Free Form Friday: Bizarro World Politics
Free Form Friday is my weekly non-Bowie post. Come back tomorrow for more David Bowie…
—-
I’m not the first to compare the current state of politics to Bizarro World. Bizarro is a supervillain in the Superman universe from the planet Htrae (“Earth” spelled backward). On Htrae, Bizarro lives in a society where everything operates in reverse—perfection is frowned upon, and imperfection is the standard. Much as the planet as a whole is the opposite of Earth, Bizzaro is the opposite of Superman, lacking intelligence, moral sense, and clarity. His backward behavior often causes chaos, and though he may see himself as a hero, his actions typically result in harm.
OK, you see where I’m going.
I was reminded of Bizzaro in the aftermath of Kamala Harris’s interview on Fox News with Bret Baier. Now, out of the gates I’m going to admit that I didn’t watch the entire interview. The clips I saw portended such a vapid, superficial exercise in trying to get the one person who stands between American freedom and tyranny that I saw no benefit in subjecting myself to the entire thing. I know how I’m going to vote.
What was really interesting came after. Pro-Harris commentary declared that she not only did well, but performed so masterfully as to just about embarrass Baier and all of Fox News. Her appearance, surely, converted some Fox voters. Many pro-Harris outlets were very sure of this. However, I suspect what they were watching was actually Xof Swen, not Fox News.
The Trump-leaning commentary I came across, including a clip from Fox itself, reached the exact opposite conclusion about Harris. Baier “schooled” the Vice President, exposing her as a phony. Rather than convert Fox voters, the exercise reinforced to them why they should vote for Trump.
How can this be? The Bizzaro World thesis is one explanation. I don’t really have a better one.
But less by way of explanation than observation, the reaction of Harris on Fox is emblematic of how America finds itself at the precipice of empowering a fascist party, not just in the presidency but the Senate, possibly the House and so on. Those of us appalled by Trump see him, as, you know, objective reality reveals him to be: a deranged, fascistic reprobate with no interest or ability to govern. His mismanagement of the pandemic cost untold thousands of lives, crashed the economy and unleashed heretofore subterranean societal impulses much as the changing climate has unleashed long-frozen artifacts from the melting permafrost. He’s a gangster, a stooge of the world’s villains (especially Putin) and of course, a convicted criminal. You know the score. Even if the purpose of this post was to list out all of Trump’s objectively heinous attributes, there really isn’t enough space (or time for me to list them all out).
Yet over at Htrae Trump is seen as a virtuous hero of Democracy. Rather than the doom of western civilization, he’s seen as its Savior (with all the religious implications that implies). Even among people I personally know who support Trump, I have never heard an argument in his favor that accepts a common set of assumptions about who he is, what he did or what he wants to do. I never hear, “Yes, he’s a crook who fomented a failed coup to overthrow our Democracy, but (whatever possible reason can compensate for that).
There is no argument. There can be no argument. An argument can only take place from the starting point of shared assumptions — an agreement that up is indeed up rather than down.
How did we get here?
I don’t know. I’m not going to end this with some satisfying insight. The best I can do is propose the type of explanation that might have played out in a comic book: half our country has been taken over by body snatchers? We experienced an incursion in the time-space continuum plunging our reality into its mirror opposite? Dr. Doom finally got his hypno-illusion ray up and running and has enthralled half the country. Or maybe, an evil Russian villain joined forces with a comically wealthy tech mogul who controls satellites and communications technology but wants to control more to foment discord through the use of a Manchurian candidate? I don’t know, something fanciful like that.
Like I said, I have no better explanation.