Spring in November?

benfell

See updates through November 10, 2022, at end of post.


Fig. 1. “[O]riginal caption: ‘Burning at the stake. An illustration from an mid 19th century book,’ scan of woodcut (19th century?), submitted by mullica [pseud.] to Flickr, and thence by Speakfree [pseud.] May 31, 2011, to Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.

As Vladimir Putin faces defeat in Ukraine and questions arise about his own longevity in power,[1] I am thinking that Viktor Orbán in Hungary, who has been friendlier toward Putin than other European countries,[2] and who has been lionized by white Christian nationalists in the U.S. as offering an example of what the U.S. should become,[3] must be feeling a bit more isolated.

I have perceived an axis of sorts between Donald Trump, white Christian nationalism, Orbán, Putin, and other right-wing leaders, which has posed a threat to western-style capitalist “liberalism” and cosmopolitanism, generally, not merely to the U.S. political order. That axis is looking rather frail about now as I see the Trump signs and flags come down in Pennsylvania[4] and as I increasingly believe that white Christian nationalism may be headed for a historic defeat.

It wasn’t that long ago that I warned that Margaret Atwood’s Gilead was being realized.[5] I simply wasn’t seeing anything that would stop Trump from running for and winning re-election to the presidency, wasn’t seeing anything that would abort the culmination of a longstanding project to establish a white Christian nationalist competitive authoritarian regime.[6]

It’s all changed.[7] I now think Republicans are proving remarkably slow to read the writing on the wall.

More than half of all Republican nominees for federal and statewide office with powers over election administration have embraced unproven claims that fraud tainted Biden’s win, according to a Washington Post tally.[8]

Pennsylvania is among the races where election deniers are running for positions with power over election administration.[9] Arch-Trumpist[10] gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano and U.S. Senate candidate Mehmet Oz face off principally against Josh Shapiro and John Fetterman respectively, and I’m just not seeing the number of yard signs for Mastriano and Oz that I would expect to see,[11] and so I think—I’m not alone[12]—Mastriano and Oz are losing. As with what I perceive as the end of Donald Trump’s political career, I think the proximate causes lie in the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade and in revelations from the search at Mar-a-Lago,[13] but these reinforce a sense of white Christian nationalists as extremists who threaten election integrity to get their way:

There’s no polite way to put it. We have become a nation of poor sports and cry babies. We’ll keep a close eye on things, but after the process is done and the votes are counted, I’ll absolutely accept the outcome. If the Senator is up for it, we can certify it over a beer. It’s time for America’s leaders to start acting like adults again. Loser buys.[14]

To the extent that Republicans are depending on so-called “independents” to win midterm elections, I think that, like Mastriano and Oz, they may well be headed for a historic defeat.

I’m thinking of that axis between Donald Trump, white Christian nationalism, Orbán, Putin, and other right-wing leaders as a “system.” In systems theory, we rely less on linear causation and more on mutual causality. It isn’t that A “causes” B, but rather that A and B develop side by side along with C, D, E, and so on. As they develop, a system forms which is reinforced by some feedbacks, undermined by others, and which supports some properties and which constrains others. The coming together of all these factors isn’t entirely predictable; there are unexpected and unpredictable effects, “emergent properties.” As this new system gains strength, we reach a “tipping point” where it displaces the old system.[15]

My question, really all along, has been whether this axis, this new system, would reach a tipping point and displace the existing order, the existing western-style capitalist “liberal” and cosmopolitan system.

Particularly when we talk about moves to ensure a competitive authoritarian regime’s hold on power, we’re looking at feedbacks that would stabilize this new system.

But when we see the Mar-a-Lago search and the backlash over abortion rights,[16] we see feedbacks that support the existing system, and that seem to be having an impact.[17] They might be enough to hold off the usurping new system.[18]

It’s still more hope than substance, we’ll know better in November, and the result may further isolate Putin, Orbán, and other right-wing leaders. That won’t help them either.

Update, September 20, 2022: I’m thinking of Philip Slater today. He was a professor at California Institute of Integral Studies in the Transformative Studies program, the Ph.D. program that was the wrong program for me. But if you want to know why it took me a year and a half to decide it was the wrong program, Slater and his colleague, Connie Jones, deserve much of the credit.

Slater and Jones focused on social transformation, at least for one class that they taught (I took it from Jones). But based on a conclusion reached at the end of the anti-war, liberation, and counterculture movements of the 1960s, the Transformative Studies program embraced an approach of individual transformation on the idea that if you get enough individuals to transform, the larger society will reach a tipping point and follow. What actually happened instead is that capitalist marketers figured out how to exploit and exacerbate the individualism that this encouraged, leading to much of today’s calamity.[19] The Transformative Studies program failed to learn from the latter part of this experience even as it included it in the introductory class I took.

I don’t think we’re looking at a social system transformation today, but rather the opposite.[20] And I disagree with Philip Slater’s prognosis that—he uses a caterpillar metamorphosis to butterfly metaphor—that the present oppressive system will inevitably transform into a freer, more just one.[21] I would say instead, that due to emergent properties, we have no idea what the outcome of such a transformation will be.

There is always a risk in overthrowing a system that you will end up with something worse. And we need to consider this possibility with clear eyes rather than through rose-colored glasses.

Indeed, in the present context, white Christian nationalists are attempting a transformation. The outcome, should they succeed, would be the very opposite of what Slater forecast and fervently hoped for, and it would be immeasurably worse.

Still, I’m thinking of Slater’s description of a caterpillar about to cocoon, later to emerge as a butterfly. He wrote that the caterpillar’s antibodies resist the transformation mightily before the caterpillar succumbs and forms a cocoon. In his social transformation analogy, Slater warned that this reaction would terrify. It would appear overwhelming. And it would ultimately fail.[22]

I don’t know how accurate Slater’s description is biologically but the system I described yesterday, that I now think will fail to overturn the existing system,[23] might nonetheless produce such an antibody reaction as forces beyond its control threaten it.

It’s the news in this issue of the Irregular Bullshit that makes me think of Slater’s analogy. We might be seeing it here.

Update, September 21, 2022: In the wake of stunning military setbacks for Russia in its war on Ukraine,[24] which call into question even Vladimir Putin’s hold on power,[25]

Prominent Russian propagandist Margarita Simonyan, editor in chief of [Russia Today], who is among the hawks cheerleading for a tougher approach to Ukraine, hinted Tuesday that the planned referendums [in regions which would be annexed to Russia] were a sign of more dramatic actions to come.

“Judging by what is happening and what is about to happen, this week marks either the eve of our imminent victory or the eve of nuclear war,” Simonyan wrote on Twitter. “I can’t see any third option.”

Russian officials and pundits on state television have asserted for months that the war it initiated against Ukraine is actually part of a larger existential fight against [the North Atlantic Treaty Organization].[26]

“Imminent victory” seems far more likely, which isn’t very, for Ukraine than it does for Russia and Margarita Simonyan warning of nuclear war, a warning more subtly echoed by former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy head of the country’s Security Council,[27] and by Putin himself,[28] and a threat acknowledged by Joe Biden,[29] is what I have worried about all along.[30]

“To defend Russia and our people, we doubtlessly will use all resources at our disposal,” [Vladimir] Putin said. “This is not a bluff.”

Putin also said Russia would “do everything to provide a safe environment” for Kremlin-installed proxies in four Ukrainian regions that on Tuesday pledged to hold referendums this week to join the Russian Federation.[31]

This quite frankly is one place where my optimism of yesterday[32] could yet prove misplaced.

Update, September 26, 2022: It seems it isn’t just Russia that can rattle a nuclear sabre:[33]

We have communicated directly, privately and at very high levels to the Kremlin that any use of nuclear weapons will be met with catastrophic consequences for Russia, that the US and our allies will respond decisively, and we have been clear and specific about what that will entail.[34]

But with extreme right-wing parties’ electoral gains in Sweden and Italy,[35] Vladimir Putin’s gamble that western conservatives would undermine support for Ukraine[36] may be about to pay off. At least some Republicans in the U.S. would cut aid to Ukraine[37] but with Donald Trump’s legal troubles undermining Republicans’ formerly rosy electoral prospects,[38] I’m now skeptical they’ll get the chance.[39] The balance of power in Europe, however, may be swinging against Ukraine.[40]

Update, September 30, 2022: An earlier report had suggested that polls, a bogus non-methodology, showed the race between John Fetterman and Mehmet Oz for a Pennsylvania U.S. Senate seat tightening.[41] Naturally, this provokes a certain angst: Even if, thanks to the still prevalent neoliberalism of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, I’ll never vote for a Democrat again, I certainly don’t want the white Christian nationalists to win.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette digs into more recent numbers more deeply, and yes, it appears the race is tightening.[42] But this is a “yes, but,” not a “yes.”

The Post-Gazette report suggests—as I have suspected—that a plurality of independents support Fetterman. Oz seems to be improving his support only among Republicans, which suggests that there is a cap to his support.[43]

My expectation has been that independents are more likely to care about abortion rights and a lot less likely to buy into Donald Trump’s “Stop The Steal” bullshit. As I write this, it strikes me also that they are more likely to be concerned about the competitive authoritarian regime project: When they swing their votes, they’re going to want that swing to count. (These effects, of course, will be limited to the extent that independents are actually paying attention.)

In the yard sign race (an even more bogus methodology[44]), I am seeing a few more signs for Oz and Republican Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano, usually right next to each other. Where there are signs supporting only one of the Republican candidates, they are for Oz, suggesting that Mastriano is failing to attract even all the support that Oz is winning.

Mastriano’s record[45] probably limits his appeal beyond his base anyway but he’s only campaigning for the folks—in the typology of my dissertation,[46] paleoconservatives and social conservatives—who would vote for him anyway,[47] really a mere subset even of white Christian nationalism.

It’s hard for me to see why I should change my earlier expectation that Mastriano and Oz will lose[48] based on this.

Update, October 16, 2022: I’d managed to overlook that Doug Mastriano has a Ph.D. It seems, however, there are serious problems, including alleged academic fraud, with his dissertation, one of his committee members claims not to have signed off on it, and the University of New Brunswick is investigating.[49]

We can be reasonably confident Mastriano will not win. He remains behind Josh Shapiro in results of a bogus methodology by double digits but, more significantly, continues to campaign only to his white Christian nationalist base.[50]

Mehmet Oz, however, is another story. This is a race that was John Fetterman’s to lose, he suffered a stroke, has struggled to regain momentum, and it’s showing up in the results of a bogus methodology.[51] This is intuitive, but I’m just not sensing the feedback I expect to feel for a Fetterman victory. The pit of my stomach, rather, tells me he’s toast, or that, at best, he prevails by only a slim margin.

Update, November 9, 2022: It seems there is, after all, an upper limit to the crazy in Pennsylvania. Both Josh Shapiro and John Fetterman have prevailed, against Doug Mastriano and Mehmet Oz, respectively.[52]

Update #2, November 9, 2022: Final results are not in, but Republican predictions of a “red wave” have failed to materialize,[53] and it appears the wildcards[54] I pointed to, abortion and Donald Trump, are having an impact in staving off,[55] at least for now, a white Christian nationalist competitive authoritarian regime nationally (it will be another story entirely, however, in some states[56]).

Republican voters were most motivated by inflation; Democratic voters were most motivated by abortion.[57]

Update, November 10, 2022:

“Candidate quality matters,” Erick Erickson, a longtime GOP commentator, said of what he described as a disappointing showing for [Donald] Trump. “They weren’t good candidates. They had more allegiance to him than anything else. The GOP might still win both [chambers] but this is not the night they expected.”[58]

A disappointing night for most Republicans turned into a very good night for one Floridian. Gov. Ron DeSantis not only won a second term in Tuesday’s midterm elections but also did so by a sizable margin — even winning Miami-Dade County, marking the first time a Republican has taken that largely urban electorate in two decades.

The results cemented many expectations that DeSantis would run for president in 2024 — a situation that’s already sparking tension with another Floridian Republican, former president Donald Trump. And to some Democrats, the double-digit wins seen by not only DeSantis but Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio on Tuesday have firmly ended the chapter where the state could be seen as a swing state.[59]

The former president [Donald Trump] inserted himself into multiple contests, endorsing candidates at the primaries stage when parties choose their standard-bearers. The Trump seal of approval proved decisive in several, but just look at how those Trump favourites fared. True, the memoirist and venture capitalist JD Vance won in now solidly red Ohio, but in swing states Trumpers performed badly. An election denier who had been present at the 6 January Capitol Hill riot was trounced in the race to be Pennsylvania governor, while TV doctor Mehmet Oz, another Trump pick, was defeated in the Senate race by Democrat John Fetterman – even though the latter faced persistent questions about his ability to serve following a severe stroke in the summer.

Perhaps most revealing of the Trump effect was Georgia. Two Republican officials who became nationally known when they resisted Trump pressure to overturn the 2020 presidential count in their state were comfortably re-elected. But Herschel Walker, handpicked by Trump to run for the senate in Georgia, was in a photo finish for that all-important seat, one set to be decided by a run-off next month. Meanwhile, a Trumper in New Hampshire was soundly beaten, while another, Kari Lake, seemed to be trailing in what should have been a winnable contest in Arizona.

As Wednesday morning came, a pattern seemed to be emerging. Even Fox News reporters were quoting Republican sources telling them: “If it wasn’t clear before, it should be now. We have a Trump problem.” . . .

Cold, hard logic suggests Republicans should step away from Trump, a man who has now presided over three consecutive defeats in 2018, 2020 and 2022 (four if you include the two Georgia senate runoffs in January 2021). But it won’t be simple. For one thing, Trump’s defenders can argue that they do better when his name is on the ballot than when it is not – and it is true that Republicans did gain congressional seats in 2016 and 2020. But in some ways that underlines the problem. Because in a year when Trump himself is not a candidate, like 2022, his absence weakens hardcore Trump devotees’ desire to turn out, while his looming presence on the scene repels the floating voters who decide elections. Put another way, the Republicans’ problem is not simply Trump the man. It is that they have become Trump’s party.[60]

It appears that the new “conventional wisdom” is that the threat in 2024 comes in the form less of Donald Trump, and more of Ron DeSantis. Both are white Christian nationalists; DeSantis’ résumé[61] suggests be may be more competent and therefore an even more dangerous—in a number of ways—president than Trump.

[Ron DeSantis] claims to not be a fan of rules and big government. The Florida governor first came to real national attention when he pushed a controversial laissez-faire approach to covid-19. That approach put DeSantis at odds with World Health Organization guidance, even if it wasn’t quite as combative as [Donald] Trump’s move to pull the United States out of that body. (Most accounts of Florida’s time during the pandemic suggest DeSantis’s policies were neither the success he portrayed them as nor the disaster his critics feared).

Unlike Trump — who still has his reputation as a dealmaker at heart — DeSantis may be more rigid and less open to persuasion. Profiles have repeatedly suggested that he has little of the personal charm or interest in social functions that many politicians have. Any world leaders who would seek a bromance with this man may end up with a cold shoulder.

DeSantis is happy to use brash rhetoric and even cruel stunts to make his point. He has flown Venezeulean migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard in a bid to own liberals and battled with Disney over gay rights — breaking with Republican orthodoxy to complain about corporate power. He has said France would fold if Russia invaded and sided with Elon Musk over Ukrainian leaders after the U.S. billionaire suggested Kyiv needed to negotiate a peace deal with Russia.

And while DeSantis appears to have accepted the reality of climate change’s likely impact on Florida, he has favored throwing money at climate adaptation rather than working to actually mitigate the problem.

As one critic recently put it, his plan has been “Hand out big contracts for patching up the impacts on pricey waterfront property while ignoring essentially everything, and everyone, else.” If the United States goes all in with that approach, it could impact everywhere in the world.[62]

Color me skeptical. First, DeSantis will need to win over Trump’s loyalists when, it seems, those loyalists won’t reliably turn out even for Trump’s endorsees.[63] Second, DeSantis, with “little of the personal charm or interest in social functions,” that Trump has[64] may lack the charisma to actually win nationally.

Fig. 2. Photograph by author, November 8, 2022.

Make no mistake. There is a hardcore segment of the U.S. electorate that was and remains infuriated by COVID-19 restrictions (figure 2) even as these have long since been lifted, that continues to interpret “freedom” as, among other things, the freedom to spread disease.[65] In Pennsylvania, they voted to curtail the governor’s emergency powers so they wouldn’t have to wear masks.[66] And there is certainly an overlapping segment of the population that relishes cruelty of the sort DeSantis displayed with unauthorized migrants;[67] they put bumper stickers on their cars and signs on their lawns that say “Fuck Your Feelings” and “Make a Liberal Cry.” Nearly all of these people support Trump. They would likely support DeSantis. But even in Pennsylvania, they didn’t get Doug Mastriano elected,[68] and I am not clear that this is a sufficient plurality nationally to put DeSantis in the White House.

Update #2, November 10, 2022: Oh yes, there just might be an upper limit to the crazy in Pennsylvania:

Pennsylvania Democrats believe they have taken control of the state House for the first time in more than a decade, an outcome that was considered a long shot by even the most optimistic Democrats but that has not yet been confirmed by independent analysts.

Republicans on Wednesday said the declaration of victory was premature. They’re pinning their hopes on a handful of close races in the Philadelphia suburbs where the candidates are separated by hundreds — or in some cases just dozens — of votes.[69]

You can pretty much figure that abortion rights played a role here too. If, indeed, the Democrats have taken control of the chamber,[70] that proposed constitutional amendment to declare that there is no right to an abortion in Pennsylvania[71] would be dead in its tracks.[72]

  1. [1]Laurence Peter, “Ukraine war: Russian pop megastar Alla Pugacheva condemns conflict,” British Broadcasting Corporation, September 18, 2022, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62948146; Insider, “Municipal deputies in 18 Moscow and St. Petersburg districts demand Putin’s resignation,” September 12, 2022, https://theins.ru/en/news/254943; Julia Ioffe, “Fear and Loathing in Moscow,” Puck News, September 13, 2022, https://puck.news/fear-and-loathing-in-moscow/; Allison Quinn, “Moscow Officials Urge Putin to GTFO: ‘Everything Went Wrong,’” Daily Beast, September 10, 2022, https://www.thedailybeast.com/moscow-officials-urge-vladimir-putin-to-give-up-power; Steve Rosenberg, “Megastar speaks out,” British Broadcasting Corporation, September 18, 2022, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62948146↩
  2. [2]Drew Hinshaw and Laurence Norman, “Hungary’s Orban Keeps EU Guessing Over Russian Oil Embargo,” Wall Street Journal, May 21, 2022, https://www.wsj.com/articles/hungarys-orban-keeps-eu-guessing-over-russian-oil-embargo-11653053395↩
  3. [3]Zack Beauchamp, “Ron DeSantis is following a trail blazed by a Hungarian authoritarian,” Vox, April 28, 2022, https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/4/28/23037788/ron-desantis-florida-viktor-orban-hungary-right-authoritarian; Zsuzsanna Szelényi, “How Viktor Orbán Built His Illiberal State,” New Republic, April 5, 2022, https://newrepublic.com/article/165953/viktor-orban-built-illiberal-state; Ishaan Tharoor, “U.S. conservatives yearn for Orban’s Hungary,” Washington Post, August 4, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com//world/2021/08/04/american-conservatives-orban-hungary/; Ishaan Tharoor, “The Orbanization of America: The U.S. right walks in Hungary’s path,” Washington Post, May 17, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/05/17/viktor-orban-american-right-illiberal-orbanization/; Ishaan Tharoor, “The Orbanization of America: Florida shadows Hungary’s war on LGBTQ rights,” Washington Post, May 18, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/05/18/cpac-hungary-lgbtq-orban-florida-desantis/; Ishaan Tharoor, “The Orbanization of America: How to capture a democracy,” Washington Post, May 18, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/05/18/orban-democracy-trump-united-states-elections-hungary/; Ishaan Tharoor, “Orban at CPAC brings the ‘far-right international’ into focus,” Washington Post, August 4, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com//world/2022/08/04/orban-hungary-far-right-international-cpac-conservative/↩
  4. [4]David Benfell, “More questions than answers as Donald Trump flags come down,” Not Housebroken, September 10, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2022/08/28/more-questions-than-answers-as-donald-trump-flags-come-down/↩
  5. [5]David Benfell, “Start changing the border signs: ‘Welcome to Gilead,’” Not Housebroken, July 28, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2022/06/18/start-changing-the-border-signs-welcome-to-gilead/↩
  6. [6]David Benfell, “I cannot yet tell you my 2024 forecast was wrong,” Not Housebroken, September 10, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2022/08/13/i-cannot-yet-tell-you-my-2024-forecast-was-wrong/; David Benfell, “My 2024 forecast,” Not Housebroken, September 10, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2022/03/10/my-2024-forecast/↩
  7. [7]David Benfell, “I cannot yet tell you my 2024 forecast was wrong,” Not Housebroken, September 10, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2022/08/13/i-cannot-yet-tell-you-my-2024-forecast-was-wrong/; David Benfell, “My 2024 forecast,” Not Housebroken, September 10, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2022/03/10/my-2024-forecast/↩
  8. [8]Amy Gardner et al., “Republicans in key battleground races refuse to say they will accept results,” Washington Post, September 18, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/18/republicans-refuse-accept-results/↩
  9. [9]Amy Gardner et al., “Republicans in key battleground races refuse to say they will accept results,” Washington Post, September 18, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/18/republicans-refuse-accept-results/↩
  10. [10]Associated Press, “State Sen. Doug Mastriano opens Pennsylvania election audit plan,” Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, July 7, 2021, https://triblive.com/news/pennsylvania/pennsylvania-state-sen-doug-mastriano-opens-election-audit-plan/; Marley Parish, Stephen Caruso, and Cassie Miller, “Pa. GOP lawmaker — and Trump ally — Mastriano initiates ‘forensic investigation’ into state elections,” Pennsylvania Capital-Star, July 7, 2021, https://www.penncapital-star.com/government-politics/pa-gop-lawmaker-and-trump-ally-mastriano-initiates-forensic-investigation-into-state-elections/; Andrew Seidman, “A top GOP candidate for governor campaigned at an event promoting QAnon and conspiracy theories about 9/11,” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 27, 2022, https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/doug-mastriano-teddy-daniels-qanon-conference-gop-candidates-20220427.html↩
  11. [11]Yes, this is, at best, a dubious methodology. I discuss it in David Benfell, “More questions than answers as Donald Trump flags come down,” Not Housebroken, September 10, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2022/08/28/more-questions-than-answers-as-donald-trump-flags-come-down/↩
  12. [12]Jonathan Tamari, “Fetterman and Shapiro lead Oz and Mastriano in key Pa. races, despite headwinds against Democrats, poll finds,” Philadelphia Inquirer, July 29, 2022, https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/pa-2022-poll-fetterman-oz-shapiro-mastriano-senate-gov-20220729.html; Julia Terruso and Jonathan Lai, “Women are registering to vote in Pa. in numbers far exceeding men since the Supreme Court abortion decision,” Philadelphia Inquirer, August 22, 2022, https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/pennsylvania-women-voter-registration-dobbs-20220822.html↩
  13. [13]David Benfell, “More questions than answers as Donald Trump flags come down,” Not Housebroken, September 10, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2022/08/28/more-questions-than-answers-as-donald-trump-flags-come-down/↩
  14. [14]Joe O’Dea, quoted in Amy Gardner et al., “Republicans in key battleground races refuse to say they will accept results,” Washington Post, September 18, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/18/republicans-refuse-accept-results/↩
  15. [15]Fritjof Capra, The Web of Life: A New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems (New York: Anchor, 1996);Fritjof Capra and Pier Luigi Luisi, The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University, 2014);Joanna Macy, Mutual Causality in Buddhism and General Systems Theory (Delhi, India: Sri Satguru, 1995).↩
  16. [16]David Benfell, “The really, really, really wild wildcards in the 2022 and 2024 elections,” Not Housebroken, August 17, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2022/08/17/the-really-really-really-wild-wildcards-in-the-2022-and-2024-elections/↩
  17. [17]David Benfell, “More questions than answers as Donald Trump flags come down,” Not Housebroken, September 10, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2022/08/28/more-questions-than-answers-as-donald-trump-flags-come-down/↩
  18. [18]David Benfell, “The really, really, really wild wildcards in the 2022 and 2024 elections,” Not Housebroken, August 17, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2022/08/17/the-really-really-really-wild-wildcards-in-the-2022-and-2024-elections/↩
  19. [19]Adam Curtis, The Century of the Self [DVD], BigD Productions.↩
  20. [20]David Benfell, “Spring in November?” Not Housebroken, September 19, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2022/09/19/spring-in-november/↩
  21. [21]Philip Slater, The Chrysalis Effect (Brighton, UK: Sussex, 2009).↩
  22. [22]Philip Slater, The Chrysalis Effect (Brighton, UK: Sussex, 2009).↩
  23. [23]David Benfell, “Spring in November?” Not Housebroken, September 19, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2022/09/19/spring-in-november/↩
  24. [24]Associated Press, “Ukraine pushes major counteroffensive as war marks 200 days,” September 11, 2022, https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-moscow-kharkiv-9e5363cd199fd7f01cba14efa4678e5f; Hugo Bachega, “Ukraine’s rapid gains stun Russia,” British Broadcasting Corporation, September 12, 2022, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62874557; Elena Becatoros and Hanna Arhirova, ““Ukraine claims to have reached Russian border as counteroffensive maintains momentum,” Times of Israel, September 12, 2022, https://www.timesofisrael.com/ukraine-claims-to-have-reached-russian-border-as-counteroffensive-maintains-momentum/; Shane Harris and Ellen Nakashima, “Intelligence points to potential turning point in Ukraine war,” Washington Post, September 12, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/09/12/ukraine-russia-retreat-us-intelligence/; Steve Hendrix, Serhii Korolchuk, and Robyn Dixon, “Amid Ukraine’s startling gains, liberated villages describe Russian troops dropping rifles and fleeing,” Washington Post, September 11, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/11/kharkiv-liberated-retreat-izyum-russia/; Isabelle Khurshudyan et al., “Ukraine extends battlefield gains as Kremlin reels from setback,” Washington Post, September 12, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/12/ukraine-russia-war-retreat-kharkiv/; Mike Martin, “Putin is finished. The Ukrainians have him on the ropes with a stunning victory in their sights,” Telegraph, September 11, 2022, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/09/11/putin-finished-ukrainians-have-ropes-stunning-victory-sights/; Merlyn Thomas, “Ukraine war: Russians ‘outnumbered 8-1’ in counter-attack,” British Broadcasting Corporation, September 12, 2022, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62874557↩
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