morning in america

and an end to the demoralization of 1000 cuts

there has been a palpable shift in the zeitgeist of late and outside of the true blue bastions and battalions, a funny thing has happened: hope has gotten loose. steps have spring in them. smiles come easier.

it seems to have emerged all at once like a phase change far in excess of any underlying progress or repair.

so what gives?

to understand this, i think one needs to understand a couple of facts:

the final form of propaganda is not misinformation.

the final form of propaganda is humiliation.

carpet bombing one with words can only go so far.

far more powerful than simple propaganda is propagandistic praxis. actually making you do things, be inconvenienced, browbeaten, cowed: this is far more intense humiliation.

they come for you in the death by little things. settled technology like dishwashers, washing machines, sinks, toilets, showers, lightbulbs, straws: it all gets proscribed and broken so each of what were once simple, functional experiences now become friction. the dishes are not clean, the shower sucks, paper straws melt in your mouth, all in service of literally nothing.

you know it’s nothing. you know it’s pointless. but you have to pretend like it matters. you have to comply.

it’s obvious, blatant, and deliberate.

when it comes to saving the world, the aggregate effect of these interventions and intrusions is indistinguishable from zero. the same state that tells you you cannot use enough water to make the toilet flush gives 300 zillion acre feet for damn near free to a handful of farmers so they can grow almonds, rice, and cotton (some of the most water intensive crops around) on arid lands. your mask did not protect you or anyone else. it was just chafe. it was designed to be chafe. you saw politicians faking it. they let you see. and?

they’re crushing your spirit, your sense of sanity.

so what? what are you going to do?

it just keeps going. they have discussed some truly crazy ideas like breath locks on all cars to measure BAC and governors at 80 MPH so you may never drive faster. they are acculturating you to control, submission, and loss. school eschews racist topics like “math” in favor of 3 hours a day of “gay race communism.” if you point out that a dude in a dress is getting a “lady boner” in the shower with your daughter after swim practice, you get escorted out of the school board meeting.

THAT my friends, is where the humiliation goes.

it crushes and eliminates the idea that you CAN fight.

you’re fully demoralized.

pretty soon FEMA is putting up tren de aragua in $700/night hotels and then paying whole families $700 for the loss of their home in maui or north carolina.

and nothing happens.

and souls sink lower.

why bother?

it’s a grind. it’s awful. it engenders the utmost of despair and demoralization because the crap faucet is ever running and every day you’re going to have to take some new putrid drink from it on and on, world without end.

barack obama’s “hope” message was one of the most egregious examples of orwellian doublespeak in american history. it was so false, so cynical, and so predatory as to put even “the affordable care act” in the shade.

it was not hope. it was despair. it was rage. it was discord and tension. it was cultivated conflict sold as plurality, racism as inclusion. it set back 50 years of positive progress and set us against one another and the drip feed of demoralization locked society in place. had hilary won, it would have intensified.

the 3 year respite was a real problem for this plan. but year 4, the covid calamity, kicked it into overdrive. that was an end game move.

lock down and mask up was soul crushing authoritarian flex. it was alienation and isolation. it broke everything, economies, families, mental health.

it was the greatest demoralization in western history and they went right for the most vulnerable.

it was followed by puddinhead joe, a clearly senile and gormless leader we were all asked to pretend was not (and many were not pretending).

the economy sputtered, freedom was under attack, abnormality was normalized, and you never got to take a breath.

no wonder there has been such malaise.

what glimmer of better could be seen?

cackling kamala and weird timmy walz?

the whole thing is cumulative.

the effect on the human mental state from believing that tomorrow is going to be a little bit worse than today and the day after tomorrow a bit worse still is profound.

it’s how you lose hope and stop fighting.

it’s how you become submissive and cowed, a captured and conquered populace.

this is “ society suppression 101” and every authoritarian and marxist knows it. they do it because it works.

but it also works in reverse.

the effects of believing that tomorrow is going to be a little bit better than today are also profound, a virtuous cycle replacing the vicious. the world turns, the sun comes out, a new day rises and our spirits and lives rise with it.

this is the phase change we’re feeling.

this is not about everything being fixed.

it’s about belief that tomorrow will be better and the day after tomorrow better still.

this is the genius of trump and DOGE and musk’s endless daily drumbeat of “we are fighting, we are winning, here it comes and tomorrow there will be more.”

it’s the genius of keeping promises and doing what you said you would.

hard.

the zeitgeist flipped phase.

the mood inverted.

it’s 1000 cuts being undone, 1000 impositions ceasing and the endless din of intrusion and insult falling quiet and nature healing.

it’s an end to demoralization.

and it feels good.

it feels like springtime.

once more, it is morning in america, a morning of little things and big things, a morning of moods and voices, a return to respect and a return to optimism and faith in better days.

a return to hope.

LFG.