Celebration of fear is a warning sign

I finished the novel Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, published in 2002. Yeah, I’m just now getting around to buying and reading it. It is narrated by Calliope Stephanides. She is born female. At puberty her voice deepens a bit, her chest remains flat, and her period never comes. Her parents finally take her to a top doctor who diagnoses her as hermaphrodite, what we now call intersex. While outwardly female her insides are male and pumping out male hormones which increasingly show up on the face and physique. After learning this Callie decides to live as Cal. Cal’s grandparents came from q region south of Istanbul that was ethnically Greek and is now party of Turkey. They fled when the region was captured by Turkish troops in 1922. And they came to Detroit. So part of the story was about how immigrants handled Detroit. We see the grandfather work at Ford’s vast Rouge Plant, running run during Prohibition, and the father try to protect his property during the 1967 racial uprising. When dealing with intersex infants most doctors in through the 1970s counseled parents saying they didn’t want to raise a freak, so let’s snip off the small male bits and you can raise the child as a daughter. But when the children became older and gender identity came into play some of them felt the doctors had done that snipping in error. Callie’s doctor suggested exactly that, though to a 14-year-old instead of an infant. Though Callie had been comfortable living as a girl she had pretty intense crush with another girl. Living as a boy seemed just as comfortable (gender identity can be a strange thing) and made dating easier. I wondered if the story would deal with gender identity (it eventually did) and it got me to thinking about other stories where a person changes gender and the author doesn’t deal with gender identity. In one of the many novels of the Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold (I enjoyed and recommend all 16 of them). In one of them a minor character leaves conservative Barrayar as female and returns from Beta Colony as male. I think the switch was made because of inheritance issues. But was the character’s gender identity comfortable with now being male? It wasn’t discussed. There is also The Breeds of Man by F. M. Busby, published in 1988. It is about a genetic tweak that produces a batch of children who at puberty become cyclically intersex, swapping genders every month. Though the novel talks about how they choose to present to the world, it doesn’t touch on whether they feel better as one sex or the other. Is their gender identity nonbinary? The book doesn’t say. Back to Middlesex. I enjoyed all 529 pages, but was annoyed with a couple things. First, Cal’s older brother is always referred to as Chapter Eleven, as if that was his name. Why not give him a proper name? Also, the girl Callie has an intense crush on is always referred to as the Obscure Object or the Object. We’re told this is to protect her name. But this is fiction, why does a name need to be protected? Second, we get the story of Cal’s grandparents and parents to explain how he ended up with the genes that caused his condition. While interesting the grandparents’ story was 30% of the book and the parents’ story another 10%. Yet, Cal’s story ends at age 15 with just brief descriptions of life after that. I would have preferred to read less about the ancestors and more about Cal adjusting to male life in high school, in college, and as an adult – Callie to Cal was why I bought the book. My Sunday movie was Esteros, a 2016 Spanish language film from Argentina. Matias and Jerónimo are best buds in their early teens. Their parents are good friends and the two families spend time at the farm near the estuaries owned by Jero’s parents. The two boys are all over each other in the way of boys and together have a sexual awakening. Shortly after that Matu’s father accepts a job in Brazil. Many years later Matu returns to the town of his early childhood to attend Carnival with his girlfriend. Of course, he encounters Jeró. After a couple days Jeró, who wears a rainbow wristband, invites Matu out to the farm. And the story goes where expected. When I chose this movie to watch this evening I hadn’t thought about the similarities to last Sunday’s movie Of an Age, though I certainly noticed once this week’s story got going. Both stories are about a couple that are together when young and then meet again many years later. However, there are differences. First, in this week’s story we first see them as boys rather than young men. Second, this story cuts between the two times rather than presenting them sequentially. Third, this story is more about the later time while last week’s show was about the earlier time. I enjoyed it, though again there isn’t a great deal of story. Last Wednesday the nasty guy was awarded by CNN with what they called a Town Hall, where Kaitlan Collins asked him questions and he lied about everything as he usually does. The audience cheered. Kerry Eleveld of Daily Kos discussed the fallout and included a few clips (which I didn’t watch). Eleveld wrote:

As a journalistic exercise, the live town hall was a disaster—a lesson in how not to cover Trump moving forward. But as a public service announcement to the nation, the event surely succeeded in alerting all freedom-loving defenders of democracy to what we are up against in 2024. It also likely helped Trump solidify his position in the GOP pack, according to anti-Trumper Sarah Longwell, publisher of The Bulwark and host of The Focus Group podcast. "He probably didn't do himself favors with any swing voters," Longwell told NPR of the event, "but he continues to cement his place as the frontrunner in the GOP primary." The audible members of the crowd and their reactions, Longwell said, very closely track with what two-time Trump voters tell her in the focus groups she conducts. "It's a reminder that a lot of these voters in the Republican primaries are still very much on board with the former president despite all his baggage," she explained. No matter what Trump has done—or how much he repulses the anti-MAGA majority— "they still have this deep relationship with him."

Eleveld also discussed the various points the nasty guy made during the show, ending with his claim that he was personally responsible for making the overturn of abortion rights happen. Eleveld concluded:

That's great for Trump in the Republican primary, but a killer for him in the general election. It's a pattern we have witnessed over and over again since Trump took control of the Republican Party: All the bravado and cruelty and incompetence that so endears him to the MAGA base is absolutely toxic in a general election. In that sense, the CNN town hall was a wellspring of Democratic opportunity.

Greg Dworkin, in a pundit roundup for Kos, had a few quotes about the CNN show. One is from Patricia Murphy of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The early reviews of the event weren’t pretty. Even CNN’s own media critic, Oliver Darcy said it was “hard to see how America was served by the spectacle of lies that aired on CNN Wednesday evening.” But I disagree. America was served by seeing, live on television, the ongoing devotion of Trump’s biggest supporters, no matter what he says, what he’s done, or what he continues to lie about.

Dworkin also quoted Tara Palmeri of Puck, who noted the TV audience saw the cheering by the ardent supporters in the studio. From that it was easy to assume the studio was full of ardent supporters. But the TV audience didn’t see how many in the studio were quietly disgusted or bewildered by the nasty guy’s performance. Adam Zyglis of the Buffalo News tweeted a cartoon of the nasty guy with pants on fire with a MAGA guy and a CNN exec toasting marshmallows over the flames. The day before that CNN Town Hall a jury awarded E. Jean Carroll $5 million in damages from the nasty guy sexually attacking her and then defaming her. There many are articles about the details – such as he was liable, not guilty – guilt wasn’t the point of this trial. This particular post, by Walter Einenkel of Kos, includes some reactions on Twitter. Einenkel reported on book banning in Hamilton County, Tennessee. Caroline Mickey, a librarian at one of the schools suggested a couple books for a Mother’s Day lesson to include children who don’t have mothers. One is about a male bear that adopts a gaggle of goslings, the other about a girl with two dads. Everyone has someone who loves them as a mother does. Jessica Perkins of Moms for Liberty (more accurately named Moms Against Liberty), who does not have a child at the school, went to the school board and the lesson was canceled. Perkins said she was concerned about what children were being exposed to, but this was not bullying. Einenkel pulled off statements from the Moms for Liberty website that shows her statements are indeed bullying. On hearing the Mother’s Day lesson was canceled irate parents went to a school board meeting to scold the members for folding and calling them cowards. If you let the bullies win they keep bullying. Will Saletan, writing on the Bulwark, researched Senator Lindsay Graham’s relationship with the nasty guy. He wanted to understand how authoritarianism poisoned democracy and how people rationalize what they do. He came up with 20 points, briefly discussed, from what he learned. Here are my summaries of some of them. Celebration of fear is a warning sign. Some people will vote for an authoritarian because they want to break institutions and have a leader rule with an iron fist. That draws politicians to embrace or refuse to oppose such a leader. An authoritarian doesn’t need to gain all power all at once. He can start by capturing a party. Politicians may believe they can collaborate with an authoritarian. But they will be corrupted and they will be subservient. They may believe by earning his trust they can steer him away from his worst impulses. Politicians will find reasons not to remove an authoritarian, but if he gets away with one abuse of power he’ll move on to another. Every time he does so his actions are normalized. Once an authoritarian wins an election he is proclaimed as the people’s choice and that is a reason for dismissing his conduct. When his crimes are exposed his base will assume the true villains are out to get him. Demonization of the opposition lowers the moral threshold for supporting the leader. Civil servants are easily smeared and purged. The leader doesn’t need to endorse violence, he only needs to identify a problem and his followers take it from there. Then he can say any punishment of him will drive them to violence again. Ethnic or religious persecution and its bigotry can be excused as a method, not a motive, just a politician using a division in society. Democracy’s culture of compromise is a weakness. As the leader imposes his will they find reasons to accommodate him. The last time I wrote about the invasion of Ukraine I noted Kos staff saying the timing of the counteroffensive was up to Ukraine. In a post from last Thursday Mark Sumner of Kos wrote that President Zelenskyy was making the same point. By waiting he feels they can assure victory while minimizing casualties. The next day Sumner reported that while that counteroffensive hasn’t started, Russia is already in a panic. Part of that is Ukraine is making small gains in several places along the front and Russia can’t tell if this small strikes or part of a coordinated push. Today Kos of Kos reviewed the situation in Bakhmut. The Wagner group, the paramilitary forces that have been attacking the city for about eight months, are just a few blocks from taking over the whole city. Yet, Ukrainian forces are pushing back regular Russian forces to the north and south of the city, recovering in a day what Russia took weeks or months to capture. Kos explained why that is a description of Russia’s war effort: Russia doesn’t have one army, it has several. They are rivals, they work at cross-purposes, and refuse to communicate. There is no central command. Wagner wants credit for taking Bakhmut. But that doesn’t give army general Shoigu a reason to hold the flanks north and south of the city. So if Ukraine can surround Bakhmut that defeats Wagner, removing Shoigu’s annoyance. What matters is symbolism, not accomplishment. Wagner may win Bakhmut and get praise from Putin. But because Bakhmut has so little military importance Wagner doesn’t have to hold Bakhmut. Besides, Wagner doesn’t do defense. Just for fun, a Calvin and Hobbes comic strip for Mother’s Day.