Essay: The Rise (and Fall) of a Charismatic Leader in a Post-Truth Era
- Don’t trust people who offer easy answers to complicated problems. Don’t listen to politicians who offer solutions with no details. (Do I need to provide an example?)
- Make fun of autocrats and wannabe charismatic leaders. It drives them crazy.
- Support local news media, subscribe to reputable national media. Dispute lies wherever you see or hear them.
- Fight for new national voting rights legislation that protects and ensures the ability to actually cast a ballot by all American citizens.
- Educate our children and acknowledge our past. Be sure school children learn (in the right manner for their age group) about the history of slavery, the failures of Reconstruction, Jim Crow laws and restriction of voting rights, our treatment of Native Americans; our imprisonment of Japanese-Americans (American citizens) in internment camps during WWII. Also police violence, redlining, job discrimination, etc.
- Establish a national Truth and Reconciliation Commission to review our dismal history of violence and mistreatment of the poor and people of color. Determine methods of reparation and re-education. (I know this is a pipe dream, but it's a worthy one.)
#Charlie Chaplin#George Packer#PBS American Reckoning#Rick Steves#The Great Dictator#The Story of Fascism in Europe#Timothy Snyder
Nancy S Bishop
Nancy S. Bishop is publisher and Stages editor of Third Coast Review. She’s a member of the American Theatre Critics Association and a 2014 Fellow of the National Critics Institute at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center. You can read her personal writing on pop culture at nancybishopsjournal.com, and follow her on Twitter @nsbishop. She also writes about film, books, art, architecture and design.