It has only been a week [since my Disengagement Letter after the election], but I am back to following the news, on a much less intensive and compulsive basis than before, because it is no longer just empty mooings from the commentariat: things are starting to happen. For example, the appointment of Steve Bannon, a notorious anti-Semite and racist pamphleteer, as “Chief Strategist and Senior Counselor” to the President, with an office presumably in Trump’s underwear. For example, Trump’s decision to allow his children to keep operating his ramshackle business empire on his behalf, with its international interests in Russia and elsewhere, and to demand security clearances for his children (and son-in-law). For example, the grotesque Keystone-Koppery going on now in Trump’s “transition team.”
With stuff like that happening, I am unable to keep my eyes entirely averted as Fascism and kleptocracy come to the United States. My week off was good for my soul, and I am still watching all this as if it were happening in Ruritania rather than here. But to those of you who were kind enough to respect my quarantine: thanks, but I have opened my eyes again.
One thing I saw when I opened them was Masha Gessen, “Autocracy: Some Rules for Survival,” in the New York Review at http://tinyurl.com/gtrm8wl. Another was Jeremy Venook, “What Could Stop President Trump From Putting His Portfolio First?” in the Atlantic at http://tinyurl.com/haq6o7y. Both are worth reading if you can stand it, and if you can’t, then you are better off than I am, and please disregard.
November 16, 2016
It Has Only Been a Week …
It has only been a week [since my Disengagement Letter after the election], but I am back to following the news, on a much less intensive and compulsive basis than before, because it is no longer just empty mooings from the commentariat: things are starting to happen. For example, the appointment of Steve Bannon, a notorious anti-Semite and racist pamphleteer, as “Chief Strategist and Senior Counselor” to the President, with an office presumably in Trump’s underwear. For example, Trump’s decision to allow his children to keep operating his ramshackle business empire on his behalf, with its international interests in Russia and elsewhere, and to demand security clearances for his children (and son-in-law). For example, the grotesque Keystone-Koppery going on now in Trump’s “transition team.”
With stuff like that happening, I am unable to keep my eyes entirely averted as Fascism and kleptocracy come to the United States. My week off was good for my soul, and I am still watching all this as if it were happening in Ruritania rather than here. But to those of you who were kind enough to respect my quarantine: thanks, but I have opened my eyes again.
One thing I saw when I opened them was Masha Gessen, “Autocracy: Some Rules for Survival,” in the New York Review at http://tinyurl.com/gtrm8wl. Another was Jeremy Venook, “What Could Stop President Trump From Putting His Portfolio First?” in the Atlantic at http://tinyurl.com/haq6o7y. Both are worth reading if you can stand it, and if you can’t, then you are better off than I am, and please disregard.
November 16, 2016