Grab her by the Pussy

Right-wing Extremism, True Believer, Trump, Trumpism

 

By and large all conservative right-wing radio broadcasters jumped on the Trump bandwagon. One of the few exceptions was Wisconsin broadcaster Charley Sykes. Sykes soon realized that he was no longer welcome in the Republican party or among Trumpsters and resigned his position as a radio host and wrote a book called, How the Right Lost its Mind.

By then Trump’s dominance of the Republican party and the right-wing was complete. As Justin Ling said on his CBC podcast The Flame Throwers, “Trump owned the Republican party. He owned right-wing radio. He owned the narrative. And it seemed like nothing could change that.”

There was an astonishing moment during the 2016 US presidential campaign where it seemed like Trump was done. This was the incident where a recording was released where Trump was bragging that he could sexually assault women and they would do nothing about it.  “You can grab them by the pussy, if you’re a star they let you do it.”

How possibly could a campaign survive that? It seemed impossible. I remember when I heard the story about this incident and I said to myself, with some comfort, at least now his campaign is over. He is dead. But I was wrong. I was dead wrong. Trump was not dead; he was alive and well.

He once claimed that he could stand in Times Square and shoot someone and he would not lose support. His followers were that staunch. And, incredibly, he was right. His fans were deliriously loyal.

 Similar incidents, each seeming to be campaign killers, occurred repeatedly, and yet Trump’s campaign lived on. He mocked handicapped people. He mocked veterans. He mocked John McCain for being a prisoner of war, and his supporters stayed by his side. They must have thought he was like Jesus who could do no wrong. It was nothing less than theological devotion by his fans.

 As Justin Ling said,

“Each time something like this would happen, Trump would be counted out by the mainstream media, but each time all of his friends on right-wing radio found ways to rationalize his behavior, and rally the base to his cause and his campaign.”

 

The only thing that made sense, was the presumption on the part of Trump’s supporters that if the mainstream media said something about Trump it must be false! When liberals cried, the Trumpsters were joyful.  That seems to be continuing. For example, his convictions for felony offences have not significantly dimmed his support. Perhaps they have even amplified it.

 Like a god, Trump can do nothing wrong as far as his supporters are concerned.

 

Never Trumpers

Right-wing Extremism, Trump, Trumpism

 

In 2016, during the Republican primaries, many members of the Republican establishment had no use for Donald Trump. Many considered him a liberal!  Others considered him a clown. Few considered him a serious candidate for the Republican nomination. Many of them said they would never support Trump. They were the ‘Never Trumpers.’

Mark Levine was one of these. This is what he said, early in the campaign: “These bully, dirty tricks, Nixonian tactics they are only going to backfire. So, count me as ‘Never Trump.’ At some point you gotta stand up to it. I do not like bullies, and I never have. So, I will not be voting for Donald Trump, and he can thank Roger Stone.” That not only sounded good, but Levine was right. Trump was a bully and did not deserve votes, but soon, like so many others Levine choked on his words and supported Trump.

Too many of the never Trumpers were never brave. This was particularly true of those politicians who believed they needed to show support for Trump because they thought they needed his support to win their primary. They caved at the first opportunity.

To know the future you must know the past

civilization, Freedom to Read, Truth Seeking

 

Both libraries and archives have an inevitable leaning towards the future. They preserve the past for the benefit of the future. As Richard Ovenden said,

“Every collection, every library is actually about the future. Every archival institution is about the future. How can we know where we are going unless we know where we are from. How can we chart a path to the future without thinking of where we are from?”

 

We need the knowledge of the past in order to look at the past societies with fresh eyes and new ideas and to inspire the future and protect the path to the best future.

As John Stuart Mill so wisely told us, we cannot hold a valid opinion unless we allow it to be challenged. We must permit all ideas to be challenged. Even our most sacred beliefs must be challenged or those beliefs will wither. This is for our benefit and for the benefit of the future. We must consider  and reflect on opposing views. We must not hide them in closets. We do our children no favours if we protect them from contrary views. Their own views will become stunted and weak without challenge. Coddling them from uncomfortable views as so many conservatives, like those in Florida, now want to do, is doing a great disservice to the next generation. Few things help us challenge our own views better than reading the strongest of the challenges to those views.

Where better to go for that than a library?

 

A Champion for Freedom

civilization, Freedom to Read, Truth Seeking

 

John Stuart Mill was the author of On Liberty and a champion, perhaps the greatest champion, of freedom of thought and expression. Richard Ovenden in his lecture at the Toronto Library took note of one of his famous ideas: namely John Stuart Mill’s insistence in On Liberty, that only through the diversity of opinion is there in the existing state of human intellect the chance of fair play to all sides of the truth.”  Often this seems hopelessly optimistic in this day of increasing polarization and decreasing tolerance for a diversity of ideas, but it is still the main hope for lovers of freedom of thought and expression.  Frankly, I have found no better idea.

Societies have a hard time achieving this goal. How can libraries then do it too? Richard Ovenden thought they could be up to that task. He pointed out that it is a fundamental aspect of their role. Libraries work in collaboration with each other and work within networks with each other. They have allies in their momentous task. They can do it! Often if you need to read something they don’t have in their own collection they are quite willing to help you to find it elsewhere and bring it to you.

Libraries take very seriously their job of serving their communities, Ovenden said. And I know this from my own decade of serving on a local library board. The people their love to serve the needs of their reading public. And they are darn good at it.

As Ovenden said,

“What gives us pleasure at the end of the day is thinking that they have helped someone solve a problem or better understanding of some issue. That task is entirely possible and we need to support those institutions and the individuals who work in them and give them the freedom to do that job.”

And they are darn good at it. They can do it if we just give them a chance. And it is one of the most important jobs there is.

 

 

Are Libraries asked to do too much?

civilization, Freedom to Read

 

Around the world libraries are being asked to do things or provide services in many new and interesting ways. In some places they act as shelters for the homeless. In places they act as food banks. In some they dispense health services and professional advice. They act as knowledge resources, community spaces. In Indigenous terms they are like knowledge keepers.  They are expected to reflect the diversity of opinion and to be welcoming of one and all. We also expect them to be, as Nahlah Ayed said, “bastions of free expression.” And then, as if that is not enough, we ask them to uphold democracy for us. All of this leads to the important question: are we asking too much of libraries?

Richard Ovenden had a good answer to this question.  He said, “Society is asking too much of libraries if we don’t resource them adequately to do all of those tasks.”

Libraries that were able to help many a person to make life choices are increasingly under pressure to do less, or even disappear entirely. That is most unfortunate. Particularly when libraries are faced with immense challenges of dealing with an analogue past and digital present such libraries may be unable to do all that is demanded of them. Ovenden said,

“Libraries have become aware of their role as social infrastructure. The have been incredibly adaptive. They’ve been innovative. They have seen how they can make a difference for their communities. We should entrust them to do those things their communities need the most and resource them properly.”

Yet we always ask them to do more. And therefore we must do our part too.

 

Libraries as temples

civilization, Freedom to Read, Truth Seeking

 

 

Richard Ovenden talked about excavations in ancient communities in Iraq and Syria of which I was not aware. He said that in ancient places, librarians often worked in temples!  5,000 years ago, librarians catalogued books. They had clay tablets of course rather than paper bound books, but they worked  in temples. He said “the librarians and archivists were priests!”

 In the France during the Middle Ages, the French national archives, the Trésor des Chartre,  were located in Sainte Chapelle. Only sacred chapels or cathedrals were good enough for libraries. That is how important they were considered. The archives were considered so precious they had sacred connotations.  We have lost some of that reverence  for libraries, for sure since then. Perhaps this is a sign of the decay of civilization in fact.

In the digital age we are surrounded by facts or false facts but libraries are hardly considered precious or sacred. Those days are largely gone. What a shame.

Nowadays, knowledge is abundant but still, we must never forget, fragile and can be easily disrupted disturbed or even maligned. We see that all around us.

It wasn’t long ago that the idea of librarians spending time on going through long lists of books for potential banning or “correction,” as happened in Florida, would have been considered ludicrous. Today it is rather a sad reality. Sometimes, I think, we live in the age of barbarians, or at best, the age of fools.

We have taken ancient liberties—such as the freedom to read or the freedom to think—for granted. To see them besmirched as they have been is deeply disturbing. Is there any chance that there can be galvanizing forces to buck up our resistance to tyranny? Or are these incidents or premonitions of our civilizational decline?

Libraries are truly treasures whether national, regional or local. We must learn again to understand that.

Librarians as Warriors

Freedom to Read, Truth Seeking

 

It is a sad fact that librarians have become warriors. Soldiers for truth. They do that just by the fact of their job which is to preserve and disseminate knowledge.  But libraries have been under attack for quite some time. That forces librarians into battle and bravely and happily librarians have usually been up to the task. They are frequently courageous  and competent foot soldiers.

 

Some libraries in Florida were recently closed so that staff can go through their entire stock of books and materials to ensure that they are complying with the new laws. They need to make sure that they comply with the censorship laws brought in by Ron DeSantis and his cultural warriors of censorship. The staff have no choice. Often, they don’t want to do that, but by law they must. As a result, instead of working hard to make reading materials available to their members they are working hard to ensure the materials are not available.

Librarians have been forced to go through tens of thousands of books to make sure they are acceptable. That is a travesty of their function. Those who require it are part of a basket of deplorables to enlist a phrase with a checkered past.

As Richard Ovenden said, “The idea that libraries are engaged in serious matters for the good of society needs to be shouted out.” They are not dusty old places overseen by ancient schoolmarms. They are places of battle, The battle for civilization. Nothing less.

And the Lies Became Truth

Death of Truth, Freedom to Read, Truth Seeking

 

As Richard Ovenden the Oxford Librarian said in his CBC recorded lecture at the Toronto Public Library:

 

“Libraries and archives provide a diversity of knowledge and ideas. They make it possible to face the present and the future through deepening an understanding of the past. The ideas we encounter, the histories that we understand, and the culture that we engage with help us to make us who we are. But we need this pool of ideas and information to be constantly refreshed if we are to be creative and innovative. This is true not just in the creative fields of art, music, and literature, but more generally. The success of the democracy we enjoy today lies in the free circulation of ideas in order to pour light into the questioning spirit of our democratic processes. This means in part the freedom of the press, but citizens need access to all shades of opinion. Libraries acquire all kinds of content and this resource allows our views to be challenged and for citizens to inform themselves following John Stuart Mill’s insistence in On Liberty, that only through the diversity of opinion is there in the existing state of human intellect the chance of fair play to all sides of the truth.”

 

And we must remember that this is what it is all about—the unreserved pursuit of the truth. In no other way, can we do that. We need the liberty of which Mill spoke to pursue the truth in any meaningful manner. Nothing else will do. We must have that liberty or else the truth will forever be enshrouded and us blinded from it. The task of making the conditions necessary to obtain the truth is a noble task. And, I dare say, a holy task. We must not shrink from it and we must not concede any limitations on our ability and capacity to do that task with all of our power. That may sound overheated. So be it. I think it is true.

 

We should always remember the immortal words of George Orwell from his incredible book 1984: “The past was erased. The erasure was forgotten. The lie became truth.”

Alex Jones: never met a conspiracy theory he didn’t like

Conspiracy Theories, Death of Truth, Right-wing Extremism, Trump

 

Unlike the ‘Never Trumpers,’ Alex Jones was an early supporter and a long-standing supporter of Donald Trump. He was all in for Trump. Bombast loves Bombast. Bullshitters love bullshitters. Trump and Jones fawned over each other in a dubious mutual admiration. Society.

In the past Jones had said Democrats and Republicans were all part of the same wicked game. He said, “the politics of George Bush and Obama are identical.” He had no use for either of them. But like so many, Jones saw something different in Trump. And he liked what he saw. Jones said that he was a populist and believe that is what Trump was too. He was not wrong about that.

Alex Jones was on the extremes. As Justin Ling said on his CBC podcast The Flame Throwers,

“So far he has stoked fear of a new world order shadow government, accused George Bush of plotting 9/11, claimed that the Sandy Hook elementary shooting was a false flag operation, claimed that  secret Satanic cults made up of government leaders who sacrificed children, vaccines caused autism, there was a Jewish cult running the world, that billionaire Bill Gates was trying to eliminate minority populations, accused Glenn Beck of being a CIA operative, said the government was adding estrogen to the tap water to feminize the population, accused George Soros of organizing a chemical attack in Syria to discredit Bashar el Assad, floated unsubstantiated claims about voter fraud, and so much more. “

 

He also believed Hillary Clinton with other prominent liberals was part of a Satanic cult to sexually molest young children in the basement of a pizza restaurant in Washington D. C. He urged his viewers to go to the Pizzeria to save the children. One of them went their armed to rescue the poor children, but he could not find any of them. He couldn’t even find a basement. You can sum up Alex Jones by saying he never met a conspiracy theory he didn’t like.

 

At the time Jones was a pariah among right-wing radio hosts, but that did not stop Trump from embracing him. When Jones interviewed Trump on his show Trump said, “Great to be with you.” He also claimed Jones was very well respected.

 

The future president of the United States was pleased to be with and be interviewed by Alex Jones the man who believed, or at least claimed to believe that those first graders at Sandy Hook school were child actors who were a part of a hoax perpetrated to help government officials take away guns from extreme right! Later the parents of those children sued Jones into bankruptcy for spreading such lies.

 

Jones swooned over Trump. As Ling said, “In Jones view Trump was going into the belly of the beast, the murderous swamp beast that is the deep state.”

And this is what the next president of the United States said about this extreme bullshitter:

“Your reputation is amazing, and I will not let you down. You will be very, very impressed, I hope. And I think we’ll be speaking a lot and in a year or two years, give me time to run things, but you’ll be saying, but a year into office you’ll remember this interview and you’ll be saying ‘Wow, he said he would do and he did a great job. You’ll be very proud of our country.”

 

Watching the president of the United States fawn over one of the worst conspiracy theoriests was sickening.

 

 

 

Immigration is Key

Immigration and Refugees, Right-wing Extremism, Trump

 

Rush Limbaugh said there was one main reason Trump was leading over all other Republican presidential candidates. That issue was immigration. He was probably right. Republicans were deeply unhappy with prior Republicans like George W. Bush and then Jeb Bush who promised action and failed to deliver. They wanted action. Their resentment at immigrants, whether rational or not, was driving them to Trump. They wanted radical measures like a ban on Muslims or a ‘big beautiful wall.’ They did not want mild mannered Republican talk. They wanted action and in Trump they thought (wrongly as it turned out of course) that Trump would deliver action.

The broadcasters of right-wing radio understood this, even if the Republican establishment did not. Steve Bannon also understood this. He kept driving Trump on immigration and in the 2016 election Trump won a surprising (to many) victory.  I think immigration was the key to that win. Just like it was key to Joe Biden’s unpopularity in 2024. A lot of Americans expect their president to take firm and decisive action to control things on the border. They believe Joe Biden made a big mistake when he cut back most of Biden’s executive orders to hold back illegal immigration, or at least what they perceived to be illegal immigration. They believed this opened the floodgates to illegal immigration shortly after he took office and then did little to change things until just before the election in 2024. Kamala Harris was appointed Biden’s immigration Czar and many believed she did nothing to make things better while she was Vice-President and hold that against her.

Right or wrongly—wrongly in my view—many Americans believe Democrats have “opened the borders” and they don’t like it.  So on we will know what the American voters in 2014 think about this. Will it be enough to  crush Harris’ chances for election? Time will tell.