divergent
“You cannot buy the revolution. You
cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your
spirit, or it is nowhere.”—Ursula K. LeGuin, The Dispossessed
“There has to be beauty left in the world,
Julia," said Kiyu. "Otherwise we have nothing.”
― Erica Lindquist, Whisperworld
We
can’t be controlled. We can’t wait for
the revolution and the resistance to come from somewhere else. It has to begin with us; it must continue
with us. That, after all, is the beauty left
in the world—us. The individual. The humanity in us all.
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