I woke this morning to a still undecided 2020 presidential election. Depressed and discouraged, I decided a hike might cheer me up so I pulled on my boots and set out.
The trail above my home was unusually devoid of hikers as I made my way to the pinnacle and a large boulder I call Reflection Rock where I typically sit and contemplate life for a few minutes before heading back down.
But this morning, as I gazed south over the sprawl of metro Phoenix, I did not see the ocean of red tile and tan stucco that usually greets my eyes. Instead, I saw The Rabble.
Throughout history, every culture has known The Rabble. Today, our (former) allies are looking incredulously at America once again and collectively saying “WTF?” in their respective languages. But each of them has known The Rabble, too.
The Rabble was there beneath the guillotine during the bloody excesses of the French Revolution. The Rabble was cheering wildly under Mussolini’s balcony and in front of Hitler’s podium. And of course, The Rabble has been present at many of the most ignominious events in American history.
The Rabble is like a pestilence that is usually dormant. Like locust, they tend to go underground for long periods of time, only to emerge when conditions are favorable to wreak their havoc. The slumbering Rabble require only a catalyst to transform them into a human wildfire of chaos and destruction. In this most recent emergence, the result is a contagion with the potential to be far more destructive to our society and our democracy than SARS-CoV-2.
So, who are The Rabble? They are friends, neighbors and even members of our own families, and they share at least three common traits.
First, they are ignorant – not stupid mind you, but rather undereducated and consciously, willfully uninformed. They seek out and consume only information that feeds their prejudices.
Second, due largely to their ignorance and the suspicion it breeds, they are tribal and therefore preemptively prejudiced against “others,” which includes everyone who is not a member of their tribe.
Finally, because they are ignorant and tribal, The Rabble are deeply fearful, and this is perhaps the trait that makes them most dangerous. If you can make people afraid, you can make them do anything . . . absolutely anything.
Individually, The Rabble do not have power. Indeed, individually The Rabble do not even exist, a fact of which they are acutely aware and bitterly resentful. It is only when organized and provided with an identity that The Rabble exist, and it is only then that they have power – something they crave because it has always been denied them.
Their ignorance, prejudice and fear make The Rabble easily led and even more easily misled, especially by a charismatic, narcissistic demagogue who is able to give them identity and channel their prejudice and fear to provide them with the purpose they otherwise lack. And that is where we are right now in America.
Winston Churchill is said to have quipped, “Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing, once they have exhausted every other possibility.” Perhaps so, but that is small conciliation this morning as I look at the possibility of enduring another 4 years like the previous 4 years.
I wish I could say that I have a solution to The Rabble, but I don’t. They will continue to periodically appear here and elsewhere in the world just as they have throughout history. And following their orgy of self-indulgent mayhem and destruction they will once again retreat underground where they will smolder, reproduce and . . . wait.