Byline Supplement — What We Have Lost
My latest report in Byline Supplement documents what we have lost in the Trumpocene, and how we get it back and emerge stronger
I am writing this morning to my Twitter friend Oisin Lunny’s Geek Pie Radio, which is heavy on Sinéad today. Have a listen.
I have ‘Thank You for Hearing Me’ on heavy rotation. I spent last night enveloped in the womb of the Viper Room, and when some strangers invited me to join them in Booth No. 1, I explained that it had been my booth for two decades, and I was home.
While on the Strip chatting up the singer of Orphic, I met a young man in the band, Pistol Beauty. Within 30 seconds I had pegged him as a bass player from Chicago. I’ve been doing the rock thing so long I can tell instrument and home town within nanoseconds. He was kind, and a good listener — immediately indicated ‘plays bass, and not from around these parts.’ Him being a big fan of the DeLeo brothers, I regaled him with stories of STP shows at the Viper and recalled I was friends with one of their wives.
Then I met a guitar tech who within seconds indicated he was to the right of Ted Nugent — a reminder that even when nestling into my happy place, escaping into music, there is not escape from the war.
At 1:04 am this morning, Byline Supplement published my most important work to date:
Those of you who have a subscription to Byline Supplement, please share far and wide with your networks. Those of you who are Bette members, please reach out to me at bettedangerous@gmail.com as I am authorized by the Byline team to share my reports. But please do take out a subscription if you can — we are a small international team of reader-funded investigative reporters.
Here are some excerpts from my report:
It’s been gnawing at me that we ‘memory hole’ so much — like battered spouses who are just trying to get through the day, covering the bruises and pretending the assaults away. But it’s not okay, and we can’t look away.
We must confront what we have lost, in order to spark the urgency about how unsafe we are in 2023 and how each day is an opportunity to put some work in for democracy.
I have written many warnings about what we could lose and have documented the reversals — from warnings about the overturning of Roe v. Wade to the nationwide assaults on gay rights to Twitter becoming weaponized into a Russian propaganda outlet.
In order to see the enormity of what is happening in real time, I am going to lay it out so you have the clear-eyed opportunity to stare it straight in the face and determine if this is acceptable to you. Where America goes, so goes the world.
What We’ve Lost
Reproductive freedom and women’s health care rights
Equality for the gay community and people of color
Affirmative action and college loan relief
Voter protections
Environmental rights
Gun Safety
Faith in our judiciary
We are hurtling backward rapidly and members of the Supreme Court appear to be on an accelerated mission to deny US citizens freedoms we fought for many decades ago. President Joe Biden went on the record after the recent flurry of extremist rulings: “This is not a normal court.”
Dream the Future
Dr. Ian Garner, a historian who authored Z Generation: Into the Heart of Russia’s Fascist Youth, said that a key thing we have lost, or are rapidly losing, in the Western world is not just the notion of a shared truth, but what we’re losing is the notion of a shared past, and therefore the promise of a shared future.
“I think it's in visions of the future where Trump and the authoritarian right across the world actually excel, because they promised to bring us back to this utopian past — a past that never existed,” Garner told Byline Supplement. “But it’s a past that seems safe, a past that seems collective, a past that seems to promise something shared, even though it's based on exclusionary ideas. And that means, of course, excluding minorities, the marginalized, the others, are silenced in various ways.”
Garner is speaking of what Yale Professor Jason Stanley described in How Fascism Works — the Politics of Us and Them as the ‘mythic past’.
“Erasing the real past legitimates the vision of an ethnically pure, virtuous past nation,” wrote Stanley. “The strategic aim of these hierarchical constructions of history is to displace truth, and the invention of a glorious past includes the erasure of inconvenient realities. While fascist politics fetishizes the past, it is never the actual past that is fetishized.”
Garner said the promise of this ‘mythic past’ is such a powerful fascist tool that those who oppose the authoritarian right are struggling to find a collective future narrative that can compete.
So how do we avoid the age of widespread trauma and stop the bleeding on what we have lost?
The answer can’t be found in a slogan — it’s multi-faceted and contains many fronts.
According to legal analyst Dean Obeidallah Democrats need to make reforming SCOTUS a top issue in 2024.
And allow Stephen Hawking to help. Before his death, the physicist in 2017 cautioned: “Trump’s stance could damage earth.”
So with clarity on what we have lost and the tasks ahead to find that shared narrative of the future and to lead a fight against lies being detonated for power and greed and because lies are central to the fascist creep, I return to Jason Stanley’s words of hope. Defeating authoritarian capture is possible — victory starts with the left working in solidarity together.
“In the face of fascism, you have to realize that some of the agenda of the left is not going to be carried over, but you have to save the country from fascism with a broad coalition.
In the eloquent ending of his book, a definitive tome for our times drawn on cruel lessons from a century ago, he writes:
“By refusing to be bewitched by fascist myths, we remain free to engage one another, all of us flawed, all of us partial in our thinking..understanding, but none of us demons.”
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Thank you as always for your support of independent journalism, and women in the fight against fascism.
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We just have to see that the battle for democracy is broader. It's deeper.—David Pepper
I need people to see they're on the frontline. Wherever you live, if you’re doing this work, you are the frontline.—David Pepper
The message should be a fair deal… fairness everywhere.—Martin Sheil
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“I say a silent prayer of thanksgiving as I walk upon the earth.”-Audrey Peterman.
“May the viral hope for truth and humanity wash away the chaos of these years.”-S.C., Bette community member
“Something Sacred never dies in almost all of us, who can hear the invitation of Truth…”-words from a Bette Dangerous community member
“Non-violent protest is a life-affirming activity as it seeks to promote a more humane society.”-Ellen Zucker
“Nothing but blue skies from now on…”-Irving Berlin
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