A brave new world
Jeff Bezos' order to the Washington Post not to endorse Kamala Harris, and the similar incident at the L.A. Times, if they did not indicate support for Trump, showed fear instead. These are the times we live in. I was impressed by two other little instances: President Zelinskiy of Ukraine, whom I had rather admired, saying (possibly also with some fear and trembling) "I appreciate President Trump's commitment to the 'peace through strength' approach in global affairs. This is exactly the principle that can practically bring just peace in Ukraine closer. I am hopeful that we will put it into action together." Really? Trump will let you die. Most poignant at all was an old Palestinian man in Gaza, who hoped that strong Trump, always obeyed, would bring peace. All presidents are killers (I remember vividly the first time President Obama ordered a drone strike on an individual), but there has never been a President who so overtly supported mass murder as Donald Trump.
Two visions of the future
As our movies and television illustrate, we are obsessed with Mad Max and Walking Dead dystopian visions of the future, but not as aware of the Disneyland phase which autocracies pass through on the way to wasteland. Kate Winslett's amusing, disturbing miniseries, The Regime, was a portrait of a small totalitarian state struggling to maintain Disneyland status; Brave New World is the iconic representation. I don't think the Trumpoid Object has the attention span to spend much time on Disneyland, but we will see. I have been thinking about this a lot recently because right here in East Hampton, we have a village mayor who is patently a mini-Trump, who recently "nationalized" the volunteer ambulance, haranguing and defaming faithful volunteers who had worked there for decades, calling them criminals. A few weeks ago, I went into the Village to get a sandwich, and watched workmen setting up a street fair, with tables where people could sit to watch a World Series game on a screen together. It was completely a glossy, phony event, full Disneyland. An article in the next issue of our weekly paper, which has devoted articles to exposing the mayor and op eds criticizing him, was a glossy "human interest" piece praising the Mayor's efforts at community-building. I thought: what community could a mini-Trump build? Anyone sitting at his table would be quivering with fear that he would call them a criminal too.
Nothing works
I have started keeping a journal of everyday household items which don't work properly, like the Amazon music player which abruptly stops sometimes before finishing a three minute song, and never makes it through an entire work-out or walk. I compare it to the analogue CD player which performed faithfully as long as it had new batteries.
Here is an interesting one. I have owned a Honda CRV for about ten years. The rear hatch, unlike every prior similar vehicle I owned, opens only with with the fob, not with the key itself (Honda did not place an analogue lock in the hatch). But the fob astonishingly stops working when the temperature drops below fifty degrees. I got on the Internet and (of course) found that this is a problem many other CRV owners have had for ten years or so; that dealers and mechanics claim to be baffled by it; that Honda has never officially acknowledged it (though they did send out at least one "non-canonical" alert about it to dealers). I found a semi-official CRV owners forum where the resident "expert", who (as a completely contemporary phenomenon) was also a troll, told a user complaining about their CRV hatch to stop whining, reminiscent of the astonishing community of support-trolls I discovered years ago at Craigslist. The most useful advice I found was to warm the hatch with a hair dryer for half an hour or so on a cold day, before trying to open it. Seriously.
Optimism
Interesting sequence here, Nothing Works, then Optimism
. On election day, I made an early morning trip to the supermarket to buy milk and some other things. The weather was beautiful, and by the time I got home, I was in a great mood, and brimming with self-confidence. I wondered if that might harbinger that Harris would win the election, but of course it didn't. I then Flashed on (spoiler alert) the ending of Philp Dick's Man in the High Castle: the characters, surviving a dystopian America dominated by the Japanese and Nazi victors of World War II, cast the I Ching and it informs them that they, the defeated, actually won the war. Good day, and good luck.