What’s really funny is that back in the 1990s, the 2000s and in the early 2010s, Democrats blamed their election losses on rich donors. There was an obsession on the Left with the Wall Street and the Koch brothers of enormous proportions.

But Democrats no longer blame rich people for their election losses because rich people now support them. They have become the party of Wall Street. So what to do? They tried using Russians but Russians are of limited use because it’s hard to explain their active involvement in state and local elections.

Instead, the vague concept of “misinformation” was chosen, and it’s a great find. Misinformation is everything and nothing. It’s whatever you don’t like at any given moment. All you need to decide what’s misinformation is to proclaim yourself the (and I mean THE) source of truth.

In my Cervantes class, we keep discussing what or who is the source of the truth. Is there a source of truth that exists outside of us and what is it? And what happens when we decide that we are the only source of truth?

This is why the following looked particularly funny:

In Illinois, Voting Day is a state holiday, and I plan to enjoy this handout as I go vote against further handouts.

Klara asked what the voting is about. I said we are electing people to the government.

“Gunmint?” she asked. “Wasn’t it gunmint who made me wear a mask at school?”

I confirmed that it was.

“Don’t vote for that gunmint, Mommy,” she said. “It’s not nice.”

When I tell people I’ve taken up painting, they react as if I said I’ve taken up pedophilia. “Yeah, haha, very funny. What a silly joke.”

I don’t know why people react this way. Is it because I’m utterly lacking in talent? I know I am but so what? I’m not hoping to make my name as an artist. I know I suck. It’s the process I’m after.

There’s a bunch of really great videos on philosophy and history that I want to listen to. But I can’t just listen and do nothing in the meantime. I get terribly distracted. But if I’m occupied with something that requires a lot of attention, the videos go down as a charm.

It’s the curse of a busy, hyperactive brain. At least, two channels at once need to be occupied or I can’t process anything.

Today, hours before the Election Day, the Illinois GOP finally figured out that it might make sense to contact me. It’s not all their fault. I’m a registered Democrat and have no idea how to de-register. But it’s funny anyway.

Conservatives tried to flee major social media for Parler because they were being censored. Liberals are trying to flee major social media for Mastodon because others aren’t being censored enough.

There’s been zero reduction in Twitter censorship. Zero, bupkes, nil. Yet these incredible crybabies have created a mega drama because of the mere possibility that somebody might reduce censorship.

We are rightfully ridiculing Russians for wanting to bring back the USSR. But those Russians haven’t experienced any better. The pro-censorship liberals have, so what’s their excuse?

A great day today, as expected. Daylight Savings Time is kind to me as always. On a wave of enthusiasm for the correct November vibe finally setting in, I invented a Canadian bacon casserole (Canadian bacon, kielbasa, baby potatoes, broccoli, tomatoes, pesto, sour cream, coriander chutney, and no, it doesn’t taste atrocious, you hater. I have a very happy husband prowling around the rapidly disappearing dish who can testify to its merits).

Of course, as I was writing this, I got an email that one of the edited volumes I’m contributing to has collapsed, so the bad luck streak might not really be over.

Some British lawyer in Cyprus published an article praising Putin. Within hours, every major Russian newspaper and website published an article praising the Cypriot for praising Putin.

It’s hard to believe that Russian journalists all collectively spent their Sunday morning browsing through the obscure Cyprus website where the original article appeared and then all just happened to write a nearly identical piece about it.

It’s a lot more likely that the article was written in the Kremlin and then given to some Cypriot stooge to publish under his name for a fee. The state-controlled media in Russia were tasked with publicizing the Cypriot’s article once it appeared. It’s very basic, very primitive propaganda. What’s sad is that there is bound to be a group of “it’s because of the NATO expansion” diehards who will take the Cypriot’s piece as proof that they’ve been right to worship Putin this whole time.

https://twitter.com/VladDavidzon/status/1588823642388893696?t=IYzMYLLSuVa9mmvuIQZ1dA&s=19

Poor kid. The world has moved on both from her and environmentalism. The aggressive embrace of single-use COVID masks by the fashionable people made their climate concerns sound like a joke. The climate crowd has dwindled and is trying to attract attention by posing for Tik Tok videos while pouring soup on artwork. Greta is now reduced to trying to milk the topic of ray-ceesm. As usual, she’s autistically oblivious to the fact that this field is staked out by people a lot less milky than her, and there’s no fruit to pick from it for the whitest person on the planet.

The diffuse, vapor-like goals of environmentalism only become attractive when life is completely calm and very boring. Climate anxieties distract kids in opulent societies from the monotonous perfection of their lives. But the second real problems appear, everybody forgets all about climate doom while the people who turned climate into their brand start hustling to attach themselves to a more profitable brand.

There’s a lesson in this, which is to be careful when you pick your brand. Trump, for instance, came up with the brilliant brand of “make America great again,” but it was a brand that couldn’t survive winning. It carried an implicit promise that was going to make the brand short-lived whether the promise was successful or not.

And look – the Brits are really on our side, feeling deeply the pain of the war in Ukraine. That’s because it speaks to their most important national trauma: World War II. They were wounded but fought gloriously and stood up to the enemy. Like Ukrainians. So it’s easy for the Brits to get on the same wavelength. They have nothing to be ashamed of in their memory of WWII, so they react to the war in Ukraine with sincere, open support.

Germans, on the other hand, are much more ambivalent. Since they became a nation, they’ve never been invaded without provocation. They never stood up to invaders because they didn’t have to. Instead, they have invaded, and they don’t like to be reminded of that.

The French have been invaded but in the most recent invasion they rolled over fast and agreed to peace on humiliating terms. Have you noticed how Macron keeps trying to persuade Ukrainians to agree to their own Vichy? Subconsciously, the idea that everybody ultimately rolls over for General Guderian is pleasing because it speaks to the biggest national trauma. If Ukraine agrees to a humiliating “peace,” it means there wasn’t anything that shameful in the Vichy regime.

Spaniards are supportive of Ukraine but not passionately so. They understand that Ukraine’s cause is rightful but the whole thing bores them. The Spanish nation-state was, indeed, created in response to an invasion from the closest neighbor. It was a moment of high national glory. Spaniards fought ferociously and beat back the much stronger enemy by the sheer force of patriotism and willpower. The only problem is that this all happened in 1808. Today, only faint echoes of all this remain in the national psyche. Spain has had bigger traumas since then, and, like always happens in Hispanic countries, those problems were entirely home-made.

Of course, this all works only for the countries with a fully realized, mature nation-state whose most recent major wound to the body of the nation comes from an invasion or something like it. Mexico, for example, was invaded in the 19th century but it’s biggest national trauma is the more recent Mexican revolution and the ensuing civil war. So Mexicans have no interest in what’s happening in Ukraine. It doesn’t speak to them because it’s unfamiliar.

I just came up with this theory today, and I think there’s something to it.

Happy Daylight Savings Time, everybody! It’s my second favorite night of the year after New Year’s Eve.

I spent Saturday morning in my office, listening to the Ukrainian anthem and weeping.

I think that Americans are supporting us so much because what we are experiencing speaks to their most recent national trauma. What Ukraine is going through is 9/11. Remember how you felt when you saw the towers falling and people jumping to their death? If you are an American, you know exactly how I feel. There’s been a new 9/11 for me every day for 255 days. Nobody who hasn’t personally lived it can fully understand, and Americans have lived it.

This is why Colombians, for instance, are completely indifferent to the war in Ukraine at best and cheering on Russia at worst. They haven’t been invaded. Their national consciousness hasn’t been wounded in that way. Colombia’s most painful national trauma is a civil war. A hundred – or actually more like 150 at this point – years of Colombian solitude are those of a bloody, devastating civil strife. I’m not devaluing the painful nature of the Colombian experience. Colombia has experienced terrible suffering but it’s completely different from ours, so they sincerely don’t feel our pain.

In America, the people who are hostile to Ukraine are like those liberal US Jews who can’t look into the face of their Holocaust trauma. Identifying with the Holocaust will shatter their psyche, so they hide behind an exaggerated concern over racism.