Free Form Friday: Reality At Stake

I recently read John Vaillant’s book, Fire Weather, which is about both climate change in general and one of its catastrophic impacts— massive wildfires. The book is horrifying, illustrating the point by an extended description of the 2016 Ft. McMurray fire that just about destroyed a mid-sized Canadian City and burned a swath of the Boreal forest larger than some states, in the process creating fire-related phenomena never before experienced by modern humans. After the extended, terrifying story about this one, huge fire, Vaillant gets into an explanation about the history of climate science against the backdrop of the history of humanity’s contribution to accelerated climate change.

Vaillant wrestles with some of the challenges people have with even grasping climate change including the so-called “Lucretius Problem”— the false assumption that the worst thing that can happen is as bad as the worst thing that’s ever happened. Related is the idea that we have trouble grasping the reality of things that we don’t personally see or experience. It was easier to take collective action to curtail smog and acid rain than greenhouse gasses, which are kind of out of sight and out of mind. But we— we Americans at least, seem to be more willing to accept some things that we can’t see than others.

That brings me to the extraordinary January 6th headline from the online version of The New York Times— “Clashing over January 6, Trump and Biden Show Reality is at Stake in 2024.” Reality is at stake.

There are so many examples of fantastic propositions put forth by Donald Trump and his supporters that to highlight some undermines the power and absurdity of those not mentioned. From the Big Lie to the tenants of QAnnon, Trumpism is based not simply on falsities, but on the defiance of reality. Nothing is real, nothing is true. This is related to the movement’s concept of law— law is not an objective thing that exists outside the definition given to it by those empowered to enforce or carry it out. In other words, the law is what those in power say it is. The law doesn’t restrain the powerful— its a weapon for them to use in order to stay in power, or get more power.

The idea is fundamental to MAGA— reality is, or at least can be, what I want it to be. Donald Trump not only won the election, but he is not old and fat. Antifa stormed the Capitol on January 6th. 2020 was a great year. Immigrants are poisoning the blood of the nation. Science is just another religion that we can choose to believe or not, and it’s not my religion so it’s blasphemy. Climate Change is a hoax. Vaccines are a health threat, not COVID. Applied on the individual level, I can get rich quick, eat as much as I want, smoke and drink with no ill health effects, and protect myself against criminals and tyranny because I have my own assault weapon. Other human beings exist to bend to my will.

I am reminded of another book I read all the way back in 2008, The Age of American Unreason by Susan Jacoby. It argued the conditions that made the United States ripe for Trump’s type of appeal (without calling it that) were already firmly entrenched. Jacoby’s basic point that that the culture had veered away from valuing critical thought and learning (about history, the scientific method, civics, etc.), and thus the citizenry was underprepared for life in a democracy. At one point she speculated that it would take courage for a candidate to honestly name the problem, “that we, as a people, have become too lazy to learn what we need to know to make sound public decisions.” That a book like that could be published at the time without so much as mentioning the person of Donald Trump suggests that the problem is bigger than Trump— it extends to the millions for whom Trump could possibly be an acceptable choice.

All this leads me to think that 2024 will hinge on what invisible things voters find to be more persuasive. Not everyone who supports Trump is an adherent of MAGA or QAnnon, but both movements (to the extent that there is a distinction) have the qualities of a religion. Indeed, many religious fundamentalists find common cause with Trump. Those who belive that angels and demons are literally battling it out in the course of day-to-day life, that conspiracy theories about rigged voting machines and “Democrat” child trafficking schemes and that sooner or later Mexico is gonna get around to paying for that wall are up against those who recognize that greenhouse gasses are causing climate change at a rate that makes real estate purchases in Miami (and a lot of other places) an enormously risky proposition, and that disease is real and can be combatted by modern medical science like vaccinations as well as best practices like, you know, mask wearing.

What do you think is real? Carbon Dioxide or Jewish space lasers?

Sadly, how voters answer that question will determine the future. The future of reality.