Today’s Coffee Break on a holiday weekend in the US is the simple recommendation that you go straight to this long essay in Front Porch Republic by W. Aaron Vandiver of Carbondale, Colorado: Trump and the Furies of Empire –– Trump, in his crude way, is forcing us to confront the false stories we have told ourselves about who we are.
Yes he is, but only for those with the critical faculties to recognize ours is not a problem of one side or the other, but of the Uniparty in charge. As a diagnosis of Trump Derangement Syndrome and the other TDS, Trump Deification Syndrome, it is difficult to imagine a better place to get a handle on our predicament. You will need a cup of coffee, or two, maybe a couple of pints of Guinness on the back porch, as Mr. Vandiver lays out where we are and how we got here. Although there may be a few minor quibbles, there is nothing new here for this community, since the very beginning.
Donald Trump is not the cause of anything, but he is the result of much. When he exits the stage, nothing will change unless the people change it. Can we? That is our only hope.
The Furies are coming for us, ready or not:
In considering Trump’s name for his Iran war — “Epic Fury” — we might recall that the Furies of Greek mythology were the relentless goddesses of vengeance who pursued and tormented those guilty of sins such as murder, anger, greed, and jealousy. They were personified curses, like ghosts of the victims, haunting the offenders, driving them mad, causing fear, paranoia, and suffering.
What if the Furies came for America? What does the karma of an entire nation look like in anthropomorphic form?
If Trump is ushering us toward some sort of critical defining moment, perhaps even an apocalypse as so many seem to believe, it’s worth remembering that the definition of an apocalypse is a revealing of previously hidden truths. If we look at President Trump through a symbolic lens, what previously hidden truths are being revealed about America? What does his particular character tell us about our collective character?
Trump, in his crude way, is forcing us to confront the false stories we have told ourselves about who we are. We like to soothe ourselves with pretty talk about “democracy,” but Trump, as he balances the world on the knife-edge of war, is compelling us — or giving us an opportunity — to grapple with an unseemly truth that has been quite obvious for a long time to anyone willing to face it: we don’t really live in a democracy. We live in an oligarchic, militaristic global empire that operates largely beyond the control of “the People” our Constitution puts in charge.
That empire, in its full global dimensions, grew out of the military-industrial complex that arose after World War Two. In the ensuing decades, the American Empire killed and ousted foreign democratic leaders around the world — and these are well-established historical facts — like Patrice Lumumba in the Congo, Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala, and Salvador Allende in Chile. Since the Second World War, the U.S. has directly overthrown over a dozen foreign governments (and initiated dozens more regime-change efforts and interventions in foreign elections), including the 1953 Iran coup, which planted the seeds for Iran’s hatred and mistrust of us, and arguably led to the current war. Through all that, the American people and their politicians carried on with their somnambulant, self-soothing rhetoric about democracy. We are bringing democracy and freedom to the world, the TV told us, and we nodded along. Then came the assassinations of JFK, RFK, and MLK; Vietnam, Nicaragua, Iraq, Afghanistan, Gaza. Still we focused on money, cars, houses, pop culture, professional sports, consumerism — the American Dream — and lulled ourselves with fanciful stories about democracy.
Here are a few links from our previous discussions here that are particularly relevant to our coming fierce fight with the Furies. This battle can be won. But only if we regain our sense of humanity and ignore the noise of the Uniparty.
The Meaning of Freedom in These United States (Nicholas Buccola)
Hayek’s Bastards and the Rise of Neoliberalism (Quinn Slobodian)
The Making of the MAGA Right (Laura K. Field)
How Will Capitalism End? Essays on a Failing System (Wolfgang Streeck)
Christopher Lasch and the Distemper of our Time: A Chronicle Foretold
Virtue Hoarders: The Case Against the Professional Managerial Class (Catherine Liu)
Hannah Arendt, Isaiah Berlin and the Tenor of Our Time (Kei Hiruta)
An Inconvenient Apocalypse (Wes Jackson of The Land Institute)
Herman Daly: The Economist for Our Time (Daly is included in the essay)
Thanks for reading! I look forward to the wisdom of the commentariat on the Furies of Empire. The items I had in mind for today’s Coffee Break can wait until next week.
On this Memorial Day Monday in the United States, let us remember what our unthinking imperialism has done to so many millions of families around the world.
