In early July German historian Thomas Zimmer was invited to deliver a lecture to the Academy by the Sea, an adult education center on the island of Sylt in the North Sea. Zimmer, until earlier this year an affiliate professor at Georgetown University, describes feeling bad about forcing people on an education-vacation to think about Donald Trump; his presentation focused on American national identity and “who gets to be ‘We the People.’” As his presentation – full of stark assessments and doubts about any quick return to “normalcy” – wound down, one of the participants demanded more: “something people could do, something to carry us all forward.”

Zimmer, who confesses to normally avoiding such questions, characterizing himself as very much not a politician or an activist, was nonetheless moved on this occasion to “offer something more.”

The anti-democratic radicalization of the Right has not been fueled by a sense of strength, but by a pervasive sense of weakness. They are feeling their backs against the wall. And they are reacting to something real: Our “Western” societies have indeed become more pluralistic, less white, less overwhelmingly Christian. In that sense, it was not the perfectly stable liberal democracy that suddenly fell into crisis (because such an order had never existed), but white Christian patriarchal dominance – what the Right likes to call the “natural order” – that has been coming under pressure.

On Sunday, November 9, eight Democrats voted with Republicans on a procedural measure to move ahead on funding the government, separating that from continuing tax credits on the Affordable Care Act, which are scheduled to expire January 1. Until this vote, extending the Affordable Care Act credits had been a key condition to Democrats voting to end the 40-day government shutdown. The Democrats voting to begin the process of ending the shutdown were Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H.

Democratic social media posters vented frustration, calling for various senators to resign, be replaced, etc. Some went so far as to advocate blatantly counterproductive actions such as changing voter registration from Democrat to independent. But as Princeton history professor Kevin M. Kruse put it, “… the answer isn’t to abandon the [Democratic] party …. The answer is to take it over and transform it.”

The firehosing and resilience targeting continue. Though not always strictly disinformation, the barrage of sometimes contradictory news and announcements about changes to government services and regulations that people rely on has comparable effects. If you haven’t read disinformation researcher Brooke Binkowski’s series on How to Fight Disinformation do yourself a favor and set aside some time to read it. It was written between 2020 and 2022 and its focus is primarily climate-change related, but many of the players and certainly the same techniques make an appearance, and the parallels to the current situation are extensive.

One reason I mention firehosing and resilience targeting is that it is a challenge to choose a topic to focus on in the current information environment. This week the events that probably received the most media attention (news, social, etc.) were the machinations in Congress surrounding the budget.