The Self-Congratulation Is A Little Tiresome

Seeing a lot of self-congratulation from people abt Trump's third term INTENTIONAL DISTRACTION from all the things that can only be understood as the groundwork for permanent MAGAt rule.

What do you think the EO on elections is, if not a bid for permanent MAGAt rule?

Trump's super power is managing attention, both always retaining & it refocusing it from places where it should  be.

I remain mystified how this came up--don't rule out epic incompetence from Welker. But we're not talking the threats to democracy that are immediate, ones that can & must be fought.

The first reply to that post is: “Welker is awful.” Way to focus attention on what matters.

But it proves my point: what does “attention” matter? It’s hardly Trump’s “superpower.” He’s whining now (and not for the first time) that the Signals scandal is only the “fake news” trying to distract from the most successful 100 days in history (that’s what he’s paying attention to). Which is not exactly making it go away. If anything, it’s breaking Trump’s shield of invulnerability.

Attention is not a superpower, either. Trump may think his EO on elections is a new, MAGA VRA, but aside from a few broad federal requirements, voting even for federal elections is a state matter. Yes, I can see a few states, like Texas, which chafed under the federal oversight of the VRA, happily dancing to Trump’s tune. But the majority are going to challenge it in court; and win. The Roberts Court didn’t like the VRA. They’re going to like Trump’s effort at one-man legislation even less. (I know; Trump is going to defy court orders and the Supremes are going to set fire to the Constitution for him, and finally the Cassandras of the apocalypse will be vindicated. Feh.) And what good will my attention do? 

I’ve been writing my senators and federal representative about Social Security. Only one of them has responded, and it was a pretty empty thing. Still, if my drop is what could be a part of an ocean of public opinion, I may contribute to change. But paying attention right now? Prating on the internet, condemning Kristen Welker, writing blog posts to see who reads them? Is that really necessary? Don’t be ridiculous. My attention is neither a superpower nor a magical power, and it’s akin to Trump’s narcissism to even imagine that it is.

I just watched Netflix’s brief documentary on Forrest Fenn, the man who buried a chest full of gold and jewelry at the base of a tree in Yosemite and wrote a very bad poem leaving very obscure directions to it. After 10 years the chest was found, but the other people searching for it didn’t believe it, were convinced the “discovery” was a hoax meant to end the search (because people died in the search, looking in all the wrong places in all the worst ways. One poor man was arrested for breaking into Fenn’s house. He was trying desperately to provide for his family, and convinced the poem had led him there.). Their obsessions were carried out on the internet (of course); not because it has changed us, but because it has given us a more public forum for private gossip. It has made us think we are “paying attention.” But to what? Our own desire to be right? Our own desire to find the treasure? 

Trump is paying attention. He’s paying attention to polls, he’s paying attention to headlines, he’s paying attention to criticism. He’s not paying attention to the fires in South Carolina. He’s not paying attention to the spreading measles epidemic. He’s not paying attention to what the people he appointed are actually doing. He’s not even paying attention to how little information he’s receiving. Funnily enough, according to town halls across the country, the people actually are. And they don’t like what they’re seeing. And they aren’t just chattering with each other on social media.

Huh. Imagine that.

Attention springs and comprehensiveness and memory flow." W. Wordsworth Prelude Book 7.

O Lord, I haven’t read Willie since graduate school. That year I was a T.A., and we all had tiny offices in a suite in the English building. There was nothing better to do between classes so we hung out there all day, entertaining each other. It was the time of typewriters (computers were room sized things accessible only to Computer Science majors, and only such seniors could approach the VDT’s, as they were known). A friend and I started posting quotes from Willie typed on index cards. By “posting” I mean the physical act of attaching them to our office doors. (We could actually close the doors on our closets with students in conference. Nobody suspected improprieties would occur (you could have heard it anyway). It was a more innocent time.). Our favorite was: “O blank confusion!”

We were easily entertained. Did I mention it was a simpler time? In some ways technology has not been an improvement.

Ah…thanks for that memory.