Deerslayers

In an excellent account of why the establishment narrative on fascism is backwards, Lance Morrow -- apparently a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center -- gives also an account of what he takes to be the place where Trump comes apart from his supporters. Of the latter, he says: 
As for Mr. Trump’s followers, they belong to the Church of American Nostalgia. They are Norman Rockwellians, or Eisenhowerites. They regard themselves, not without reason, as the last sane Americans. You might think of them as American masculinity in exile; like James Fenimore Cooper’s Natty Bumppo, living in the forest has made their manners rough.
One rarely encounters literary references to Fenimore Cooper these days. American manhood is hardly 'in exile' in the forest, though; as the reference suggests, the forest was its natal ground. American masculinity historically eats lots of venison, as indeed I do myself. (It's not clear that Fenimore Cooper was actually all that familiar with it, as Mark Twain suggested in a rather scathing review of the Leatherstocking Tales.)

He goes on: 
If there are fascists in America these days, they are apt to be found among the tribes of the left. They are Mr. Biden and his people (including the lion’s share of the media), whose opinions have, since Jan. 6, 2021, hardened into absolute faith that any party or political belief system except their own is illegitimate—impermissible, inhuman, monstrous and (a nice touch) a threat to democracy. The evolution of their overprivileged emotions—their sentimentality gone fanatic—has led them, in 2022, to embrace Mussolini’s formula: “All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.” Or against the party. (People forget, if they ever knew it, that both Hitler and Mussolini began as socialists). The state and the Democratic Party must speak and act as one, suppressing all dissent.

Yes, I suppose, on all three counts: Trump is doing something quite different from what most Americans who support him are doing; what those latter Americans are doing is aligned with the foundations and traditions of America in a sane and deeper way than almost anything else going on right now; and the left is embracing the all-inclusive, all-directing state. 

Indeed, if he misses a beat it's in failing to add that the corporations -- Facebook and Twitter especially -- are also being brought into alignment with the state's will to suppress its opponents (in light of last week's speech, one might even say 'its enemies').

The headline suggests that the regular meetings between the administration and social media were designed to suppress COVID misinformation, which might possibly be defended as necessary for public health. Yet if you read even briefly you realize that something much more sinister was going on.

Federal officials in the Biden administration secretly conspired and communicated with social media companies to censor and suppress Americans' private speech. This is revealed in a new lawsuit brought in a joint effort by The New Civil Liberties Alliance, the Attorney General of Missouri, and the Attorney General of Louisiana against the President of the United States. The suit is brought under the first amendment right to freedom of speech. The lawsuit seeks to identify among other things "all meetings with any Social-Media Platform relating to Content Modulation and/or Misinformation."

The discovery shows that there was "A recurring meeting usually entitled USG – Industry meeting, which has generally had a monthly cadence, and is between government agencies and private industry. Government participants have included CISA’s Election Security and Resilience team, DHS’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis, the FBI’s foreign influence task force, the Justice Department’s national security division, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Industry participants have included Google, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Microsoft, Verizon Media, Pinterest, LinkedIn and the Wikimedia Foundation. The topics discussed include, but are not limited to: information sharing around elections risk...

Emphasis mine. Those aren't public health officials, they're security state operatives. They aren't aiming at public health, either: they're aiming at influencing -- at least -- elections. 

They aimed to do so via censorship and information operations targeting the United States citizenry. The first of these is unconstitutional even for private companies if they are doing so at government instruction. The second is illegal, at least for the CIA and the US military's professional information operations community. The presence of the Director of National Intelligence's people at these meetings raises big red flags.

Deer season is coming up. It's a good chance to practice some of those exiled masculine virtues, such as riflery, living off the land, and food preservation. You can tan a deer hide -- 'a buck' being the nickname for a dollar because for so long the one was approximately valued at the other -- using the brain mixed with just a little water. There is just enough brain in every mammal to tan its own hide. Lots of little things like that will be rediscovered by those who are so inclined.

14 comments:

sykes.1 said...

Cooper is without a doubt the worst English stylist in print. But his Leatherstocking stories are well crafted and interesting.

Grim said...

Only among the writers of antique America. There are many worse being published today!

Aggie said...

I think Donald Trump is proving to be a very hand Boogey Man to hide behind as the leftist progressives consolidate their grip on the institutions, public and private. If he were to go away tomorrow, their biggest problem would be finding a new diversionary screen so that the populace doesn't tweak to what they're up to.

Assistant Village Idiot said...

You are correct to note that those are not public health institutions, but covid is what they are hiding behind. Security agencies have a legitimate interest in elections. Yet this sleight-of-hand is worrisome in and of itself in discerning what their actions are. They have gradually convinced themselves that they are quite obviously the good guys and their opponents politically the bad 'uns. This type of surety is one of the clearest signs that a group has stopped thinking. Decent people are always nagged by the worry that they are doing the same thing they are complaining about, in some disguised form. They have lost this ability.

They won't read Cooper, but I imagine the cynicism of John LeCarre would do them some good.

J Melcher said...

Fred Turner argues that America IS a frontier. But the vision of the frontier has evolved.

The Cooper portrayal of the American frontier -- deeply densely darkly dangerously forested -- has been supplanted by visions of a frontier of wide open spaces -- dusty trails across high plains dotted with small precious watering holes-- passed on to my millennial kids via the video game "Oregon Trail". Daniel Boone and Davy Crocket blazed the trail (the latter, overlapping some) for figures like Wyatt Earp, Wild Bill Hickok, and Sam Houston.

Miners in the Yukon, whalers in the Arctic, and Buck Rogers in the 25th century ... Fred Turner still has a point.

David Foster said...

I thought the article was good overall, but didn't like this part:

"Mr. Trump, the canniest showman in the White House since Franklin D. Roosevelt, introduced into 21st-century politics what seemed to be new idioms of hatred, a freestyle candor of the id. Doing so, he provoked his enemies—and finally Mr. Biden—to respond in kind: a big mistake."

Unhinged hatred of political opponents, and hostility toward free speech, was brewing on the American Left long before Trump came on the scene. And I don't think Trump has been a promulgator of hatred...anger, yes, such as anger at dishonest media and the government Swamp...but not hatred. I just don't see it.

Grim said...

I can see those objections, Mr. Foster: we all remember the left-borne hatred of Reagan and especially GWB -- the latter of whom has not repaid the faith shown to him by the American right in kind, I can't help but notice.

The other part that he is missing, which follows from that aside, is that the parties don't line up with left/right distinctions as easily as people say. Trump has mostly been a Democrat during his long life. His sister, a sitting Federal judge, was appointed by Bill Clinton, no doubt in thanks for Trumpist political donations to his cause. Of course we remember that Trump was an invited guest at the Clinton family wedding. Trump ran as a Republican almost by accident, as it happened to be where in his analysis he was mostly like to win (as indeed he did). GWB was born into Republican politics, but that too was almost accidental: he was a cocaine-snorting playboy in his youth.

The 'coming apart' of the Deerslayer types from either party's community of power is longstanding. Whether Reagan Democrats or Trump voters, they might be Democrat or Republican, but they are in neither case in danger of being made into figures of power, wealth, nor prominence.

Tom said...

Tangentially, if anyone has any good venison recipes, I would much appreciate them. If anyone could recommend a good game cookbook, that would also be quite appreciated.

Thos. said...

"any good venison recipes ... "

If I have meat that is going to be gamey, I'll cook it in an Indian-style curry. Usually any kind of recipe for lamb curry will work well with venison or elk.
This one is a particular favorite: https://route79.com/food/rogan-josh.htm

Thos. said...

I should note that, when I started making that recipe, I had small children who would not eat onions (a texture thing, mostly), so I pureed the onions instead of chopping them. I still do it that way because I think the sauce is nicer. Plus, you only need one onion that way.

Grim said...

Oh yeah. I’ll do a venison post tomorrow.

David Foster said...

Robert Avrech, an Emmy-award-winning screenwriter who is one of the few 'out' conservatives (and NRA members) in Hollywood, defined Trump succinctly as "a quirky man who loves America." I think this is true. I also think Trump did not give a lot of thought to politics and political philosophy until fairly recently (except for the political involvement necessary to keep his business going), but since campaigning and actually assuming the office, he has solidified some pretty strong ideas about what needs to be done...in other words, his policy views at this point are not just opportunistic, but are seriously held beliefs.

Tom said...

Thanks, Thos. I look forward to it, Grim.

Grim said...

I'll be sure to add Thos. contribution to the post today.