By Katharine Moody*
I was born in the USA, but left prior to the release of Springsteen’s widely mischaracterised anthem.
Which means I missed the elections of Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, Obama, Trump and Biden ̶ yet I vividly recall as a child, awaiting the lottery of birth days, that would determine whether or not my only brother missed or made the draft. From a family with a proud history of service across two World Wars and the Korean conflict, we weren’t having a bar of Vietnam and were planning to flee to my mother’s home in Canada if November 13th got called up.
In later life, I dated a traumatised veteran of that war who was working as a bartender. Hence, I never misunderstood the meaning of Springsteen’s anthem ̶ just as I well understood Hendrix’s discordant rendition of Star-Spangled Banner at the Woodstock Festival in 1969.
I was too young to attend Woodstock, but not too young to witness and wonder at what was happening around me on the steps of the University of Alabama, in the grassy fields of Kent State University; on the assassinations of Medgar Evers, President Kennedy, his brother, Malcolm X; Martin Luther King Jr and Harvey Milk.
Before leaving the US, the only person I knew who had fired an AK47-like rifle, was my tormented Vietnam vet boyfriend, who would wake suddenly in the middle of the night sweating profusely.
There was no ‘Fake News’ in my growing up years – neither cable nor the internet were in existence then. All we had were the national networks, who reported the ugliness in full (and without editorialising) regarding the turmoil enveloping our nation and its people in the 60s and 70s. And each time I thought we were overcoming the hatred of our prejudicial past – the individual events mentioned above became, for me, yet another day the music died.
I can’t quite explain how overwhelmed I was arriving here in 1978 where inter-racial marriage was celebrated; where my Pākehā husband had as many Māori and Pasifika friends as white ones and no one ever thought twice about it; where we stood and chatted around bar leaners in the local pub in the company of people of all colours, work backgrounds and generations. Where the Sallies made their rounds every Friday night, and everyone generously supported them for their diligence, compassion and noble work in the community ̶ without a thought as to their religious beliefs or whether the money would actually get to the people who needed it.
And so, through eleven US presidential elections, I kept my head down ̶ expressing no political opinions to my relatives stateside. After all, I wasn’t being governed by their lawmakers anymore – so I didn’t vote, as I saw it as their country, their choice.
My sense of moral abandonment of my homeland became more heightened during the 2016 election campaign. I tolerated the prejudice expressed in so many Facebook and Twitter meme posts from family and friends without saying a word. I held my tongue when the presidential candidates traded blows about sexual impropriety; and when one of America’s veterans was crudely disrespected. I even said nothing when this happened.
None of this was easy for me, as I loathe prejudice, bullying and mockery in every form.
And then, for four years, I stood silent as well, when the Facebook gloating began in earnest following the 2016 election.
In hindsight, I see that I have been a coward. I should have spoken out from the start to my loved ones. I should have seen the indoctrination coming. And now, for most of my generational-peers, the cement has dried and they are stuck on what I see as the wrong side of what might become a new writing of the rule of law in US history.
Their children (my nieces and nephews) are divided between the also-faithful and the very-fearful.
I have become a kind of confidant to those who don’t know how their parents got to this state of idolatry. I try to encourage them to be tolerant and forgiving. However, they too are parents now, and in my heart of hearts, I know that were it my children and grandchildren who might be forced to live under Project 2025, I’d be fighting like a feline mother possessed to see that never happened.
And so, over the holiday break, I decided to stick my head above the parapet with my Facebook family and friends, and I posted the below video with the comment;
“Not only bizarre but blasphemous to my mind. I keep telling myself this can't be happening”.
But my only responses, despite the plethora of family and friends I have back home, were from two non-relatives: a Chilean national living in New Zealand and a British national living in Australia.
It seems almost no one I keep in touch with across the Pacific wants to put a hand up either for, or against, the man who relishes being characterised as having been anointed by God.
I suspect the “fors” don’t want to publicly admit to their continued support and the “againsts” don’t want to offend the “fors” they know are mutual friends and relatives of mine on Facebook.
Thing is, I don’t see this as a contest between conservativism and liberalism; rather I think it is an epic struggle to retain the rule of law and the separation of powers in the relatively nascent, but most committed democracy in the world. Or so I grew up thinking it was.
And now, I can’t stop pondering the question as to whether art imitates life or life imitates art, as I am haunted by one of my favourite movies, The Devil’s Advocate. And the scary thing is, I’m unsure in the current real-life American context, who Milton is.
I guess I really don’t know life at all.
*Katharine Moody is a senior tutor at Massey University's College of Humanities and Social Sciences in Palmerston North, who comments on interest.co.nz as "Kate". The views expressed in this article are her own and don't necessarily reflect those of Massey University.
75 Comments
The USA is stuffed, its been on a downward slide since the 1960's. The final nail in the coffin is coming in November when Trump gets re-elected, I mean how desperate can you get if you think that's going to turn things around ? The USA got greedy, or more specifically a few at the top did and sold out to China to get even richer on the back of everyone else, its not going to end well.
Having lived there for a little bit it sure is a land of contrast. I came away thinking despite it championing freedom and democracy it was actually something else under its public face.
The words of the blond Mathers kid "this divided states of embarrassment" seemed to sum it up.
If you dig deep enough a range of "extreme" is everywhere even little of NZ. Look at the range of banter on debt leverage exploitation on this website.
From a political perspective that the largest economy, and military globally has had to choose between Trump vs Clinton, Trump vs Biden, and now shaping up as likley Trump vs a Dementia patient is very sad. Sad for them. Sad for the world.
Lots of good people there as well. But who wants to be Nero with a box of matches.
"Manned the ramparts and closed the airports in 1776"
Trump thinks he is running against Obama
Thinks Nikki Haley is in charge of the congress
Wants Presidential immunity for "crossing the line."
Hannity has to remind Trump that Biden in charge.
Trump likely to be fined hundreds of millions and banned from New York. Sex offender who keeps defaming and making a fool of himself
How crazy does Trump need to get
Great summation - and also great for giggles, were it not so serious.
That's my point about who is the "Milton" character in all this - Trump's just a comedian of a front man and is becoming more desperately comic as the days go by.
The full remark of that 4th of July speech is hilarious;
"The Continental Army suffered a bitter winter of Valley Forge, found glory across the waters of the Delaware, and seized victory from Cornwallis of Yorktown. Our army manned the air, it rammed the ramparts, it took over the airports, it did everything it had to do. And at Fort McHenry, under the rockets' red glare, it had nothing but victory. And when dawn came, their Star Spangled Banner waved defiant."
Thing about Trump, is his supporters don't care what comes out of his mouth, possibly the only thing that could dent his cult following is if he started telling them he worships Satan.
Was his Nikki Haley comment a gaffe, or was it deliberately connecting his only Republican presidential rival to Jan 6 riots and the failed attempt to reinstall himself? If Trump said it, it must be true. You're making the mistake of taking what Trump says at face value, as a rational person. You are not his audience. His mob would have gone home, jumped on social media and all of a sudden Haley is on the back foot defending herself and the target of death threats. The echo chamber feeds itself, grows, and pretty soon she's out of the race.
Is Trump senile, or is he a master manipulater? He's a nasty piece of work, but you can't become US president and have a good shot at doing it twice, without certain abilities. It still feels like Democrats have no real answers, mocking him, legal threats, all just reinforce his invincible aura. He knows his audience!
Seems pretty clear from the first primary, Trump is the front runner. Dems can run all the video they like appealing to rationality, of Trump walking around with toilet paper hanging off, or reciting Nazi talking points, when it comes down to one on one, which it will, all bets are off.
Hoping for what will be ,and what actually will be, are two different things.
It appears that my oft repeated mantra since 2016 is once again going to be in play.
A third of a billion people, and the best two you can put forward are these two?
Once again, the choice is advanced dementia, and the other is narcissism.
I fondly remember when US presidents had press conferences, and actually responded to ad hoc questions. Been a few years since these have occurred.
Then again, I have special ire for Trump and his Operation Warp Speed, and Biden and his mandates. Dantes has insufficient creativity for my thoughts in regards to these two people.
Fact is - they are both older men - and most grandpas and grandmas confuse the names of their children and grandchildren all the time. Biggest problem in a person of such high office doing it is that in diplomatic roles such as these, it can be really bizarre, confusing and misinterpreted.
And it becomes laughable, the more it occurs.
Just plain not a great look on the international stage even though there really is no shame in it - aging is a natural process affecting every organ in the body. And the Presidency of the US must be one of the most demanding roles on the planet.
Presidency of the US must be one of the least demanding roles on the planet. Arguably there are about 200m who would do a better job of it than the last two.
In 1919, President Woodrow Wilson suffered a severe stroke that left him incapacitated until the end of his presidency in 1921 - this was when America became the No1 country.
"There was no ‘Fake News’ in my growing up years" - Hmmmm, I don't think there were the same platforms available to discuss different opinions back then. The term 'fake news' is often used by one side to discredit there other side of an opinion. The news has always been susceptible to bias. It doesn't often do a great job of highlighting different opinions or nuance. So if the frase existed back then, someone would have been calling out that news as fake news.
"...In true Stalinoid fashion, Snopes added an editor’s note to its entry explaining that it had changed its rating from “Mostly False” to “Outdated” after HHS “stipulated that federal funding would not be used to include [crack] pipes in the safe smoking kits.” Translation: The Beacon’s reporting was essentially accurate all along, and labeling it false was a stalling tactic to buy time for the government to prepare a response that could then be retroactively applied to rewrite the past.
...What is striking here, aside from the level of unanimity, is that none of the fact-checkers disputed the assertion that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) grant included funding for “safe smoking kits” to be distributed to drug users. Rather, they simply echoed the government’s denial that crack pipes would be included in the kits—a denial made only after the Beacon article was published—and then seized on the fact that not all of the $30 million set aside for the grant would be used to purchase the kits, which the Beacon had never asserted, in order to claim that the entire story was false."
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/invasion-fact-checkers
Crime of the century :-).
Indeed. It is likely that most never appreciated the degree that editorial control had on their access to information in previous generations via printed media. The media of today allows the greatest access to data and option of any generation ever.
And the greatest access to abuse. If Elons comments about what was uncovered within Twitter once he took over are correct, then the old addage of "believe none of what you read and half of what you see" is more true than it has ever been.
I find it part of the concern around increasing mental health demand on the public health system and for younger generations. everyone used to see the same news relatively speaking, but today there are a near infinite sources of news and the level of information out there and speed it can be consumed is insurmountable. Couple this with social media profiling users and feeding them news that has been shown to sway them more and more towards the extreme ends of the issues (great doco 'the social dilemma'), and we end up with generations that have less reason to leave their home and interact with others in a natural way, and also with less and less to talk about when they are all consuming different information.
Agree completely. In the science discipline, that unending access to information (i.e., any science can be produced to support each and every opposite opinion) has been called "an excess of objectivity" And because of it, it makes environmental controversies worse (far more intractable).
"...Walter Duranty, the New York Times’ man in Moscow, outright lied about the events, deliberately misleading his readers. In 1932, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for reporting."
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/walter-duranty…
No, I grew up in what historians and sociologists refer to as the decades in which we were moving towards a new world order, e.g.,
https://www.britannica.com/event/Cold-War
The height of the Cold War had passed during my youth - our international news was pretty informative given the Vietnam war was the first to be televised and staffed with many exemplary war correspondents who made sure the people were aware of what was really going on;
Hence, the extreme backlash toward that war from Americans back at home.
That is not to say that American news media wasn't highly parochial, that is concentrated on only those matters concerning the US.
Funny thing, before I came to NZ in 1978, I didn't realise that nations competed in sport against other nations aside from during the Olympics. An "international test" was a whole new thing to me - and cricket, soccer and rugby, I'd never heard of them. Not the same now todays Americans, but it just shows how insular we were. But in terms of news, it was a time of high journalistic exposure to government corruption, e.g., Bob Woodward and the Nixon corruption scandal.
There's always been fake news, going all the way back to smoke signals. The difference now is the flood of it, the sophistication of it.
Governments everywhere had very good control over what the public knew, before privatisation. Post privatisation and you've got advertisers/owners calling the shots. What started as spin/bias, finished with truth as a fluid concept.
My favourite Steve Bannon quote. (Probably the only honesty in decades)
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/1/16/20991816/impeachment-…
Great link, thanks - the insidiousness of propaganda is such a frightening thing;
The goal, he told me, wasn’t to sell an ideology or a vision of the future; instead, it was to convince people that “the truth is unknowable” and that the only sensible choice is “to follow a strong leader.”
Thanks for your thoughts Kate. Along with many thinking Kiwis, I have attempted to rationalize how otherwise educated US citizens could disappear down the Trump "rabbit-hole". One explanation that you would be an expert on is the statement "that if you repeat the same mis-information 3 times with conviction a certain percentage of people will believe it".
Further to that i believe there is a percentage of people that don't want to do critical analysis or incapable and just want to latch onto catch-phrases.
There seems to be a critical mass to these fake-news believers such that if you live in a town where the majority are fake-news believers then in order to maintain social acceptance you fall in to line and forsake your normal rational thinking.
I looked at one of these portals for Q-anon at its height. I was alarmed at how it was crafted to build empathy with existing issues in society then lead the gullible off to more extreme pages. It was so expertly crafted I felt that the designers should be liable to criminal conviction. I see Trump supporters not to different to Q-anon believers.
If you go to NY times 503(i think) project , you can drill down results to each county.Trump would get 80 -90 % in many small towns. Even in his strongest states , he would lose some electorates in the cities , or the results in the cities are closer to 50 -50 .
So yeah , it you live in a town where 90 % of people vote Trump , what are you going to do ??? Probably not put up a Biden banner.
I know right... crazy how those people believed Hunter Biden's laptop story was true... 51 intelligence experts even came out and said it was a Russian operation... and now even DOJ has come out saying Hunter Biden's laptop is real.. lol when does a fake news become the truth and expose the person screaming "fake news" to look like a politically biased stooge? :P
..I felt that the designers should be liable to criminal conviction
haha je*us chr*st...
Thanks for your thoughts Kate. Along with many thinking Kiwis, I have attempted to rationalize how otherwise educated US citizens could disappear down the Trump "rabbit-hole"
Really, you can't admit to yourself that the Biden regime is deeply flawed??? Hunter Biden, the crack using no-good son with zero business qualifications or experience was on the board of Ukraines largest oil and gas company? Joe can hardly stand up and is clearly experiencing advanced cognitive decline and Kamala, well have you ever heard her speak?
I dislike Trump but I can see the appeal of flushing Bidens regime down the toilet along with his globalist agenda. Even Jamie Dimon said as much this week.
Every main stream news outlet was screaming hyperbole about Trump starting a nuclear war etc before he was elected. You can't be that ignorant of that surely.
One thing I don't understand (or I guess is natural human behaviour), is having to display such tribalistic behaviour with politics. If you critisise the Biden administration that makes you a Trump supporter by default. Showing justified concern about the current Presidents cognitive health generates whataboutism regarding Trumps rather than agreement. And without agreement on those issues then they'll never be discussed or rectified. I also thought that the States, being the self declared stalwart of democracy, meant that anybody could be elected as President. But look what happens when a large percentage of the population decides to vote for that person. They're declared deplorables. In my eyes this is one of the main reasons Trump was voted in. The status quo, "establisment", eventually pissed too many people off and Trump happened to be the "right" person at the right time to take advantage of that. His election to office in 2016 is as much of an indictment on the incumbents as is leveled at his voters. (Much the same as happened in NZ last year. A vote against Labour rather than for National).
I also find it ironic that you bring up the Born in the USA metaphor in an article regarding normalising psychopathy via Trumps potential re-election. A lot of his platform was railing against the intelligence community and perpetual war lobby that had their hands all over previous conflicts like the one your past boyfriend was involved in.
None of this is written in support of Trump what so ever, it's more about why some will feel empowered to vote for him (or is that Him?). And sure there'll be a lot that will fall for his rhetoric and vote for him because of it and a lot that will believe his opponents and be so shit scared they'll vote Dem. But at the end of the day this tribalistic division is driven by both sides and until people can stand up and be able to critise both sides as objectively as they can (or are allowed) then nothing will change.
Remeber the nuclear clock when Trump was in power. The media use to scream we are so close to war. Yet look at what has happened since Biden is in quietly now the media says the middle east is a tinder box. But only recently starting to question Bidens motives and lack of leadership on issues there
I think that just shows the idea the President has a big red button is just a myth .
I would say in practice , the President has very little say when it comes to going to war or not. He is given the (predetermined ) options, and the illusion he is making the decision.
LOL that just shows you how bad its got over there when Trump really wasn't that bad. Sure that insurrection and people getting killed really wasn't that bad I guess, as long as it wasn't you who got killed or injured. The southern border is going to turn into his biggest problem and the only way to stem the tide will be to actually start shooting people who cross the wall.
The real issue is the backlog in processing immigration applications as they have major labor shortages in the US country-wide;
https://www.uschamber.com/workforce/understanding-americas-labor-shortage
So, the workers are definitely needed, it's just a matter of determining which illegal migrants now in-country are refugees in accordance with the UN criteria for refugee status/definition;
https://emergency.unhcr.org/protection/legal-framework/refugee-definition
And of course, solving the backlog also works better for those awaiting processing offshore. If one could be swiftly processed from an offshore application, fewer individuals and families would need to take the desperate measures we see occurring presently on their southern boarder.
New Zealand;
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/murder-rate-by-country
But seriously, helping those governments out in-country through diplomatic efforts, international trade and aide would be so much more beneficial to solving the US border crisis.
And the US is a tinderbox itself in terms of the potential for further violent crime (if that was your point of difference);
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_guns_per_capita_by_country
El Salvador by a mile..less gun deaths than USA..
Half of all gun-related deaths in 2016 occurred in six nations — Brazil, the United States, Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia and Guatemala. Together, the study published in the journal JAMA noted, these countries hold less than 10 percent of the world’s population.
In many regions, the majority of gun deaths are suicides. The implement for suicide is rather incidental. If one wants to off oneself, one will find a way.
The inner cities in US have become rather feral, despite enacting the most stringent anti-gun legislation possible. Chicago is an excellent example of this. Culture matters.
We have lost our way yet again. The horrors of World War are all but forgotten and humanity is growing more and more self centred, greedy and hateful.
We are once again heading towards an inevitable global conflict to give ourselves a reminder of how terrible things can be.
Spent some time there of late and have off spring living there. Such a great nation but a strong madness happening, hard to understand why and how this is happening. Trump typifies the craziness driving America.
There is no coming back from this a divided nation !
Jacinta and co tried the same bullshit but fortunately were seen for who they are !
The American's are so far down the road of bullshit and propaganda I doubt it can/will be turned around.
Yeah its really bad over there and I think the chances of a full on civil war must be quite high. If the election comes down to Trump vs Biden then I think it could get really ugly over there. Hopefully they both croak before the election and they can make a clean start over there.
Regrettably Trump is felt by his voters to speak their language and Democrats have done little for working class disposable income since 1980. Their share of national income and productivity gains has fallen markedly. They speak in PC and management speak and don’t redistribute. Even Clinton cut benefits and he only got in because Perot split Right vote. The Age of nihilism has arrived and progressives, as they think of themselves need to realise what they failed to deliver
There ain’t no good guys or gals in the presidential race.
I don’t like the guy but I suspect some of his support inadvertently comes from the antics of his opposition (the US bureaucracy and the media etc). People see him being ‘attacked’ with dodgy investigations and it encourages the supporters on the right.
Like when the Hillary Clinton campaign used a former (?) British spook's Russian source to fabricate a hoax against Donald Trump, which was peddled through the Wall Street Journal and every single other legacy media outlet? That kind of information war? Or when 51 former US intelligence officials used disinformation to influence the 2020 election, suggesting the NY Post's Hunter Biden laptop bombshell was Russian meddling?
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/wsj-editor-chief-admits-davos-elites-we-no-longer-own-news
"I can’t quite explain how overwhelmed I was arriving here in 1978 where inter-racial marriage was celebrated; where my Pākehā husband had as many Māori and Pasifika friends as white ones and no one ever thought twice about it; where we stood and chatted around bar leaners in the local pub in the company of people of all colours, work backgrounds and generations."
And guess who ruined all that - the Left.
Thanks so much Kate for sharing your story ,
I am a fourth generation Kiwi
When I was quite young I remember seeing a sign above the entrance to one of our local hotels
“ No Natives Allowed” a few years later my uncle committed suicide because his parents, my grandparents were so upset that he wanted to marry a Māori lady
That was not a great time in New Zealand’s history but that’s how it was and I was too young to protest
But by the time I started work my best friend was a Māori , another friend was going out with a Māori girl and I had a few workmates in the bank where I worked who were Māori
I don’t remember anything other than we were all friends or workmates , that we were Māori or Pakeha didn’t enter the equation
Those were good years, we didn’t earn a lot but everyone seemed happy, we could trust what we read in the local newspaper and we got the international news from the BBC newsreel when we went to the pictures
There were rich families but they were mostly Sheep farmers and and their only outward show of wealth was a new car now and again
Looking back we couldn’t access the things we have now because of import restrictions, but we were not angry that we couldn’t access these goods
Most of us seemed to have a similar standard of living ,there was no internet, we did not really know a lot about what was happening in the states or other big countries
We could go along to the Doctor and be seen that day and we could access good free healthcare, there was no private health system.
Jump to today and we have a divided New Zealand, inequality is getting worse by the day, we can’t access good healthcare, housing is unaffordable, cost of living is high , its hard to find unbiased news,
None of our politicians have any long term plan on what sort of New Zealand we all want and a plan to achieve it
I feel sad for the young children growing up in this world
Thanks for the comments, Harry. Yes, your NZ sounds like the same NZ my husband grew up in. And it was pretty much the same when I arrived too. We were a totally broke pair of newlyweds and shortly after I arrived there was the 1978 All Black tour of Britain and Ireland on. We used the last of the money we'd been given at our wedding to put a deposit on a black and white 14" TV which we hire purchased over a one or two year term! Such was the cost of a TV :-). But they were good/great days for sure.
Lest We Forget. Two Tribes Frankie Goes to Hollywood
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pO1HC8pHZw0
AND
Lest We Forget. 2012's Four Horses of the Apocalypse award winning Doco
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fbvquHSPJU
Yet if:
History
Arts
Music
English
Maths
Economics
Social Science
Used those two excellent Teaching Resources were used by kiwi teachers the Ministry of Education and Teachers Council would fire them for reasons I'll keep to myself....
Where is the Honesty, Satire , Irony and intellectual rigour in our kiwi Media as the USA is increasingly less like the U part as each year passes??
Great documentary, ML2. Just watched it. Lot's of academics and economists who I follow in it, so all quite familiar territory - but so extremely well put together, and narrated/presented.
Highly recommend to others.
And, it prompts me to go back and read the critiques made to me from my economics discipline friends who explained to me in their lingo why my proposal to regulate the rental market wasn't the way to go :-)! Must check out to see if I can read between the lines to identify whether they are neo-classical schooled... I suspect very much so!
Thanks, great contribution. .
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