Whispers From R'lyeh

[ecosophia]

Yesterday one of my readers pointed me to this astonishing essay. It's by Andrew O'Hehir, the executive editor of Salon, and it poses in its own half-coherent way a question that I've been exploring since early 2016 -- whether the rise of Donald Trump marks a significant watershed in America's collective life, one of those inflection points at which forces from outside the tawdry calculations of ordinary politics surge into action and send events careening down a course next to nobody predicted. O'Hehir has his own colorful way of saying this, of course: 

"I won't try to convince you that I don't feel the dread, born of PTSD from the 2016 election and the reasonable or unreasonable terror — bordering on nightmare-scenario certainty — that it will happen again. The dread is real and it's all around us, getting thicker with every twitch and flutter of the Pennsylvania polls and the London betting markets. Reason and logic cannot dispel it, both because dread by definition is impervious to those things and also because it was never reasonable or logical that Donald Trump would be elected president in the first place, and that event seemed to snap the tether that connected us to empirical reality."

There's much to savor in that paragraph. To begin with, it was entirely reasonable and logical that Trump won the 2016 election. Hillary Clinton ran a stunningly inept campaign that alienated more voters than it attracted, and in particular gave working class voters in the battleground states no reason to think that her election would be anything but a disaster for them. She ran a poor campaign, Trump ran a better one, and so despite her initial advantages, he eked out a narrow win:  such things have happened many times in American politics. 

To O'Hehir, though, that possibility is literally unthinkable. To him, Trump has to be something supernatural, unstoppable, ablaze with demonic power.  He compares Trump to Cthulhu, among other horror-fiction figures -- he's not original in that, of course; it's a source of immense amusement to me that horror writer Stephen King, of all people, has made the same comparison -- and sees echoes of Lovecraft's story "The Call of Cthulhu" in the way that the media and the public can't stop obsessing about the man. Of course O'Hehir insists that Trump's eerie power is purely something that has been projected on him by Americans for "mysterious but deeply troubling reasons" -- nothing, but nothing, terrifies the comfortable classes of our society more than the possibility that there may be anything, anywhere, that human beings don't ultimately control. 

Still, by bringing in H.P. Lovecraft's most iconic creation, O'Hehir has given away the game. 

The central theme of Lovecraft's best stories, "The Call of Cthulhu" very much among them, is the recognition that human beings are clueless about the realities that surround them: "We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was never meant that we should venture far." The protagonist of a classic Lovecraft story begins to find puzzling clues hinting that something strange is going on beneath the bland predictable surface of his ordinary life. Bit by bit, the clues add up, until protagonist and reader alike discover to their horror that the world they thought they inhabited is a thin crust of comforting delusion over eldritch and unfathomable abysses. 

If you know Lovecraft's biography it's easy to see why that theme had such compelling force for him. He was a child of privilege who spent his entire life sliding deeper and deeper into poverty and marginality, publishing stories for a penny a word with cheap pulp magazines because no more serious or lucrative venue was interested in his work, building dreamscapes by turns gorgeous and nightmarish as a refuge from a world that showed no concern whatsoever with his opinions about what it ought to do or be. 

That's the experience O'Hehir is chronicling here. He has all his reassuring ideas about what's reasonable and logical, all his canned talking points about how Trump is sure to lose, but there's a whispering voice from drowned R'lyeh telling him that those ideas matter only inside his own head. The dread he feels is the dread of a privileged class that suddenly discovers that the world is not what their ideology insists it must be, and the power they thought was theirs permanently is slipping out of their hands. For now, he can project that dread onto Donald Trump; what has only begun to sift its way into his darkest dreams is the cold terrifying realization that Trump is not an anomaly but an inevitability. 

Some of the "mysterious but deeply troubling reasons" for that could be explained to O'Hehir by any working class family in flyover country, or for that matter anyone else who's been on the wrong end of forty years of policies that benefited the comfortable classes at everyone else's expense. Some go far deeper. None of them have any place in the sanitized version of reality O'Hehir thinks he lives in. Still, as Lovecraft knew well -- and as O'Hehir seems to be realizing bit by bit, as the clues pile up -- the universe is serenely uninterested in how the executive editor of Salon thinks it ought to behave. 

Comments

Monstrous acts for fear of the Monster?

[everythingwill]

"Leaked" publicity of election wargames shows the opposition to Trump's incumbency refusing to concede, possibly pushing for outright ousting - The Coming Coup? essay.

Does this foretell of their horror compelling them out from the murk, beyond what the obfuscating media can explain away, in an open grab for power? Hoping the wargamers' prediction of a "street fight, not a legal battle" between power factions and everyday Americans does NOT come true...

Re: Monstrous acts for fear of the Monster?

[ecosophia]

I can think of nothing that would play into Trump's hands more perfectly. This has leaked, so Trump and his allies already know all about it, and will doubtless have military units ready to roll on Election Day. So the Democrats refuse to accept the results of the election and send mobs into the streets; Trump then invokes the Insurrection Act, federalizes the National Guard and has all relevant police departments (which just love the Democrats these days) deputized as Federal officers. Three days later every Democratic politician who has publicly backed the attempted rising is in custody or has fled the country, and the 14th amendment allows Trump to have every one of them deprived of their offices for engaging in insurrection against the lawful government. I bet he goes to sleep smiling every night, hoping that the Democrats will do something that stupid...

[(Anonymous)]

John—

I also find it humorous that his opponents may well have given Trump even more historical prestige beyond his replication of Truman-Dewey by having helped him to be the first impeached President to be re-elected. The visceral reaction to the reality he represents has potentially boomeranged in spectacular fashion.

But as you point out, he’s a consequence, not a cause. I am intensely curious to see how these forces that have been unleashed evolve after his time on the stage is done.

—David BTL

[ecosophia]

Agreed. What happens in the in 2023 and 2024 will be a useful foretaste of that.

I hope big clouds of smoke are not an omen

[open_space]

I haven’t read Lovecraft, all I know from his stores I’ve grabbed from you and WoH but sounds appropriate for the times. Yesterday I was watching the sunset and realized that something odd was in the air. Today the vibes were grubby in Seattle as the city is surrounded with a thick cloud of smoke as a forest nearby burns and the face masks were finally used for something useful. People have started to act very weird since the whole election topic started to grab people’s attention. They are very quiet. I’m glad I am well stocked in books and already have started to make plans to get out the city and into the woods for a few weeks until after the election.

Re: I hope big clouds of smoke are not an omen

[ecosophia]

Fascinating. Portland's also socked in with smoke clouds, I understand...

[(Anonymous)]

John—

A quick second comment. Ten or so years ago, I’d likely have felt that same way, ensconced as I was in the mentality of the comfortable classes. Though, by the numbers, I am still a member of those classes, my lifestyle has altered dramatically in those ten years, as has my outlook. Now, the change Trump represents gives me hope in the future, hope that we may yet find a way to navigate the very challenging terrain before us.

—David BTL

[ecosophia]

I've heard from a lot of members of the comfortable classes who've drifted out of the kind of mentality exemplified in that essay. That also gives me hope for the future!

[(Anonymous)]

Sorry, John. A third comment, though it’s more a question.

It is apparent (more than apparent) that the Democrats, or at least the leadership thereof, have refused to learn anything from the Great Upset of 2016. In fact, they’ve more or less committed themselves to a rerun of the contest of four years ago, right down to the status quo (ante) candidate and the token change (then, a woman president; now, a black woman veep).

Despite all the data, all the rational and logical conclusions one would draw from the experience (what happened? why did it happen? how can we adjust to incorporate this information?), they are insisting that the new wine return to the old wine skins.

Why?

If ever there was a case of malign enchantment, this would be one.

—David BTL

[ecosophia]

That's the thing that makes this whole business so eerie. The Democrats had one and only one job in the wake of the 2016 election: figure out what they did to alienate some of their core demographics in the upper Midwest and stop doing it. It would have been easy for them to do that, and then target Trump with the same tactics that were used so effectively to marginalize and defeat Jimmy Carter in his day. Instead, over and over again, they've done exactly those things that were guaranteed to convince large swathes of the electorate that as bad as Trump is, they're much worse.

[(Anonymous)]

It's been more than a little frustrating to see the woke get their hands on Cthulhu in the past few years.

Probably the worst take is that of Evil Hat's Fate of Cthulhu, a roleplaying game*, which from what I've gathered not only dedicates two pages to Lovecraft's racism (surely a paragraph or two would suffice?), but also casts the PCs as time-traveling monster-hunters wielding futuristic gadgets and weaponry.

Mind you, this is also using the FATE system, where character death requires the consent of the player -- a far cry from the classic Chaosium game, where PCs are squishy and their death or insanity is more-or-less inevitable.

The whole thing utterly reeks of exactly the ideology of humans-are-in-control that, as you say, is antithetical to the Cthulhu mythos.

* Actually it's more of a story game, but no need to split that hair at the moment.

[ecosophia]

Well, of course! Just as JRR Tolkien's brilliant and troubling insights into the nature of technological power were neutered by turning his vision into raw material for an entire industry of ninth-rate fantasy schlock, Lovecraft's equally brilliant and troubling insights into the nature of human reality are being neutered by using his tentacled horrors for imaginary target practice. That's how you know that both writers scored direct hits...

[(Anonymous)]

“...PTSD from the 2016 election...”. “The dread is real...”

In my youth there was a 5-letter unDruidly word, beginning with “p,” for guys (?) like him.


—Lady CK

[ecosophia]

Heh.

I'm reminded of a Gary Larson cartoon:

[(Anonymous)]

Synchronicity abounds as the tentacles that have been oozing out of Langley for much to long get hacked at by the orange emperor. He has shown a light on the beast that has been lurking as a shadow while the American Dream has turned into the American color revolution. Hard to imagine that I would be cheering on such a person as the Holy Cheeto but he has brought more garbage to the surface than any other person I can think of. It could be that he is but a tentacle of the dread creatures spawned by so called intelligence but I think there is something different at work here. O'Hehir calls the Orange Orb Cthulhu. That is pretty rich coming from the executive editor of a tentacle himself. I assume he is projecting! I see everything that has happened of late as a tentacle. Russiagate, impeachment, covid, George Floyd, BLM, antifa, Brennan... all tentacles. Just waiting for the next one to appear. The Octopus certainly figures heavily with regards to intelligence communities. I have yet to dive into Hali but plan on it soon. Do you have any tentacles you would like to tell us about?
amonHA

[(Anonymous)]

Perhaps the Salon article was just an advertisement for "LOVECRAFT COUNTRY!" a true horror(ible) show

Horror

[(Anonymous)]

I wonder if those people are the ones for whom Lovecraft is actually scary and responsible for classifying him as horror when he was just considered a "weird fiction" writer in his lifetime.

Like you, I've never felt the tiniest bit of horror when reading his fiction.

Re: Horror

[ecosophia]

Hmm -- that would make quite a bit of sense.

[(Anonymous)]

Because boldly going where no man has ever gone before, into virgin space, is always relevant...

Happy International Star Trek Day, everybody! May you all, even Andrew O’Herliher, live long and prosper!

[miles_l]

Normally around this time you would see Cthulhu 2020 Campaign signs as jokes. I have not seen any. My guess is that it's not funny when Cthulhu is a viable candidate.

I echo that the 2024 election will be a major turning point.

I would like to see both parties broken up in to 2-3 parties. That way everyone has to negotiate with each other and we can have a real democracy again. I truly believe that will happen for the 2024 election. Both sides have pushed the "we are your only choice" narrative too far. The Democrats especially. Whichever party loses will break up sooner. Though whoever wins will break up as all of the primary candidates fight to be seen and realize that the party line isn't the way to go.

Though we will see. What I am sure of is that we have a rocky 4 years ahead of us.

[ecosophia]

Oh, the Great Old One is running as usual:

I haven't seen as many of his posters as usual, but I've seen them.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm reminded of a comment Robin Williams said,

“Canada, you are the kindest country in the world. You are like a really nice apartment over a meth lab."

Canada isn’t that nice

[(Anonymous)]

Too bad Canada is built on an extraction empire that destroys native communities worldwide and leaves behind an essentially permanent ecological disaster

[robertmathiesen]

From where I sit, it seems that the Democratic Party is changing from a practical political party into a religion. Religions hardly ever win elections. They just double down on their core beliefs when the going gets rough.

[(Anonymous)]

There seem to be very large groups who, like Mr. O'Hehir, have failed to comprehend the reason and logic of 2016. I know quite a few everyday people who are equally befuddled, and who regurgitate the propaganda they are fed, no matter how illogical it may be. Some of these people are very bright, but they are all consumers of popular and social media. However, when we get to the level of executive editors of Salon I start to wonder just where on the spectrum between opinion consumers and creators we are.

I have observed that starting before the 2016 election and accelerating until now, some of the largest media and entertainment organizations in existence are being sacrificed in an all out propaganda push. Notional "news" outfits like CNN pumping out nonsense while coming up with a label like "fake news that was then turned against them, Hollywood pumping out total trash propaganda films no one could care about, sports franchises bending the knee and alienating their fans, even the advertising of giant corporations being turned to promote specific views. These were enormous money making enterprises now being repurposed to shape opinion, many of which will never recover, which tells me that some powerful people are "all in" on this project.

So is Mr. O'Hehir really confused, or is he trying to reinforce the idea that Trump's re-election cannot be reasonable or logical?

-Twilight

[(Anonymous)]

Oh dear gods. It's not an echo chamber: it's a feedback loop....

[(Anonymous)]

The sad thing is, Trump hasn't done much for the working people who voted for him. People are still losing their livelihoods, living precariously, while tax breaks for the wealthy funnel money upwards. Neither party seems to care about the poor, just about wealthy business interests.

[(Anonymous)]

One word: Obamacare. Seriously: getting rid of that dramatically improved a lot of people's lives. More broadly, Trump is doing a lot more than the media talks about, which on the face of it is absurd given how much they focus on him....

[(Anonymous)]

A different perspective:
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/09/09/pers-s09.html

[ecosophia]

Do you think they simply recycle the same articles every time there's an election? It all sounds the same -- endlessly regurgitated Marxist rhetoric with little if any connection to what's actually going on. I suspect that's one of the reasons so few people are interested in socialism these days.

Weather tech commercial features tentacles

[neptunesdolphins]

Hi, on tv, the Weather tech company has a family at a drive in theater watching a tentacle monster. The father sneaks out and jumps in front of their windshield. Scared them. They trash the car up with candy and popcorn.

Well, I am not sure what the magical message is. Anyone?

Shattered and passivity

[neptunesdolphins]

I read Shattered the book about the Clinton campaign. It's all there for the Democrats to revise campaigning. Shattered is a good description of it.

I have noticed how passive the Democrats are. They are inert blobs. Obama has lost his fire. The rest are waiting for people to come to them. They are waiting to be consulted. That goes for the never Trump Republicans. They are used to be asked.

Re: Shattered and passivity

[ecosophia]

Shattered should have been a wake-up call. Instead, it seems to have been completely ignored. You're right about the passivity, too -- over and over again, they've acted as though all they had to do was scream loudly enough and Mommy would come fix things.

Active Trump people

[neptunesdolphins]

I noticed that the Trump people are organizing rallies to show support. The piddletwits that I know are laughing at the boat rally. They are saying Poseidon for Biden.

Funny, I don't see them organizing for Biden. What I do see are people organizing for BLM.
Their energy isn't for Biden.

Re: Active Trump people

[(Anonymous)]

It may even be why the deepstate dems have chosen a losing ticket of Hiden/Barris. Perhaps they want four more years of Trump because they are obviously not done using antifa and BLM as shock troops for continued chaos. This too will probably backfire because it is being done for the wrong reasons.
I will say I am sick of seeing people wearing facemasks with FREEDOM emblazened on their shirt. I would rather see tentacles.
amonHa

Conversation with Trump supporter

[neptunesdolphins]

I was listening to Trump discuss how he is dismantling the military industrial complex which makes the generals and contractors mad. Well, he now has my vote. Finally someone gets it.

The conversation I had with a Trump supporter was that that's why they - the establishment - hated him. He doesn't listen to them, he doesn't follow their advice, he follows his own sense and ideas. In other words, he asks their opinions, weighs everything and then strikes out on his own.

In other words, the Salon writer's nightmare is true.

Re: Conversation with Trump supporter

[ecosophia]

Yep. Great Cthulhu really, truly, doesn't care what he thinks.

[dfr1973]

From the linked essay: "[Trump] launched a campaign that was always more about speaking the unspeakable than about any specific ideas or proposals." Right here the editor/essayist stumbles over the truth of the matter, although he does pick himself up and continue onwards seemingly oblivious to it.

[ecosophia]

True enough! Of course the flip side of that is that Trump did and does have specific policies and proposals -- they just contradict the conventional wisdom of the chattering classes so totally that O'Hehir and his ilk literally can't even let themselves notice that they exist.

[(Anonymous)]

Some what off topic. But The Great Old Ones have been mentioned. This article popped up on Twitter from 'Wrath of Gnon' - https://www.city-journal.org/html/new-old-masters-14188.html. Like Breken, JACOB COLLINS is into the human great old ones.

John

[ecosophia]

Thank you -- you've just made my day. A painter who's rejected the pernicious dogmas of Uglicism and is painting real, representational, beautiful paintings, and teaching others to do the same -- Huzzah!

[(Anonymous)]

Partly inspired by your response to me on ecosophia.net about the apples being noticed everywhere, but also connected with this article.. We've learned a lot about TSW over the years here. There's also a group of people who don't want to admit that there is more to life than the material realm. When they keep seeing things indicating there is more at work, most are doubling down. More are starting to see though, that TSIR, or this stuff is real. I think it's a phenomena, or a response to this phenomena that we have seen a ton of recently, and will no doubt see more of it in the future. One by one the walls of progress have come crashing down and a new world is being revealed.

Prizm

[ecosophia]

That's really good to hear. Once enough people have accepted that, we can begin salvaging everything good in modern science and reintegrating it into a saner vision of the world.

[(Anonymous)]

John--

I know the polls are still just the polls, but not only was that Trump-ward slide in Nate Silver's simulations I noted a temporary convention bump, the numbers are sliding past the 70/30 mark to something closer to 75/25.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/

Of course, he also had HRC at 90/10 until right before the election, when it started sliding downhill hard to 70/30 (IIRC) right before Election Day.

We're still many weeks out yet and Biden's still only hovering just at or above that 50% mark popularly (and in those key states), so things can shift quickly as the "undeclared" declare themselves. This will be interesting to watch as we get closer to Nov 3rd.

--David BTL

[ecosophia]

After 2016, if Nate Silver said the sun rises in the East, I'd go see for myself...

[adwelly]

I fear a narrow victory for either side; it’s hard to imagine a more dangerous moment for the US polity in living memory.

Andy

[ecosophia]

Understood. A really solid victory for one side or the other would help settle things.