Month: August 2022

A vision of the Trumpian hellscape


The posthumous execution of Oliver Cromwell, 1661

My old friend Jonathan Rauch has an excellent piece in the Atlantic today, “We Don’t Have to Speculate About Trump’s Next Term: The former president and his allies have explained their plans quite clearly.” This piece is a must-read. I agree with everything Jonathan says except for one thing, which I describe below.

To me, it is incomprehensibly stupid that the Republican Party and its Trumpists believe that they can create some sort of right-wing, white-people, Christian nationalist utopia. That’s absurd. Given the power, what they actually would create is an American hellscape in which turmoil would escalate until Trump was removed from the scene, permanently. Trumpists imagined that their attack on the U.S. Capitol was some sort of popular uprising of the people, aimed at overturning tyranny. It was no such thing. It was a pathetic, tin-hat, squalid imitation of the real thing, led by and executed by the worst kind of fools, a beer-hall putsch fantasy. For an example of the real thing, take a look at photos of Sri Lankans storming their presidential palace to take down a corrupt family dynasty. The American people would not for long put up with Donald Trump as king.

I sent an email to Jonathan about his Atlantic piece:

Great piece in the Atlantic. I disagree on only one point. I don’t believe that the public would ever accept authoritarianism. I’m not sure that Trumpian authoritarianism could even creep, given that we know from the start who he is and what he is up to. Having long ago imagined the worst and having watched reality turn out twice as bad as what I imagined, I’ve also tried to imagine how we would resist. The coasts, starting in California, simply would not put up with it. I don’t think that a minority authoritarian American government could ever be anywhere close to stable. Republicans would move quickly to cut up the social safety net and enact all sorts of injustices, which would be gasoline on a fire. If elections don’t matter anymore, then MAGA types don’t matter either (or at least matter as much), and Trump’s contempt for such socially inferior creatures would start to show for those who don’t toe the line. The more cruel and showy the clampdown — which the Trumps and MAGA true believers would insist on and relish — the more determined the resistance. Inflammatory brown-shirt cruelty would be everywhere in social media, even if the media aren’t properly covering it. The far left, which is arming and which would double down and grow (see https://www.reddit.com/r/socialistra) would start to return fire. They’re weak, but as they grow I’d expect them to employ sophisticated guerrilla tactics. The intelligentsia are never powerless, especially up against a Trumpian idiocracy. The Democratic Party would have some ideas, too. I have enough faith in the American military that I think it would take Trump longer to corrupt it (meaning that they’d carry out any order that Trump gave) than we, or Trump, might think. Our NATO allies would find ways to apply pressure. Trumpian stupidity and incompetence would be a great weakness. Stability based on compliance could never be achieved, and I don’t think there is enough police power for a forced form of stability. I am confident that the people’s power to resist a tyrant is greater than a tyrant’s power to resist the law and the people. Not only are they a minority, I’d expect overall support for Trump to diminish, and quickly, not grow. I have no idea how Trump eventually would be deposed, but he would be, nor can he even live much longer. Don Jr. is far too stupid to lead the dynasty they want, though no doubt he’d love to try. They can’t shoot everybody. A couple of hundred thousand people swarming the White House, à la Sri Lanka, would be far from impossible, and that would be a start.

That said, though, I don’t think there is a snowball’s chance that Trump will return to power. I think he is legally doomed and that there is time to finish him off and lock him up (as well as some members of Congress) before January 2025, no matter where we find ourselves in January 2025. I wouldn’t be completely surprised if there are indictments ahead of the November election, since the DOJ is under increasing pressure to justify itself.

This was Jonathan’s reply:

Excellent analysis. I hope you’re right!

I think you probably are right, but we’ve already seen so much that was previously unthinkable. Nothing in my scenario is unrealistic, and most of it either already happened or was attempted and might have happened.

The most discouraging thing to me is that I now think it’s very possible that the American public–at least the necessary critical mass–would accept creeping authoritarianism of the Hungary variety, and many would welcome it. I’ve experienced a crushing crisis of confidence in the public’s understanding of and commitment to constitutional democracy. I’m quite depressed about it. See, eg…

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/08/political-extremism-fatalism-maga-threat/671234/

Your comments here, as always, are welcome.

We’re overdue for a Sir Walter Scott revival

I’ve written here in the past about how, when I can’t find newer fiction that appeals to me (often the case), I read a classic. It was back in 2013 when I read The Antiquary. Last year I read The Heart of Mid-Lothian, and earlier this year I started (but didn’t finish) Ivanhoe. I found Ivanhoe a touch boring because so much of the story is familiar, and Ivanhoe is not set in Scotland. But now, after reading Guy Mannering: Or, the Astrologer, I believe I have become addicted to Walter Scott.

When people do read Walter Scott these days, I suspect they make the wrong choices. Ivanhoe and Rob Roy are about well-mined bits of history. To my taste, Scott’s best stories are about obscure and imaginary characters, stories drawn from Scott’s delightful imagination rather than from history.

I am not the first person to be surprised by the lamentable fact that filmmakers and the BBC have ignored Sir Walter Scott. There is rich material there to be mined, the very kind of material that makes for such good period pieces — the mixing of characters of both high and low social status; a constant change of location and scenery, including seascapes, moors, castles, humble cottages, firesides, pubs and inns, courtrooms, stagecoaches, firths, ships, and old Edinburgh; and some of the snappiest dialogue in English literature — if you can understand it. The Scots dialect, which Scott represents phonetically, can be a challenge, but there are many references on the dialect when readers are stumped. And of course some of the characters — the gentry and travelers from England — speak standard, if somewhat archaic, English. Scott does not commit the sin so common in so much literature that is considered archaic — page after page of narrative. Scott is a much more cinematic writer in that he relies on action and dialogue to tell his stories — easy work for screenplay writers. Truly, Scott is worth studying as a writer.

Walter Scott’s novels are available at Gutenberg.org in Kindle format. But if you read Walter Scott, I highly recommend exploring eBay, or a seller of old books on Amazon, for an old hardcover edition. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, publishers issued many sets of books by popular authors. Some were of higher quality than others. No one seems to do that anymore, and though you may find some poorly produced paperback editions of old novels, most of these classics have long been out of print. Many of the old books are beautifully printed. Look for editions with nice cloth (or leather!) covers, strong bindings, and paper that resists yellowing. All paper that is 140 years old will be somewhat yellow, but the better quality paper is far less likely to be brittle. In particular, look for books printed in London or Edinburgh. They probably won’t be expensive, because they’re still common. My copy of Guy Mannering cost $3 plus shipping. On eBay you’ll find sets of Scott’s works (not necessarily complete as books got lost over the years). I was tempted to buy a set of the complete works but decided against it. I like the idea of an assortment of different interesting editions, bought one at a time when I decide to read another Walter Scott.

I suspect that it would take only one popular film based on a Walter Scott novel to bring about a revival and new editions — and to overwhelm Scotland with yet more tourists. Until that happens, there are many homeless and beautiful old books that would love to find a forever home on your shelves. And you could become one of the few visitors to Edinburgh to be awed by the Walter Scott memorial who has actually read Walter Scott.

Click on the arrows for high-resolution version.

⬇︎ Dirk Hatteraick Pursued by the Sloop of War

⬇︎ The Waste of Cumberland

⬇︎ “Gape, sinner, and swallow!”

⬇︎ Col. Mannering, Hazlewood, & the Smugglers

Ink’s place in the retro movement


Up through the 1970s, this type of ink, made by Scheaffer, was available just about everywhere. As I recall, the available colors included black, blue-black, red, and green. Scheaffer also made inexpensive fountain pens that were sold into the student market. Just about everybody had one. I wore out (and lost) a great many of them. The nice thing about the Skrip ink bottle was that the bottle had its own ink well at the bottle’s neck. Source: eBay.

How many types of ink do you have in your house? I’m guessing that modern households are likely to have no more than two types: ballpoint or felt-tip pens with ink inside, and maybe an inkjet printer. Ink stains on our fingers are a thing of the past. That’s a bit sad.

When I think back about it, and though I greatly love computers, I am ashamed of how long it took me to realize just how much we lost when computers pushed the ink out of our lives. It was the recent revival of my love of typewriters that started me thinking about ink. Typewriter ribbons, of course, are saturated with ink. Change the typewriter’s ribbon and you’ll get ink on your hands.

But it was a slippery slope. As I started typing letters on typewriters as a kind of retro exercise (letters to send to friends who have typewriters or friends who I hope will acquire a typewriter), it became obvious that typewritten letters need to be signed. Then it became equally obvious, because I was born with ink in my veins, that the only way to properly sign a typewritten letter is with a fountain pen. I had not owned a fountain pen in many years. If you buy a fountain pen (I bought two), then you will surely buy some ink as well. And before you know it, you will frequently have ink on your fingers, just like our ancestors.

Though you can’t buy ink at Woolworth’s anymore, there are many types of ink available on Amazon. Lots of weird people still use lots of ink — artists, for example.


An excellent black ink from Pelikan, and a so-so blue-black ink from Parker. The Pelikan ink flows much more smoothly and has a richer color. (The retro adding machine in the background is a Monroe 145 in like new condition.)

According to Wikipedia, human beings have been using ink for as long as 4,000 years (in China). The decline in the use of ink for personal communications started, of course, in the 1980s, as computers became increasingly common. How did we ever live without email and texting? And yet, let us be ever so grateful that our postal services are still with us. They’d still be very happy to transport a letter for you. My letters to Scotland arrive in about six days, and, to France, eight days. That, I believe, is faster than 40 years ago. Wouldn’t it be nice to occasionally find a real letter in your mailbox? But, of course, to get some letters you have to write some letters. Typed or handwritten are equally good.


Our ancestors may not have been obsessive about whether the lines were straight in handwritten letters. To get straight lines, one technique was to slip a sheet of ruled paper underneath the plain white paper. If the paper is not too thick, the rules will show through. The scrivener’s art is almost lost, but for better-looking letters today, a lighted tracing tablet (about $18 on eBay) will work better, with a sheet underneath with heavy rules showing the base lines and margins.

Soon some friend of mine will receive a letter from me written with pen and ink. Have I ever even done that before? After the age of eleven, when I got my first typewriter, I typed everything. But first I need some practice with pen and ink. Many years ago I had a very legible cursive. I’ve completely lost that. But I can still print pretty well. Fountain pens want to move more slowly than ballpoint pens anyway, so printing is not excessively slow (even though I can type ten times faster).

As I reflected on these things, I recovered a memory of the only honor society I got into in high school. That was Quill and Scroll. To my surprise, it still exists. How my pin survived all these years I have no idea. It must have meant something to me. It turned out that journalism and newspapers were my career. And once again there is ink on my fingers as well as ink in my blood.


The “I.H.S.H.S.J” stands for International High School Honor Society for Journalism. According to Wikipedia, fountain pens were invented in 1827 and started replacing quills. What progress! It was no longer necessary to repeatedly dip the quill in a bottle of ink.

Garden chowder

It’s really too hot for soup. But I’ve been making some fine chowders out of summer vegetables, centered around fresh corn. As always with my cooking, there is not an exact recipe. Just use what you’ve got.

Coarsely chop some onion and mild peppers. Sauté them in olive oil with a little butter. Add corn fresh cut from the cob, and sauté the corn with the onions and peppers. Five minutes of sautéing should be enough. Add water. Cut a fresh tomato in half and drop the tomato into the pot. Add a cup or so of precooked white beans, if you’ve got them. I’m not ashamed to use canned beans when I need beans quick.

Simmer all that, covered, for half an hour. Remove the chowder from the heat and move the tomatoes to a saucer to cool. When the tomatoes are cool enough to handle, remove the skin and put the tomatoes back into the pot. Whiz the chowder with a hand blender. Season it. My secret ingredient for seasoning soups are the vegetarian versions of Better Than Bouillon. Add a little cream.

As a concession to summer weather, serve the chowder warm instead of winter hot.

Lying isn’t as profitable as it used to be


Alex Jones. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Members of the reality-based community should cheer, gloat, and enjoy the schadenfreude after the jury’s decision yesterday in the Alex Jones defamation trial. Jones has been ordered to pay $4.1 million in compensatory damages and $45.2 million in punitive damages to the parents of a 6-year-old boy killed in the Sandy Hook school shooting. Jones had come up with the conspiracy theory that the shooting never happened and that it was staged by anti-gun activists.

Jones has made many millions of dollars as a professional liar: creating conspiracy theories and selling them to right-wingers. Jones, for example, helped spread the conspiracy theory about “Pizzagate,” the claim that a pizzeria in Washington was being used by Democrats for child trafficking and Satanic ritual abuse. Yesterday’s verdict should serve as a warning to all the other profitable outlets for right-wing lies.

Fox News, you’ll remember, has been sued for $1.6 billion by Dominion Voting Systems because of the lie that Dominion rigged the 2020 election against Trump. That trial has been scheduled to start April 17, 2023.

The market for lies has a supply side and a demand side. One of the most puzzling things for those of us who live in the reality-based community is that there is such a huge demand for lies. There are the big guys, such as Rupert Murdoch and Alex Jones. But for every big guy, there are a thousand little guys trying to get attention and make a buck. YouTube is full of them. As for the other places in social media where such types hang out, I don’t even go there.

As for the people who consume the lies, it’s no wonder that they do so poorly in the world and that they require “elites” above them and scapegoats beneath to blame for their sorry circumstances. Adaptation to a complex and changing world requires knowledge of that world and smart choices based on that knowledge. Those who try to live in that world by applying lies rather than knowledge are certain to do poorly, with only their grievance and rage for comfort. It probably would be easy to show that right-wing lies actually are a drag on the economy, on account of the millions of people who are poorly adapted to the real economy because of their consumption of lies. Those who profit are the people who require the disinformed hordes as a power base, and those who’ve figured out how to make millions of dollars selling lies.

It is incomprehensible to me why right-wingers (including some members of the U.S. Supreme Court) think that making defamation suits easier by overturning New York Times v. Sullivan would increase right-wing power by making it easier for right-wingers to sue what they call “the liberal media.” The liberal media sometimes make mistakes, but they don’t lie, and they don’t need to lie. Unless right-wingers completely corrupt the courts (they’re working on it), they can’t win in court, because courts won’t tolerate the kind of stuff that fuels the right-wing disinformation economy (such as Trump’s Big Lie about a stolen election). Without the huge economy of lies, the Republican Party as we know it would cease to exist. If it were easier to sue, outfits such as Fox News would either have to clean up their acts or get sued out of business. Alex Jones probably did just get sued out of business.

In flagrante delicto

When one lives in the sticks, it is not uncommon to come upon wild things in flagrante delicto. These are eastern box turtles (Terrapene carolina). These turtles are very common here and are often seen crossing the road. Roads are very dangerous for them, because their instinct is to close up and stop. More and more people stop their cars and move them safely out of the road.

These turtles were safely on the side of the unpaved road I live on.