Shift Change

x is absolutely true. also, i've just been handed a memo, and x is absolutely false.

Almost two years ago, with a moral panic still consuming the world and the narrative shift far in the future, the journalist Laura Dodsworth published a tough, concise, well-argued book describing the very deliberate efforts of the British government to create a widespread state of fear — that’s the title of the book, by the way — that would paralyze ordinary people and compel them to comply with harsh and repressive public health measures. You’ll be shocked to hear that she was attacked and vilified; one prominent review called State of Fear “an outrageously dumb book selling conspiracy hooey.”

Then, in 2023, Isabel Oakeshott gave us the halfwit government minister Matt Hancock’s pathetic whatsapp messages — in which he clumsily babbles about creating a state of fear to get the public to obey the government — and the rest is history. Laura Dodsworth was demeaned and defamed, and then she was vindicated.

She wins

Moral panics always fade. Manufactured crises always crack and collapse. Propaganda always has a “sell by” date, and then it turns rancid. The effect is comparable to what Warren Buffett says about a recession: When the tide goes out, you can see who’s been swimming naked.

This is where we are with the January 6 narrative, as the most horrible attack on Our Democracy™ since the Civil War collides with the image of a dork in Viking horns calmly wandering the hallways with a police escort. The political class is taking it well.

Benny Johnson @bennyjohnson

Chuck Schumer just had a complete meltdown on the Senate floor after Tucker exposed TRUTH about J6th with ever-berfore-seen footage

This image speaks:

That’s violent insurrectionist Jacob Chansley walking calmly through a crowd of police officers who aren’t making the slightest effort to stop him. That’s what happened. Other things also happened, and some of them involved violence and broken windows, but this is the act in the center ring of the circus. Now, the lawyer who represented this violent insurrectionist says plainly that Jacob Chansley was the victim of Brady violations, and other January 6 defendants are racing to raise the same point in court. The tide is going out.

On that theme, there’s been an interesting exchange at David Zweig’s Substack page. Remember that Zweig recently wrote about the sustained and aggressive public health surveillance of a California church that hosted terrifying acts of maskless hugging and hallway discussions over coffee while health officers watched — and took notes for the purpose of imposing a lot of fines.

One of the things Zweig found in the records of litigation between Calvary Chapel San Jose and Santa Clara County was the revelation, in sworn statements from county public health officers, that they had surveilled Calvary from the campus of a neighboring church — which had offered them the use of their property for the purposes of that surveillance. Comes now the pastor of a neighboring church with the claim that this is all a giant lie, because they would never:

But then Zweig replied:

I’ve sent email messages to Calvary Chapel, and to Calvary’s lawyers, to ask what they think of the surveillance claims. I haven’t received responses, and — given the ongoing litigation in two different courts — I may not. But I find “multiple legal documents with sworn testimony and signed declarations by enforcement officers” to offer the stronger claim. And it seems possible to me, or rather it seems likely to me, that the French Resistance effect is beginning to appear: After the Nazis leave France, everyone says they were always with the Resistance. As narratives shift, and the moral meaning of an act during a moral panic is recoded, people may begin to remember their choices differently. We’ll see.

And so Mitch McConnell says that Tucker Carlson has behaved dangerously because he showed video that is “completely at variance with what our chief law enforcement official here at the Capitol thinks.” It’s never good for journalists to say or depict things that are “at variance” with government officials, you see. Proper journalism always just repeats what authority says.

The Recount @therecount

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell says Tucker Carlson's whitewashing of the Capitol insurrection was a “mistake.” "My concern is how it was a depicted ... Clearly, the chief of the Capitol Police ... correctly describes what most of us witnessed firsthand on January 6th."

Joining in the absurd pile-on, the documentary filmmaker Ken Burns says that Tucker Carlson is like the Soviets or the Nazis because he’s showing new footage:

End Wokeness @EndWokeness

Ken Burns on Tucker Carlson releasing the January 6th footage: “It’s a huge threat to our republic”

Five years from now, all of these people will forget having thought any of this, and they’ll explain what they really meant.

It’s the natural cycle of moral panic, and the tide is going out.