Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Friday, September 18, 2020

#Never Forget

 I didn't post on 9/11, because of family issues, but I touch on the fetishization of 9/11. I don't mean sexual fetish, but the other fetish: an inanimate object worshiped for its supposed magical powers or because it is considered to be inhabited by a spirit.

For many Americans who don't live in the NYC area, 9/11 was actually a magical event. It was when they could feel perfectly good about being American, they could freely hate another group of legitimately evil people, they felt a sense of national unity and purpose that has since evaporated and they got to feel like they were living in a shitty Michael Bay movie. Every September, they get to role out their "Never Forget" posts on social media and furiously rub the fetish, hoping for the magical spirit to emerge and grant them moral clarity. 

Anyway, New York City saw 10 times the death from 9/11 because of Covid-19, and a lot of the "Never Forget" crowd are going to happily trot off to the polls and vote for the guy who let it happen. A virus doesn't give you a villain to hate, unless you're willing to look at the Oval Office. 

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