Yesterday morning, when Donald Trump declared “[a]n entire civilization will die tonight[,]” Ray Bradbury was first to my mind.
In sophomore year of high school, our English teacher had us read Fahrenheit 451. So began my adoration of Bradbury’s poignant storytelling and exquisite prose.
In 451, Bradbury crafts an iconic world where books are illegal and “firemen” are tasked not to fight fires, but to burn books and execute or imprison their readers.
Provocatively, this policy is not enforced through top-down diktat. It is the people themselves that demand it.
In the backset of 451, there are always military jets screaming through the sky and no one quite knows why.
But no one really cares. They are too busy talking to “the family” on their floor to ceiling TVs, listening to claptrap in their earphones, or annihilating roadkill on the busy highways.
So it is that, at the end of the novel, Armageddon comes without warning. Bradbury writes:
And the war began and ended in that instant.
Of those paying attention, some may excuse or even cheerlead Donald Trump’s threat as a genius negotiating tactic.
I guess nuclear brinksmanship is only bad if it leads to Mutually Assured Destruction.
Others are rightly horrified at the President’s behavior, calling for his impeachment and removal.
But for so many Americans, yesterday was just another Tuesday.
Is our apathy a privilege?
Is it shameful or is it beautiful?
I don’t know for sure, but I tend to think it is—well, Bradbury.
This short essay was first sent to recipients of Patrick MacFarlane’s weekly email newsletter What They’re Not Tellin’ You. Subscribe to receive a free copy of Patrick’s new eBook “Slay Propaganda Like A Lawyer” where he teaches you skills he uses every day in the courtroom and in the information war.
