NEXT STOP - TERRA INCOGNITA

THIS HAS NEVER BEEN SEEN BEFORE IN AMERICA

Last night, Jon Meacham said on MSNBC that he had "reluctantly concluded" that the United States was in a political situation similar to that of the 1850s, with one party dedicated to protecting the union and the other to its destruction.

Tonight Michael Beschloss said we are potentially less than a week away from the loss of the rule of law and the ability to hold free and fair elections.

He was followed by General Russell Honore; he has never publicly taken a political position before. He declared that if we do not turn out in record numbers, we will lose democracy, possibly forever.

These are not harum-scarum guys, they are not Chicken Little crying that the sky is falling. They are serious, knowledgeable people, who understand previous historical crises and how this country works.

And they are telling us in all seriousness that the sky is potentially falling.

With the far right refusing to back down from their conspiratorial fantasies in the face of fact and accurate information, celebrating that they no longer need to pay such things attention, with a majority of Republican candidates refusing to publicly state they will accept the outcome of the election win or lose, with another Democratic political candidate attacked and beaten in his own backyard sufficiently to be knocked out and end in the ER, we are now in where no living American has been before.

A line was crossed this past weekend that is more significant than the events of January 6. The other side has effectively declared war and "fired on Fort Sumter."

Serious, knowledgeable people I know, whose knowledge and opinions I trust, are predicting that "absolute chaos" can break out next Tuesday night with the potential to escalate in ways no one can forecast.

This won't be "Stop The Steal" played out in Washington. This will be "Stop the Steal" played out in your hometown.

It is already far beyond anything that has been before.

Right now, the “big lie” is morphing into something even more virulent and ugly. Call it the “big flex.”

Trump’s lies about voter fraud in 2020 provided a fake pretext to overturn his presidential election loss. Now that has metastasized: Many Republicans in MAGA are employing “The Big Lie” on numerous fronts, but their purpose has taken a dark new turn.

All the lying is becoming an assertion of power in its own right, a kind of end in itself.

Academics who study the rise of authoritarian movements say that the embrace of political lying as a declaration of power - the power to define what reality is - is a harbinger of autocracy.

The U.S. Capitol Police have viewed footage of the attack on Paul Pelosi at their California home. The footage has been released. It shows a man with a hammer breaking a glass panel to enter the Pelosi home, comporting with DePape’s admission he broke through a glass door, from outside in. Niether Paul Pelosi nor anyone else opened the door for him.

This thoroughly undermines the lies and conspiratorial fantasies we’ve heard from the right. DePape wasn’t a wild-eyed leftist. He and Paul Pelosi weren’t friends or lovers.

If you think all this new information will slow down the spread of outright lies - statements where the speaker knows the truth and chooses not to speak it - if you think this will slow the firehose of bullshit spraying across the public square, I know a bridge for sale at a price you will not be able to refuse.

The Democrats’response - the outrage, shaming, fact-checking and presentation of the facts - is about as effective as shooting paperclips with rubber bands at a charging Siberian tiger in the expectation he’ll turn away and stop.

This is because the conspiratorial fantasies and bullshit are spreading at top speed through a right-wing media ecosystem constructed to be impervious to outside challenge.

It’s because the whole point of all the lying and bullshitting is to assert the power to manufacture an alternate story in the face of easily demonstrable facts and outraged condemnation; and importantly, to assert that power unabashedly and defiantly.

Recall what Dinesh DeSouza tweeted Sunday night:

“The Left is going crazy because not only are we not BUYING the wacky, implausible Paul Pelosi story but we are even LAUGHING over how ridiculous it is. What this means is that we are no longer intimidated by their fake pieties. Their control over us has finally been broken.”

The 2 million defectives who follow him responded with “LOL” and “Amen!”

Prominent right-wing personalities are blithely asserting that the media is spreading misinformation about the attack, spreading absurd “false flag” theories, spewing truly vicious mockery and hve even turned the hammer into an online meme.

It’s hard not to conclude this is a political movement unshackling itself from even the most minimal standards of decent public conduct.

The louder the shaming and the fact-checking, the greater the defiant assertion of power becomes.

Ruth Ben-Ghiat, says that, “The ability to assert a false reality in the face of empirical evidence is itself an act of power.” She goes on to write that at the core of this is the flaunting of the ability to “get away with it,” whether the “it” is serial lying, the abandonment of basic norms, or even deliberate cruelty to a longtime colleague and member of the political opposition.

The assertion of power through political lies can be seen on other fronts as well.

Liz Cheney has endorsed a few Democratic candidates challenging GOP election deniers. But these Republicans are now flaunting Cheney’s opposition as a badge of honor, expecting it will galvanize the base.

The unabashed embrace of “The Big Lie” about the “stolen” 2020 election is a display of defiance in the face of widely established truths. It has become a source of political energy and inspiration.

We talk a lot about whether political rhetoric inspires political violence, but the mass denial of the violence - functioning as a proud marker of political identity - is more ominous than the attack on the capitol on January 6.

We have arrived at Terra Incognita. The unknown land.

The only thing we can do is follow General Honore’s charge: turnout and vote. Right now, the news is that turnout is exceeding the levels of 2018. 40% of voters under 29 have said they are certain to vote; this is 50% higher than 2018.

Vote in such numbers they cannot question the outcome.

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