Book Review of “Weapons of Mass Delusion: When the Republican Party Lost Its Mind”
This is a cross-posting. The original review was on GoodReads, but I think Medium might be a better home for this piece.
Original Review
Although I have read books on similar topics, this is my first encounter with the activities in the House of Representatives after the January 6th insurrection. Not really surprised by the accounts described within, but my dread does not diminish a bit.
People who like to look at the bright side point to history: the US has suffered much worse delusion in the past, yet reason, logic, rationality, and unity have prevailed nonetheless. Time can help forget the craziness and heal the wound. However, I do not hold such an optimistic view. We are living in a different time. With the level of technology now, what used to be able to erode away by time will persist, spread, and grow. The lies and bad intention will not die. The parallel universe where almost half of American voters choose to reside will not burst. Because there is money to make, social status to gain, and fantasy to realize. And because some of them truly believe in the parallel universe and want to shape the country the way they see most fit:
- No immigration
- No universal health care
- No equal rights for the minorities
- No regulation on corporation
- No environment protection if it hurts corporation profits
- No taxes to the rich
- No separation of church and state
- More spending on military
- Everything privatized
- No more Democrats or whoever oppose them
The sad part is that the Trump-aligning enthusiasts are sometimes directly harming their own districts, yet they don’t care. The even sadder part is that the constituents themselves don’t care to be screwed either, or they don’t know, or they don’t want to know, or they will simply blame it on the Democrats/deep state/whatever antagonistic force conjured up.
How do we move forward? I don’t know. The grifters — Trump himself included because he couldn’t care a rat’s tail about politics, ideology, or the future of America as long as he has the biggest crowd in a rally — and the enablers in this shenanigan will not budge unless the wind changes.
The I-don’t-have-a-choice-but-follow-along-otherwise-I-won’t-be-elected-again might find their conscience, but if Jan 6 can’t help them find it, I don’t know what can.
The aspirers and Trump-wanna-be’s are lining up to one-up the other. Honestly, if a half-wit as Trump can amass 74 million votes, why can’t an intelligent, well-educated, well-funded, patient, and strategic white man not achieve the same, or even more? That must be DeSantis’ inner monologue.
The ones with integrity are thinning, ostracized. Well, to be honest, what we face now is the direct result of Republicans’ own making, since the McCarthyism, the Reaganites, the two Bushes. They have been soling hate, spreading lies, and defunding education for more than half a century, because those are the only ways they can motivate voters and get elected. They have chosen to be the hostage of the mob and extremist mentality well before Trump rode down the elevator; there shouldn’t be any sympathy.
Yet sympathy I still feel for the Republicans, especially the young ones, who have voted to impeach Trump and voted for or joined the Jan 6 committee. We have a bigger threat at hand. Even if the Trump-Greene-Gosar-Boebert-Gatz-Abbot-DeSantis… delusion was hatched directly by the Republican party, it is still necessary to join force with the enemy of my enemy to deal with it first and foremost. To that end, this book does a good job moving the needle in the right direction.
Alas, the real problem is never these figure heads. It is the crazy mob, the curse of democracy. How do we shake them out of it? My parents have lived through The Cultural Revolution in China back in the 60s and 70s. That was some crazy time as well. In fact, I think the Chinese people then were as delusional as the MAGA crowd, if not more (thank goodness they didn’t have easy access to firearms, but they did rob armories and kill each other on the streets, so that’s that). How did they get out of it?
1. Death of Mao, the supreme leader and ultimate instigator of the delusion.
2. Shifting most of the blame to the Gang of Four (they were the grifters and enablers), who were arrested and publicly sentenced.
3. The next leader Deng, authoritarian nonetheless, was not batshit crazy (almost a benevolent dictator if you will)
4. Deng’s opening up policy made people’s life better so there was less incentive to be delusional.
Maybe there is some food for thought in that playbook.
