Extended description

Religio-fascism as sacralized infantilism: politics that feels holy precisely because it never has to grow up. 'Daddy will tell us what's right'—innocence laundering doubling as moral regression; toddler denial ordained as faith clarity; the cross a gold star of empire's nursery. There are a few things weirdly distinctive about American politics: one of them is politicians who never breathe a word of truth, everything they say is a lie, and people keep voting for them 1/ Not that weird. Their bastard appeal derives precisely from their function as public icons of denial. Such is the maniacal enchantment of the political Deliverer, and their promise of reducing the complexities of life to an 'unreality' of simplistic thought and blind belief. An iconography of denial as much as addiction, perhaps? #JamesHillman: “The capacity to deny, to remain innocent, to use belief as a protection against sophistication of every sort – intellectual, aesthetic, moral, psychological – keeps the American character from Awakening. Subtweet: I'd say the flinty precision of the schoolmarm, part red ink, part divine judgment, has flagged the flaw. Again and again in that world, I ran into the same core deformity: the foundational wound of a regressive ego enthroned, the rotten kernel of a will refusing maturity. Brian, I got to D.C., completing a phase tackling the higher reaches of global political economy, head on. The impression? At every turn, an operative gestalt characterized, at root, by a form of rank, pathological infantilism. Pols, lobbyists, media, the lot. Another way, then.