No Bruce Springsteen, We Should Not Meet Republican Conspiracists in “the Middle”

The solution is a deranged and dangerous remedy for what ails the country, which is an astounding capacity for baseless claims of great consequence.

photo: Getty Images

by Michael Luciano

Three in four Republicans think Joe Biden is president because of widespread election fraud because that’s what prominent conservatives, beginning with former President Donald Trump, have told them. Unsurprisingly, some Trump supporters were so incensed at the fraud that didn’t happen, they stormed the Capitol at his behest in a failed insurrection that killed five people. 

Enter Bruce Springsteen and Jeep with their gross Super Bowl commercial last Sunday. And please note, the ad was filmed after the insurrection.

“It’s no secret the middle has been a hard place to get to lately,” says The Boss, “Between red and blue, between servant and citizen, between our freedom and our fear.”

Ah yes, the vaunted "middle."

He mournfully implores viewers, “We need the middle. We just have to remember the very soil we stand on is common ground, so we can get there. We can make it to the mountaintop through the desert, and we will cross this divide. Our light has always found its way through the darkness. And there’s hope. On the road. Up ahead.”

In disputes between individuals or groups, “the middle” is often considered the Shangri-La of outcomes, whereby no one gets everything they want, but everyone gets enough to be content and live harmoniously. If you had no idea the Capitol riot happened or why, you could be forgiven for thinking Springsteen was making a sensible plea for unity and coming together in “the middle.” But if you understand the context in which the deadly riot happened and the Big Lie that was pumped into and accepted by the Republican mainstream, Springsteen's call for reaching “the middle” is tone-deaf maudlin horseshit. In effect, Springsteen and Jeep want us all to agree we live in the early 1870s.

Let me explain.

There’s an obscure conspiracy theory called the Phantom Time Hypothesis which posits that in the early Middle Ages, the Holy Roman Emperor and the Pope manipulated the dating system in order to add to the historic record 297 years that didn’t actually happen. The purpose of this fabrication, so the claim goes, was to place the two leaders in the year 1000 A.D., which was supposedly a very significant year in Christendom. If this hypothesis is true, the current year isn’t 2021, but 1724. 

The amount of evidence for this claim is the same as the amount of evidence supporting Republicans’ widespread voter fraud hypothesis: zero.

Nevertheless, imagine a prominent political figure suddenly insists the Phantom Time Hypothesis is real. "The year is actually 1724," he bellows to the country in speeches and on social media.

You laugh at the claim and think no one could possibly believe it, but soon the lie gains traction. This person manically outlines all sorts of fantastical explanations about why it’s definitely 1724 because three centuries of history have been invented from whole cloth. He’s convinced millions of his followers he's right. Others don’t entirely believe the claim, but they’re nonetheless now skeptical as to whether it’s really 2021.

Before you know it, nearly half the country harbors doubts about what year it really is.

Americans are bitterly divided: Is it 1724 or 2021? TV pundits debate it fiercely as bad faith talking heads realize a large chunk of the country wants the lie to be true, and will tune in to anyone who validates their delusion. Your aunt is forwarding  you “2021 truther” chain emails. Thanksgiving dinners are marred by arguments about whether the Pilgrims hit Plymouth Rock in 1620 or 1323. What had been strong interpersonal relationships with family and friends are deteriorating into mutual hostility. 

Finally, a famous musician has enough of all the fighting.

“We need the middle,” begs Springsteen, who's being paid by a major corporation to do so. “We just have to remember the very soil we stand on is common ground, so we can get there. We can make it to the mountaintop through the desert, and we will cross this divide.”

If we take “the middle” request to heart in this context, the best way to proceed would be for all of us to agree that we are living in the year 1872 or 1873, the middle point between 1724 and 2021. 

Does this sound like a sensible remedy?

I would argue that no, pretending that conspiracy theorists' phantasmagoric fever dreams might have some merit in order to placate them to reach some "middle" is not sensible. Besides, the conspiracists in this case would likely accept nothing short of total capitulation. It's 1724 and there can be no debate.

The solution is a deranged and dangerous remedy for what ails the country, which is an astounding capacity for baseless claims of great consequence. 

One could argue that Springsteen and Jeep did not mean that “the middle” should be construed to mean a place where reality is denied entirely or even in part. However, this would be ignoring the very immediate context of what’s going on in the United States right now, where so many Americans believe total bullshit about important things. 

The year isn’t 1724 and the election wasn’t stolen. If reality and truth mean anything, a call to come to “the middle” in the current political and cultural climate is a call to entertain the ideas of crackpots and authoritarians.

Read the latest for Banter Members:

Trump's Insurrectionists Were Fighting For Fascism, Not Democracy

They have no idea what democracy means or why their actions were so contrary to it.

Photo: John Minchillo, AP

by Bob Cesca

WASHINGTON, DC -- As I watched the shocking video footage presented by the House managers in the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump, I was struck by something that hadn’t really occurred to me before. 

In addition to the crazy-eyed violence of Trump’s insurrectionist mob, I noticed the sporadic chants of, “USA! USA! USA!” repeated by the terrorists themselves. I noticed, too, the perpetrators waving of American flags as if their desecration of the U.S. Capitol was somehow in the name of American patriotism and not merely a pathetic, chaos-addicted mad man. For Trump’s army of violent extremists, patriotism is strictly a matter of brand loyalty rather than an ideal in and of itself. They have no idea what democracy means or why their actions were so contrary to it.

I couldn’t help but be enraged by the video footage being presented by the managers -- scene after scene of anti-democratic thugs who despise American values waving the American flag. The only thing that might be more infuriating is the fact that nearly all Republicans, despite the reality of what happened, will vote to acquit the ring-leader of the invasion anyway. Why? They’ll tell you it’s because they believe in the Constitution and the values enshrined within it -- but in reality, they only seem to give a rip about the Second Amendment, and not much else.

For years now, we’ve watched in horror as Republican campaign ad after campaign ad shows candidates for Congress literally shooting legislation they don’t like. For example, Will Brooke shooting Obamacare or Rand Paul shooting the tax code with, yes, an AR-15, the Sandy Hook weapon…..

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