Biden, Trump, and Narrative Collapse

Joe’s blanket pardon of his skeezy son opens the door, wide, for Don’s revenge tour against the Deep State in 2025

Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.

- T.S. Eliot, “Burnt Norton,” 1936

Today, find a Democrat or two you know – a friend, a relative, a co-worker, anyone – and give them a hug. They need it. They’ve just suffered two massive, paradigm-shifting political blows inside a month.

A decade ago, media theorist Douglas Rushkoff popularized the concept of “narrative collapse” to describe what happens when the culture abandons stories with an agreed-upon endpoint. Rushkoff was observing what occurs in our postmodern digital media environment, with the cacophony of 24-hour news amid the demise of linear storylines.

The “narrative collapse” concept had political implications, few of which mainstream pundits wished to untangle. While human beings have always favored narratives – that is, stories – over cold, hard facts, our current discombobulated information environment, particularly with social media, makes it easier than ever to create fantasy-based political echo chambers where frankly absurd notions are taken seriously and never questioned. This is especially pernicious when the purveyors of absurdity pose as defenders of truth and “democracy” against deception and “fascism,” for fun and profit.

The human need for comforting self-deception can grow overwhelming over time. You see this in the spy world, particularly when counterespionage is at play. I’ve encountered more than one traitor who defended his (and sometimes her) treason with a collection of dubious dodges: it wasn’t truly wrong, I didn’t really hurt anyone, everybody does it, et al. Perhaps they simply needed to convince themselves that there was some point to their winding up in a prison cell for decades, often life.