SEPTEMBER 1, 2020 – Here we are, deep into 2020, stuck in a cinema watching an old black and white movie. Though we’ve seen the film before, we still fall for all the devices a Hitchcock throws at us. And then there’s the music—never underestimate the soundtrack’s effect on our fears.
I’m speaking of Trump and the Refascists. But I could just as well be referring to . . . the fear-mongers who led us into interminable wars based on fears of a global caliphate; the war hawks who stoked fear of Soviet and Chinese hegemony to justify the sacrifice of blood and treasure in Vietnam; the rightwingers who pushed for “law and order” in the face of anti-war protests and race riots in the late ’60s; Joe McCarthy, who used the threat of Communism to wreck the careers of countless . . . true-blooded Americans.
Fear-mongering is the productive tool of every politician in every age, but it is a powerful weapon in the hands of authoritarians. Only resistance by strong democratic institutions—led by a free press and fair and open electoral process—can authoritarianism be defeated.
In every instance of fear-mongering, the “movie” is black and white—no spectra of color, nuance, or complexity. Inject a bunch of “Yeah, buts,” explanations, or ambiguities and you dilute the fear and its leverage in the minds of voters.
This time around, however, the same old black and white movie is much scarier. The popcorn—now “free” at the door—is laced with addictive and hallucinatory salt. All the “EXIT” signs have been removed. The volume has been cranked up to ear-shattering decibels, but there is no escape from the continuous replay of the horror film: our soles—and our souls—are stuck fast to the chewing gum on the theatre floor, planted there by Qanon, GoebbelsNews, Russian bots, and rightwing radio.
In the good ol’ days of authoritarian cinema, the draw was less adhesive. Joe McCarthy’s venomous Senate hearings were not widely viewed on TV. He had to settle mostly for silent captions in the daily newspaper. When color television became as widespread as urban violence in Detroit, Newark, and Los Angeles and anti-war demonstrations across the country, coverage was limited to clips during a 30-minute segment on the network evening news. By the time of 9/11 and the Patriot Act, visual imagery was far more ubiquitous, but “social media” was yet to explode.
Now we are prisoners of “screen addiction”—and of the vise-grip of floor gum. All that’s real is deemed unreal by presidential propaganda sessions in the guise of “news conferences.” All that’s false is dictated as true by presidential tweet.
“Tweet!” I say to McCarthy, Nixon, Agnew, Erlichmann, Haldemann, Rumsfeld and Cheney . . . and might I say, Goebbels and Hitler, Beria and Stalin. Oh, how easy you and your kind have it today!
Now, my fellow democrats (small-d), is the time to stand up and shout “Fire!” in the theatre—not to exceed the limit of the First Amendment but to save America.
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© 2020 by Eric Nilsson
