Harold Edgerton: Hammer Breaking Glass (1933)

" … what might really make America greater than anybody ever expected, again."

The dedicated sociopath eventually oversteps his boundaries. He never could color within the lines of propriety, and, eventually, he strays too far over the lines and alienates his primary constituency. His was never more than theoretically anything, anyway. Its reality would, then, have to seem rather radically different from the illusion he so successfully managed to initially project. Making America Great Again couldn't have ever possibly felt like as great an experience in practice as it promised in theory. Once gravity actually engages, nothing seems to fly as easily. Hefting actual mass makes real work. Every action inevitably spawns a roughly equal and opposite reaction, and externalities tend to quickly start inconveniently piling up. Unintended and unexpected consequences burden acceptance. Targets move too close to home. We finally glimpse the long-reviled enemy, and he turns out to more than merely resemble us.

Even benevolent reformers encounter these effects, for old status quos, however ineffective, tenaciously hold their ground. There are never any elegant ways to undermine them. Dogs must ultimately eat dogs. The squeamish need not apply, but they always seem to end up on the front lines anyway. The dream's purity gets sullied in application. Benefit becomes debit. Promise turns to betrayal. As if awakening, The Base starts fragmenting. The cynicism that initially attracted them to The Sociopath receives continuing disappointments. What was proposed as milk and honey seems considerably more muddy and bitter in practice, and a new layer of distrust of politicians and the political process emerges. What was supposed to fix a system never properly broken finally becomes the primary reason many swear never to trust another damned politician again.

The purpose of the campaign was to persuade, not to purposefully propose. That's why it so carefully tip-toed around describing any implementation details. It was all couched in satisfying outcomes as if one could accomplish everything without expending an ounce of actual energy. Reality couldn't help but be disappointing after the beating those dreams took in execution. It was always one thing to promise prosperity and quite another to introduce austerity as the means. It helped when nobody involved really understood the first thing about accomplishing anything. Those weaned on fantastic dreams and conservative commentary tend to become All Ya Gotta Do people, ones uninterested in implementation details and more focused upon the gaudy dancers and brass bands. They never were more than daydream patriots, hobby soldiers unappreciative of the effects of gun ownership, just the underlying rights unaccompanied by counterbalancing obligations. They cheered at the suggestion of undermining the libs but found they had no stomach for all undermining actually inflicted upon their neighbors and themselves.

America comes to seem as though it was already plenty great before the reforming started. Many things remained almost invisible but could have qualified as eminently appreciatable, but the rhetoric had to insist that the situation was broken and grave. They characterized the glass as irrevocably worse than broken when it might have always been overflowing. The sleights of hand fooled more than the eye, but they fooled plenty of eyes. The real work always begins after the victory celebration. The effort always rightfully seems initially overwhelming. The system, so recently seen as broken, might hold the only things capable of repairing itself. Long accustomed to being the benefactor, we become Saul of Tarsis, realizing that we had been misguided in seeking to punish unbelievers. The enemy had been our redemption in disguise. We'd apparently forgotten that fundamental truth again, as usual.

The Sociopath always deals in divisions. He exclusively builds his coalitions out of others, those convinced they could never belong. When they win, they face the crisis of belonging. Belonging nullifies all excuses. Those accustomed to nourishing themselves with grievances find themselves suddenly starving once they no longer have compliant old Joe Biden to blame for everything. Once they hold the high ground, they become the culpable parties. Once their leader sits behind The Resolute Desk, he gets credit for all the usual random effects any economy projects. Once the buck stops, the whole game changes. A period of extreme disorientation and realigning ensues. I've been thinking that we've never properly tested the constitutional provisions involved in removing a president for cause. Lord knows, as do an ever-increasing number of former MAGAs, that we've been offered a rare opportunity to see what might really make America greater than anybody ever expected again.

©2025 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #NextWorld, #PureSchmaltz