Independence Day
Major Jason Watson and the Case for Heroic Lucidity
Camus once remarked that “Heroic lucidity in the face of the absurd is all we have,” and while I might bracket the word ‘heroic,’ and argue that some action is also required to qualify for the adjective, I’ll stand with the statement in general. Particularly as it seems that lucidity is what’s needed now.
The adjective applies, I believe, to the lucidity of active duty USAF Major Jason Watson, who stood on the steps of the US Capitol this past Wednesday and stated that he took an oath to protect the constitution from all enemies both foreign and domestic, then called for the impeachment, conviction and removal of the Commander in Chief.
He was promptly and predictably arrested (having sacrificed his 17-year career in the military), but not before assuming his place in the pantheon of heroic American resisters who didn’t equivocate, who saw their moment with unflinching clarity, who refused to keep dancing in the living room while the kitchen was on fire.
Sitting here on the morning of July 4th, I can’t think of a more appropriate or more patriotic gesture.
Also on Wednesday, as it happens, ICE arrested a nun, dressed in her white habit, on her way to Mass, the Supreme Court dramatically expanded the president’s powers and showed itself willing to ignore the explicit letter of the Constitution, and Congressman Troy Nehls of Texas declared affordability nonsense and said he was going to feast on lobster tails and Ribeye steak and to celebrate “the greatest president of my lifetime.”
It was an eventful day.
Lately, every day is an eventful day.
In Major Watson’s name, in celebration of the country he stood up for, I’d like to use this post to take a stab at lucidity. Not because it will make me or anybody else happy (I fully expect to lose some readers with this), but because it seems to me that two great forces in American society – the tradition of liberty and the will to power - are inexorably moving toward each other like tectonic plates, and what makes me insane is that there are people, even now, who don’t see it or don’t want to.
People who believe “it’s not that bad.”
People whose investments are doing just fine.
People who believe, like an ex-friend of mine from the University of Virginia, that this is all within the norm. That it’ll work itself out the way it always has.
I’d love to believe that. I’d love to be able to stick my tenured head in the sand and hum.
But if speaking unwelcome truths isn’t part of the writer’s job description, what is?
I see harder times ahead – possibly very hard.
A criminal cabal, much like an organized crime family but without even the semblance of loyalty, has taken power in America. Aided by the unprecedented and nearly unimaginable collapse of the system of checks and balances built into our constitution, it now controls virtually every institution capable of slowing its advance, while the so-called legacy media has largely normalized what amounts to a slow-motion coup.
Though completely incompetent regarding the work of actual governing, this revolutionary cabal’s accumulation of power has only accelerated and is now reaching what could be called the ‘stop me’ phase of autocratic takeover: ‘You say you’re outraged by my contempt for the constitution and the people it protects? Fine. Stop me!’
Let me say it as clearly as I can: Nothing in this criminal administration’s past behavior suggests it will stop short of anything but complete power. It will say and do anything to further its reach, and though its aims are many, from self-aggrandizement to white supremacy to the establishment of some form of 21st century theocracy, the accumulation of power undergirds them all.
That accumulation has been made possible by the institutionalization of the lie, which has grown like a thunderhead from a rhetorical tactic to an existential assault on reality. Every lie replaces some small piece of reality with itself, and with every passing day, the administration pushes the attack, chipping away at what ‘is.’ With every passing day it tests its ability to declare an alternate truth by fiat.
Let the one example stand for the many: Last week, White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers declared that, “Thanks to President Trump, the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is restored, crystal clear and reflecting beautifully ahead of America’s 250th birthday celebration.”
The operating principle here is obvious enough: ‘Reality is what we say it is. Anyone saying it isn’t is a liar.’
They’ve been doing this a while now. It’s working beautifully.
At this point, many people - my University of Virginia ex-friend among them – will no doubt say that that’s what elections are for. If we don’t like what’s happening, we can vote ‘em out.
To which I can only reply, what about this administration’s behavior makes you believe there will be an election that in any way resembles elections of the past? Its integrity? Its respect for the constitution? Its allegiance to the electoral process and the peaceful transfer of power? I’d love to know. Because I don’t believe it.
What I do believe is that they will either torpedo it preemptively, disrupt it on Election Day, or deny it retroactively.
Are they capable of engineering a ‘national crisis’ – simultaneous ‘Antifa incidents,’ let’s say – that can then be used to justify declaring a state of emergency and ‘temporarily’ delaying the election until order can be restored?
Of course they are.
Are they capable of using their domestic paramilitary to intimidate voters on Election Day, or to appropriate ‘suspicious’ ballot boxes, or to arrest election officials for allegedly attempting to interfere with the election?
Of course they are.
Are they capable, following a historic defeat, of simply declaring an alternate reality (the Reflecting Pool is restored, crystal clear, and reflecting beautifully!), then declaring the Insurrection Act to prevent illegal immigrants and Communists from ‘stealing’ the election they themselves are stealing?
Of course they are.
Everything they’ve done so far says so.
Unfortunately, I’m not the only voice crying in the wilderness this July 4th.
Laurence Tribe, emeritus professor of law at Harvard, believes that “the republic is hanging by a thread,” that, “We [already] have a Congress that’s inert, a president who has no regard for the law or the constitution, and a court whose vision of the presidency is akin to that of a monarch, but stronger.”
Kim Lane Scheppele, an expert in comparative law at Princeton, believes that the United States Supreme Court is now “packed” in a way comparable to the courts in Russia under Putin or in Hungary under Viktor Orban.
There are many of us.
What unites us is a willingness to admit that the usual tools aren’t working.
What few would risk saying is that civil conflict is no longer unimaginable.
Having just written that, I can only say that I pray I’m wrong. I want my country back. If this administration’s incompetence and greed, or Trump’s inevitable passing, or the US military’s refusal to deploy against the American people brings the entire rotten edifice crashing down tomorrow, no one will eat crow as joyously as I will. I’ll shovel it in. I’ll ask for second helpings. I’ll roll in it like a dog in clover.
But I don’t think it’s likely.
I think Major Watson is a harbinger of things to come, and it may take a few million like him to turn this ship around.
I hope and pray you are wrong., Mark. Although we have millions of protesters, we have cowards and boot-lickers in Congress, and worse in the Supreme Court. I ask “when will we have had enough”that we stop it” When it’s too late?
I'm so proud of Major Watson. A hero.