Is this the end?

Louis Raemaekers – To your health, civilization, 1916

The subversion of expectations is an interesting tool, used by artists of all types. Like most tools, however, it is frequently used in ways that lack nuance and have the grace and subtlety of a wrecking ball, which is rather ironic, since a wrecking ball actually requires precision and discipline to use effectively.

In the illustration above, artist Louis Raemaekers highlights the fact that the bloodshed of World War I was only possible due to the heights achieved by our civilization.

Raemaekers died in 1956, but closely followed Germany in the 1920’s and 1930’s, until he fled to the US, shortly before World War II. He lived to see the Nuremberg trials, so he was certainly aware of the extent to which our capacity for destruction had grown during his lifetime.

It’s easy to become discouraged by what we see, but we’re not yet at the level of societal collapse caused by the Rage Virus, illustrated so well in the film 28 Days Later.

28 Days Later

As I have discussed before, we can all choose an action to take, but we live in a world where most of our actions do not have immediate consequences. In earlier periods, the “wrong” decision often meant immediate death, but we now face an extraordinary number of decisions, the overwhelming majority of which do not have immediate life-or-death consequences.

However, many of these decisions do have effects which can lead to life-or-death consequences in the future. Sadly, humans are not good at predicting those consequences -

But wait! As an example, people DID predict the implications of burning fossil fuels, and scientists have been studying the global climate and warning about the dangers for decades. And, we’ve been discussing the pollution and environmental harms of the Industrial Revolution since (at least) the 19^th century.

Still, most of us are not good at predicting the longer-term consequences of our actions. While our society has produced incredible breakthroughs, and we have assembled an unfathomably large (and growing) collection of knowledge, our brains are really only capable of truly understanding a tiny fraction of that knowledge. That’s why we specialize, that’s why we have to trust, and that’s how we have built our civilization.

So, as we look at the increasingly authoritarian actions of Trump, RFK Jr, Stephen Miller, Kristi Noem, Tom Homan, and dozens of others within the current US administration/regime, one thing that stands out is a profound lack of empathy.

While I consider the current administration and the Republican party to be hopelessly compromised, I will not directly comment on whether the individuals involved suffer from Antisocial personality disorder, Narcissistic personality disorder, psychopathy, or any of a list of other conditions. Even so, I find the apparent extreme focus on “otherization” and dehumanizing of anyone who does not agree with them quite disturbing. It appears to be a key mechanism they use to control their followers.

It seems clear that the cruelty is the point, as illustrated by the “deportation porn”, showing the victims of ICE “raids” as if they were on some form of reality TV, the violently aggressive rhetoric, and the deliberate lack of action when “mistakes” are made. A good example of this is the “deportation” (maybe better to say “kidnapping, imprisonment, and involuntary transport”?) of Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

Many supporters of Trump appear to be quite happy with the misery of “others”, and seem to think that it’s “accidental” when they themselves are affected by the actions of Trump and his lackeys. (As most people are empathetic by nature, I think this apparently-total lack of empathy is very difficult to understand, and leads people to search for other answers, since they feel that such cruelty cannot be deliberate.)

Actually, I consider the Trump supporters to be the ultimate victims of Trump and the Republican party, since they are being betrayed by the ones they appear to trust most. (To be clear, I am not referring to the “leaders” of the movement, whom, for the most part, I consider pure grifters and criminals.)

Large swathes of the US public have been fed a near-constant diet of disinformation and propaganda for decades. I found a fascinating piece on Fourteen Propaganda Techniques Fox “News” Uses to Brainwash Americans, which is quite a good summary. The most interesting part is that it was written in 2011, but could easily have been written a decade earlier, or later. Whole generations have been raised in an environment full of propaganda and disinformation, along with a profound lack of empathy, leading to people consistently and loyally voting against their own best interests.

Who benefits most from the social programs being cut? Who loses most when the Department of Education is gutted? Who loses most from tariffs?

Generally, the biggest losers are ones voting for the ones enacting these changes.

Who could possibly vote for these people? Are they monsters with a total lack of empathy?

No.

For the most part, they are people who have been lied to for much of their lives, and fed a constant diet of bigotry and hate. They are victims of the criminals, grifters, and liars who benefit from their money and their votes, and will say almost anything to get those votes.

Take, as a single example of the inconsistency and hypocrisy of the Republican party, the fact that education has been clearly demonstrated to reduce crime. Obviously, Trump and the Republicans (who are constantly pretending to support “law and order”) would want to place someone highly qualified in charge of the Department of Education and would want to support (or even increase) its funding, right?

Instead, they fought against free school meals for children, placed the wholly-unqualified Linda McMahon in charge, and are working to shut down the department.

Inconsistent and hypocritical, as is much of their “platform”.

There are those (far too high a number) who have fully bought into the mindset, and others who have actually contributed to the criminality. I see the situation as analogous to children who are victims of violence (or worse) becoming abusers in adulthood. They need to be brought to justice, but we need to recognize that there is a cycle of abuse which can be broken.

And try not to gleefully celebrate their “stupidity” when things go wrong. I know it’s hard. There can be great satisfaction in watching “bad” people suffer for their actions, but try to focus on the truly bad people.

I think there is a need for extensive denazification of the US, including a US version of the Nuremberg trials, where Trump, Musk, RFK Jr, Miller, and others that joined in their crimes should be tried and punished.

For the rest, we need to empathize, but also recognize that we cannot “save” all of them. We are very likely to be surrounded by another generation of “broken” people, like those Germans after World War II, described by Arnold Schwarzenegger:

"Growing up, I was surrounded by broken men drinking away their guilt over their participation in the most evil regime in history," Schwarzenegger said. "Not all of them were rabid anti-Semites or Nazis. Many just went along, step by step, down the road. They were the people next door," and they got violently drunk because "they were in physical pain because of the shrapnel in their bodies and in emotional pain from what they saw or did. It all started with lies, and lies, and lies, and intolerance."

Quoted by Peter Weber, The Week US

Cheers!