Fetishes, Anyone?

“Build it and they will come.” Still from the movie “Field of Dreams” (1989) directed by Phil Alden Robinson. One critic described “Field of Dreams” as a blind, romantic journey into nostalgia. Photo courtesy of NBC Sports.

Pick a fetish, any fetish.

We begin with an ‘aha moment,’ followed by a story.

The “aha moment” is this. In the wake of the self-loathing which followed the outcome of the 2024 Election (note: I resist using the term ‘defeat’), several national surveys point out some glaring incongruences.

Here’s a sampling:

…a majority of American voters have not heard of the term, ‘autocracy.’ A healthy number of American voters could not give an example of ‘democracy.’ Example: Is Canada a democracy? Answer: I am not sure, are they?

…in a recent yougov survey, American voters sampled could not accurately recall what percentage of the population comprised the following groups: Jews, Muslims, Negroes, LGBTQ+. Not only was their collective recall ‘off,’ their recall was ‘off’ by a factor of 20 to 1. Example: what percentage of the American population would you estimate is Muslim? Answer: 27%. Actually: 1%.(1)

The story goes this way.

Early in Trump 45’s tenure, Trump tried to deliver on a campaign promise to restore and rebuild America’s struggling physical infrastructure. (“I love infrastructure.”) One recalls, Trump’s figures and scale of infrastructure rebuild were approximately the same as his successor’s. (2)