The Mesmerization of the Body Politic
I will attempt to fan the embers of hope.
Franz Mesmer, a pseudoscientist of the late 18th century, coined the term animal magnetism and inadvertently stumbled upon hypnotism making him just famous enough to have a verb named for him—mesmerize. He believed animal magnetism was like a ‘fluid’ which all objects—animate and inanimate—were imbued with and that he happened to have in abundance.
Consequently, he claimed to be able to cure an astounding array of maladies.
Hysteria, in particular. He was—after all—a ladies’ man. (If you have never seen the 2011 movie, Hysteria, I highly recommend it. It stars Maggie Gyllenhaal—and that, alone, is reason enough to watch it.)
Franz Mesmer would have made a healthy living in the modern world. He would have fit right in with the innumerable con artists who thrive in the late stages of capitalism. Or ‘disaster capitalism’—as Naomi Klein prefers calling it.
What medical success Mesmer was credited with was due to the power of suggestion. In other words, his success was wildly inconsistent. The old idiom even a broken clock is right twice a day could be applied.
The Former Guy will probably have a verb named for him as well. I’ll construct a sentence for you:
“In high school I ate a questionable taco from a well known fast food franchise and wound up spending all night on the porcelain throne with the trumps.”
The ignominy of being synonymous with diarrhea may be the closest TFG ever gets to suffering any consequences for being a turd of a president.
But before I go all negative, and before y’all get bored and move on to Wordle or the Heard/Depp trial—speaking of turds, let me make sure you’re aware of some legitimately ground-breaking wins for common sense, inclusiveness, America and diversity. Because every ember of hope needs to be fanned.
We now have the FIRST female Vice President who is also Black.
We have the FIRST Black female Supreme Court Justice.
We have the FIRST Black LGBTQ+ White House Press Secretary.
We have the FIRST Black female to serve on the Federal Reserve Board.
We have the FIRST Black Secretary of Defense.
We have the FIRST African American to chair the Council of Economic Advisers.
We have the FIRST Black male to lead the Environmental Protection Agency.
Mine is not an exhaustive list. The Biden Administration has been very busy—or, at least, as busy as Republican jackasses (why aren’t Republicans the donkeys?) will allow.
I also noticed—as I was making my very limited social media rounds—two young black women with FIRSTS. According to Scholarship Region, Zindzi Thompson has become the youngest Black female graduate of medicine in the United States of America. She started college at the age of 13!
In addition, at 19 years old, Hayley Taylor Schlitz is paving the way for young, Black aspiring lawyers as she prepares to become the youngest law school graduate in the nation. She even has her own website!
See? The news out there is not all doom and gloom.
For instance, there are hints some conservative voters are fed up with the prevarications and provocations of the proverbially pissed politicians thinly disguised as sanctimonious assholes. I’m thinking of the carbon copies of the original nitwit, Sarah Palin (and reimagined in the ‘roid rager in Georgia and the gun-humper in Colorado), that are springing up nationwide. It’s possible the Right is pushing candidates forward who are too far off the politically palatable spectrum. Today’s primaries should give us some minor insight.
I want to reassure, and remind, you that the news is skewed toward spectacle.
We are drawn to train wrecks, car crashes and idiots who try to kill themselves for publicity’s sake. Why else would the current ongoing celebrity trial linger longer and engage more viewers than any other topic? More than mass shootings, outlawing abortion (or mandating government pregnancies) and insurrection. Even when the insurrection includes a Supreme Court Justice and his wife. I’m not sure if it’s true or not but I read the Depp/Heard trial has now gone on longer than any trial involving a death sentence.
The news goes on all day, and it can be repetitive.
I listen to NPR in the morning and, if I am up too early and I keep it tuned to NPR, the negative news goes around and comes around and comes around again. By noon I’m absolutely certain the world has gone to hell in a hand basket. Not even Terri Gross’ engaging interviews with engaging, beautiful, interesting people can snap me out of a negative news-induced slump.
These are the obstacles arrayed against hope.
Our short attention spans. Our short attention spans drawn toward the fantastical. Our short attention spans hammered over and over with what’s not right in the world.
And a lot has not been right in the world lately.
Ukraine remains aflame though the Russian army has been pushed east near it’s own borders by determined Ukrainian resistors.
Out of season fires remain ablaze across the Southwest accompanied by an historic drought.
According to a leaked memo, the Supreme Court is poised to overturn more than a half century precedent when it rules on the foundational argument of Roe vs Wade (abortion rights) in a case originating out of Mississippi.
A young man—mesmerized by dubious online ‘rabbit holes’, radicalized by voices who are paid to stir the pot—opened fire (with a military-grade weapon, of course) in a shopping center in Buffalo killing ten Black shoppers. His weapon reportedly had the “N” word written on it and a slogan “SYGAOWN” which stands for “stop your genocide against our white nations”—huh?.
His intent was clear. Like the shooter in Christchurch, New Zealand, he streamed the carnage as it happened, and he left behind a manifesto built upon previous mass murderers manifestoes.
It was a horrific modern-day massacre because the premeditation was crystal clear.
This hatred has been with us for centuries. We all know it not to be new. But the previous administration opened the doors and allowed the hatred a seat at the table. The previous administration welcomed the toxicity as a blunt instrument to be wielded against civil discourse. The previous administration offered hatred positions in government.
Remember the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville? Remember how open the racists were about their identities? Remember how an American president could not bring himself to denounce people screaming at the top of their lungs that “Jews will not replace us!”? Remember how ‘cancel culture’ did it’s thing to some of the main hate-filled participants of the rally, but the hate metastasized because the previous administration had zero desire to put the genie back into the bottle? Or even acknowledge there was a genie? Or a bottle?
Remember the shit-eating grin on David Duke’s face the next day?
I do. Like it was yesterday.
Asocial media is here to stay. The mesmerization of the body politic will continue. The thousands of database points they have on you will continue to be utilized in nefarious, unhealthy ways. Persuadable people will be persuaded to vote against their best interests. I have good friends who fell under the sway of “authoritarianism good, socialism bad”-thinking that I know I have no chance of ever piercing their Fox News, conservative milieu bubble.
But I’m going to fan an ember of hope.
100 million eligible voters did not vote in the 2020 presidential election. Even though the 2020 election was a record turnout, 100 million of us did not cast a vote one way or the other. We only need a small percentage of these voters to vote in order to make a difference.
I’ll bet you and I know someone who did not vote.
It’s imperative we get them to vote—in the midterms no less. No presidents on the ballot. Just down ballot races for everything from dog catchers to county commissioners to governors.
We need to give the Biden Administration time to truly turn the tide against hate. Fascism was fashionable during the early parts of the last century—until it wasn’t.
Let’s see if we can make it unfashionable again without having to go to war over it.
Get out the non-voters to vote.
I’ve started this great music app called SimplyGuitar. I’m loving it. I can share it with four “family” members, and I’m happy to do so if you’re interested. Message me.
Also, here is great tee-shirt site with slogans like “Let’s Go Darwin” and “Just Say Gay” and “I’d rather be a Zelensky Democrat than a Putin Republican”. Twitter bots and trolls have been harassing the site’s owner because of her dim view of reactionaries.
Seems like a good site to support.
It looks like she’s from Dallas, Texas.
Thanks for reading and sharing! I hope everyone is well and steering clear of monkeypox. (If it’s not one thing, it’s another.)
Until next time! - JLM
“If more Guns made us safer, we’d be the Safest country in the world”…
Abbott tweeted to ramp up gun purchases to beat out CA to lead the nation. Ludicrous!
I’ve long wished someone would launch an online name/definition contest for tfg like Dan Savage did for Santorum (frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex). Although the rump part of the name aligns with diarrhea, it just feels less than is truly deserved.