Keeping up with the “news” is by and large, not only futile, but counterproductive. Certainly, some news — like the recent Muslim ban — is a flashpoint for collective action, as it ought be. But much of what we read or watch is not only bluster and spectacle, but something worse — absolute lie. And what is the absolute lie? The lie is that we have politics. We do not have politics. We have one rational but weak party, and one absolutely ruthless and insane party. Most of what constitutes “politics” is simply the insane ruthless party pretending that they are something else. Ironically, we still — amazingly — have a functioning democratic system (we can still vote) despite the absence of a functioning government — a government capable of debate and reflection. Centrist Democrats are the actual right, progressive democrats are the real liberals, and the activist left has no place whatsoever. The right — that blurry, even comical, alliance of Reaganites, Nazis, pro-lifers, gun-freaks, woman-haters, and old-school southern racists—is not actually capable of real governance or sane discourse. It is the party of collective suicide. It is the nihilistic death-drive that has been present in American life since before Washington’s troops drove the Iroquois west, fire in hand. It is as idiotic as it is rapacious. It’s so-called leaders — Trump (via Bannon) and Ryan — are guaranteed only one thing: to be read in history books (if there is anyone left to write history) as hateful authoritarian fools who are remembered only as examples of what a failed civil society produces for leaders. Just because these people have the trappings of civic normalcy — offices of power — does not mean they should be reported from the point of view of political normalcy. Much of the Republican party platform, and the entire Trump platform, is a mixture of lies and anachronisms either empirically false or morally repugnant (and entirely sophistic). What more do we have to read? What more do we have to learn? The tendency of American liberals is to wait and hope, to rely on institutions to produce reasonable political results. Trump’s election is not the beginning of the crisis, but a culmination; Trump’s election is a sign that American voters are dangerously under-informed and ready for violence. The hair-splitting over real news, biased news, social media news belies the fact that we are simply overdependent on news; paralyzed by it. Endless hot takes; endless talk — and to what end? On every street, in every community, in every political bubble, there is work to do; challenging conversations to be had. Instead we refresh The New York Times homepage, post on Facebook — fret, complain. But again — there is nothing we need to find out before we act. The bare facts are before us. Violence is absurd, inequality is absurd, the destruction of the earth is absurd—and it is not only politically viable — for Trump and his followers and enablers — but politically effective to deny these ethical tenants. We need passionate love of truth, a passionate politics that exists independently of the daily news cycle in order to combat this — this denial of reality: this political evil. The Women’s March, the airport protests — these events are absolutely wonderful and necessary. But really, we should be protesting all the time. Our whole lives should be a protest. We don’t need to read the news to know that something is wrong. Something has been wrong for a long time.
