Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

Being an American with a firm grasp of reality and a dose of empathy is pretty difficult at this time. We see the comments after articles from our neighbors. Their responses move from irrational to apologist, exhibiting a vision of the country that seems like hell to many of us. Somehow, it seems to be reassuring to them to have cruelty’s back. These comments show up all over the place, especially after any articles that pertain to what is happening in Minneapolis and the state-sanctioned murder of Renee Good.

We see anything from she shouldn’t have hit him with her car (obviously terrifying that our fellow Americans can watch that footage and think this is what happened) or that she shouldn’t have been “blocking the way” (also a frequent refrain and ironically, what many from the far right cite as their reason to be able to run into protesters with their own cars). Yes, many of the more repetitive and divisive comments are definitely from bot farms, but the fact that many are not is chilling.

The cult members among us– they contort their views to match what their leader wants them to believe. These are the Americans who were enthralled by “Pizzagate” but, having been presented with mountains of credible evidence against their leader of the same nature, are managing to find themselves in something of a pro-pedophile realm. I think we can probably understand their belief system more effectively if we look to the Manson family member behaviors as a relevant case study instead of traditional Democrat/Republican affiliation narratives.

I do believe this is an important point for our friends outside of the United States to understand. I often see many asking why we don’t simply decide not to comply. They wonder why we don’t take to the streets in such numbers that they would have to bend to our will. A major reason is that this large, though minority group of regime supporters is very much a part of our national fabric. It’s difficult to unravel something that took so many........

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