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General News    H2'ed 7/22/24

Masha Gessen on the Seeds of This Political Disaster (REVIEW ESSAY)

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Duluth, Minnesota (OpEdNews) July 22, 2024: Things have been fast-moving in American politics recently.

In my short OEN article "Some Reflections of President Joe Biden's Aging" (dated July 13, 2024), I discussed President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump a bit:

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However, several hours after I posted it, twenty-year-old Thomas Crooks attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump at an outdoor political rally in Pennsylvania. Fortunately, Trump was only wounded. But the shooter killed one bystander and wounded two others before he was killed by a Secret Service sniper. I used the modify feat at OEN to add these points to my article.

On July 15, former President Trump named Senator J. D. Vance of Ohio (born in 1984) as his running mate in the November 2024 presidential election.

On July 21, 2024, President Joe Biden dramatically bowed out of the November 2024 presidential election - and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for the Democratic Party's presidential candidate in the November 2024 election.

On August 19, 2024, the Democratic National Convention will begin in Chicago. It remains to be seen if Vice President Harris will be selected as the Democratic Party's presidential candidate in the November 2024 presidential election.

Now, in the meantime, Masha Gessen (born in 1967), who holds dual citizenship in Russia and the United States, published the thought-provoking op-ed titled "The Seeds of This Political Disaster Were Sown Decades Ago" (dated July 20, 2024) in the New York Times:

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In it, Gessen reflects on authoritarianism. After reviewing certain recent events, she says, "Biden is right: Trump poses an existential threat to democracy."

Subsequently, she says, "The Republican [campaign's] story is one of constant danger, eternal heartbreak, looming catastrophe."

"Autocrats and aspiring autocrats, whatever their political ordientation, have been telling this story for a long time. They say that the country is on the verge of catastrophe and that only one person - the great leader - can save it. They use this rhetorical strategy because it works. That is, it works in times when a critical number of people are feeling insecure, precarious, frightened, as many Americans clearly are."

"[W]e do live in an era of mass displacement, of what Hannah Arendt described as 'homelessness on an unprecedented scale, rootlessness to an unprecedented depth.' She was writing about preconditions for totalitarianism in the 20th century."

Subsequently, Gessen claims that we are not living "in a low-information environment, but in a low-trust environment."

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Thomas James Farrell is professor emeritus of writing studies at the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD). He started teaching at UMD in Fall 1987, and he retired from UMD at the end of May 2009. He was born in 1944. He holds three degrees from Saint Louis University (SLU): B.A. in English, 1966; M.A.(T) in English 1968; Ph.D.in higher education, 1974. On May 16, 1969, the editors of the SLU student newspaper named him Man of the Year, an honor customarily conferred on an administrator or a faculty member, not on a graduate student -- nor on a woman up to that time. He is the proud author of the book (more...)
 

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