Evil Is As Evil Does
The REAL Way to Overgrow the “Deep State” Is By Cultivating a Deeper State
“If it quacks like a duck and steps like a goose, there is definitely something fowl afoot.” — Swami Beyondananda
In the summer of 2015, I was waiting for the Larkspur Ferry to take me to the San Francisco Giants game. There was a huge video screen tuned to CNN. Donald Trump was on, and the sound was off. As I stood with fellow passengers watching Trump’s hand gestures and facial contortions, one of the passengers turned and looked at me, and at the exact same moment we both said: “Adolf Hitler.”
Nothing I have seen in the past five years has changed my mind, although I now think Trump is more like Mussolini than Hitler. Hitler at least had a coherent political philosophy. Trump’s “philosophy” — despite the contortions his supporters go through to find his redeeming qualities — is simply to serve his own interests above all else. The “Hitler” part has more to do with who he is attracting. In the movie Accidental Courtesy, Daryl Davis, the black blues musician who has been engaging with and “converting” KKK members for years, says, “Not every Trump supporter is a racist, but every racist is a Trump supporter.”
And that’s the bottom line, or at least one of them. When reports say, “Trump is appealing to his base,” I recognize the sad and alarming double meaning of the word “base.” Consider the so-called “southern strategy”, a foundation of Republican politics for the past half-century. In its vibrational essence, Trumpism is in goose step with every attempt to block or curtail rights of women, people of color, and poor working folks.
While the right wing press is circulating rumors that “communists” on the left are threatening violence on Election Day, we don’t need rumors to prove that forces on the right are already doing that. Emboldened by the “President”, militia groups have already plotted to kidnap Democratic governors, and just two days ago the Biden bus was run off the road in Texas by Trump supporters.
So, in answer to the unasked question, do I believe in the Trump Derangement Syndrome, my answer is, absolutely. Deranged Trump supporters are likely to do anything he asks of them.
Evil is as evil does.
Fantasies like Q-Anon have emerged to reassure the faithful that despite everything their eyes and ears and instincts tell them, Donald Trump is secretly a good guy. He is just “playing” a bad guy, see? At the right time he will bring forth John Kennedy, Jr. who wasn’t really killed in that plane crash, and has been waiting in the wings for the right moment.
In a balanced — and in some ways sympathetic — analysis of Q-Anon Fred Burks writes, “Because of the strong polarizing element and far too much exaggeration, misleading claims, and more, I cannot support the Q movement. Neither can I support a movement which believes Trump is our savior who will expose the deep state, save the trafficked children, and throw all of the perpetrators in jail. Once elected, Trump quickly surrounded himself with Wall Street bankers for advisors, in effect filling the swamp rather than draining it. And he has sold billions of dollars worth of weapons to the corrupt Saudi kingdom, which I believe is a key dark actor on the world stage.”
One time chess champion Garry Kasparov, who risked his life going up against Vladimir Putin a decade ago, suggests that Putin and Trump are indeed kindred (soulless) souls.
Wise observer Kareem Abdul Jabbar writes, “The past four years have indeed been a crime scene in which the America of the U.S. Constitution has been duct-taped to a chair and relentlessly waterboarded by those chanting ‘Make America Great Again.’
“They worship their fantasy idea of Trump: a comic book maverick who doesn’t need to read, listen to experts, adhere to the rules of decency or follow any code of ethics. Instead, he fulfills their vision of America, not as a land of equal opportunity — but as a feeding trough only meant for those big enough and ruthless enough to bully their way to the front and consume all that they can. The rest can fight over whatever crumbs fall to the ground.”
And … as I have said before in this campaign, just because the right is wrong doesn’t mean the left is right.
Many friends and colleagues across the political spectrum have expressed concern over how information critical of the official COVID narrative has been censored and de-platformed by the “liberal” media, and rightly recognize the damage done by Bill Gates, particularly in his partnership with Bayer-Monsanto. Perhaps the most outspoken and internationally-renowned critic of the Gates / Monsanto / vaccination connection has been activist and author Vandana Shiva.
And, as we look at her history in supporting economic and environmental justice, could you imagine her suggesting we Americans vote for Donald Trump as an alternative? You’re right, you can’t.
The way we take on issues of medical totalitarianism, and restoring the soil and microbiome MUST be transpartisan, because both parties are captive of big pharma and agribusiness. Imagining that Donald Trump will give a platform to vaccine critics is just that, imagination. As Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. reports, after the 2016 election he was called into a meeting with Donald Trump, who proposed making him vaccine safety czar. It only took one meeting between Trump and Bill Gates (who said he didn’t think that was a good idea) for RFK, Jr. to be ghosted.
Here is an excellent foundation for a transpartisan movement for health freedom and soil restoration written by John and Ocean Robbins on behalf of the Food Revolution Network, signed by dozens of luminaries. They write, “The current administration was elected on promises to “drain the swamp” and fight for the people. But in reality, it has further perpetuated and deepened the very policies that sell out public health for the exorbitant profits of junk food, factory farming, pharmaceutical, and pesticide industries.”
Of course, if Donald Trump were the only thing wrong with American politics — well, we wouldn’t be in the “shituation” we’re in today. If you haven’t seen the excellent documentary, “The Social Dilemma” I recommend it as a sobering view of how hearts and minds are captured, occupied and toxically manipulated by social media designed to polarize. Each side has dehumanized the other, and indeed we have been divided to the point where we cannot hold our government and the institutions of society accountable to the standards of integrity, honesty, decency and simple justice the 90% of us who aren’t sociopaths agree on.
We have been divided and conquered, and the only way up and out is to “unite and prevail”, as we recognize that each side has been hoodwinked by a bunch of winking hoods that benefit from our being divided. The oligarchs, and those who want the few to dominate over the many, have already won the battle on the current battlefield. Which means that awakening Americans on all sides must step off the old battlefield of “dominate or be dominated”, onto a new playing field of collaboration, cooperation and cultivation.
My colleague Jed Diamond, who has spent the past half-century as a therapist helping men cultivate and express healthy masculinity, writes: “I believe there is an even more important contrast between the two men who would lead our country — one between domination and partnership — a contrast that cultural historian and systems scientist Riane Eisler has been studying for more than thirty years.”
So if there is a “bottom line” in this election where a deeply-flawed system offers us deeply-flawed choices, it’s this. Do we revert to the dominator in times of fear, or do we affirm that the evolutionary way forward is through cooperation?
Yes, there is indeed a “deep state”, and the ruling institutions of society have been polluted by secrecy, divisiveness and disinformation. Only by creating a “deeper state” — a sane and sacred center that reflects the heart and soul of who we are — can we navigate our current evolutionary passage.
Regardless of the outcome of this election, the problems of mistrust and divisiveness, misinformation and disinformation will not go away. At the same time, there is a relentless and unstoppable desire for love, functionality, kindness and unity to prevail. May this unity of heart help us move forward together to empower a new precedent — government, of, by and for the people where the government does OUR bidding and not the bidding of the highest bidder.
