Do you think there was a massive voter fraud in the 2020 election and Trump actually won? And election officials and secretaries of state and judges are all in on the plot? Well, if you do, you’re in a cult.

…

Do you think the Covid pandemic was basically a hoax? And that the lock-downs were imposed to destroy the economy and defeat Trump? Do you think we’re being told to wear masks just to get us to comply with arbitrary limits on our freedom? Well, then you’re in a cult.

— Sam Harris

I particularly liked the phrasing and apostrophe within this passage from Sam Harris’ podcast “#229 - A Few Thoughts for a New Year.” The passage provided me a useful conceptual tool for understanding what could compel a number of citizens to perform a storming of Comet Ping Pong Pizza the US Capitol: they were in a cult.

The enormity of the offense of raiding a US federal building (knowing the punishment doing so would occasion) proves the depth of the cult’s programming e.g. “the leader is so powerful those awful punishments won’t come due to me!”.

As a cult-motivated action:

• “We will invade the temple of the corrupted government, the Leader will depose them and we, the faithful, will be delivered from judgement and oppression”

fits comfortably with a list of cult reasoning:

• “The world is ending on the leader’s predicted date” (William Miller’s October 22, 1844 doomsday)
• The plague can be dispelled by the leader’s incantation" (Kenneth Copeland’s “Wind of God” spell to end Covid)
• Mass-suicide (and murder of any waverers) is the only way to escape our persecution" (Jonestown)
• Mass-suicide is the only way to connect with Higher Beings" (Heaven’s Gate)

The storming reasoning above shares the same literary template as Christ’s storming of the temple. For many in this cult, no doubt, there was probably confirmation in that echo.

From Bloomberg CityLab:

Since 1990, U.S. pickup trucks have added almost 1,300 pounds on average. Some of the biggest vehicles on the market now weigh almost 7,000 pounds — or about three Honda Civics. These vehicles have a voracious appetite for space, one that’s increasingly irreconcilable with the way cities (and garages, and parking lots) are built.

But a picture’s worth 1,000 words:

“The goal of modern truck grilles,” wrote Jalopnik’s Jason Torchinsky in 2018, “seems to be… about creating a massive, brutal face of rage and intimidation.”

Imagine the splat that kid would make meeting that grille. Would the driver even hear it?

Recently, while traveling the interior of Texas, my friend Mike texted a photo of these T-shirts to me. To me this was a postcard from hyperreality: a different place with different rules of meaning that, seductively, was masquerading as reality.

Socialism Distancing? Socialism Distancing? What is that? It looks like word salad generated by a CAPTCHA gone crazy. “Socialism,” noun; “Distancing,” noun. The more I thought about it, the more perplexed I became. The noun of “distancing” should certainly be modified by an adjective.

So, the shirt designer’s intention, rendered grammatical, was to say “social(ist) distancing.” Holding that to be true, that doesn’t seem to communicate much either. What is signified by “socialist distancing” instead of:

• “capitalist distancing”
• “supply-side distancing”
• “voodoo distancing”
• “Keynsian distancing”
• “Maoist distancing”

I humbly submit that no one, including the designer or the proprietor of the establishment could tell me what the sign “socialist distancing” means vis-à-vis Merriam Webster’s definition:

socialism: noun: any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods

“Socialism.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/socialism. Accessed 8 Apr. 2021.

This word, “socialism,” as used on this T-Shirt was a message in a bottle from hyperreality that had drifted into our world. To understand what’s afoot here, I leaned on my recollection of postmodern philosophy, French Style. And for this we will turn to that enfant terrible, Jean Baudrillard and his challenging work Simulacra and Simulation.

The pandemic has challenged all of us, and especially your truly, in the department of maintaining equanimity, magnanimity, and loving-kindness for my fellow humans. Recently, I’ve been wrestling with anger toward the “vaccine-hesitant” and thought I’d write about it.

Recently, I discovered a Reddit community called /r/HermanCainAward. A “Herman Cain Award” is named after the Trump-supporting businessman Herman Cain who, shortly after attending a Trump rally in 2020, contracted COVID-19, and then died of it.