Matthew S. Williams's Blog, page 17

Casting for the Formist Mini-Series!

Okay, there’s no mini-series in the works (yet!) But I’ve been thinking, if my first three books (the Formist Series) are ever adapted into a mini-series, there are some people I had in mind for the main roles. And it’s fun to imagine real-life actors bringing life to the characters you created. At a certain point, you want to see if there are any actors/actresses who look as you imagine them and can capture their personality and spirit.

First up, here’s who I see filling all the lead roles:

Jeremiah Ward

The role of Ward calls for a certain brooding intensity and hardened quality, the kind of stuff that only comes from a traumatized soul. As such, I can see Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Javier Bardem, or James McAvoy filling the role perfectly. Morgan is best-known right now for his portrayal of Negan on The Walking Dead. But I’ve seen him in many roles and he is at his best (I think) as the conflicted good guy.

Bardem probably needs no introduction, but in case you don’t know, he’s the villain from Skyfall, No Country for Old Men, and Stilgar for Denis Villaneuve’s Dune remake. McAvoy is also instantly recognizable for fans of X-Men, since he’s played Professor X in all the Timeline B films. I seriously doubt that Bardem or McAvoy would ever be in my price range, but that’s okay.

Right now, Morgan is my first choice! He has the range, the finesse, and the rugged handsomeness to bring Ward to life!

Janis Amaru

For Janis Amaru, the lead female role, I was thinking that Cara Gee, Tonantzin Carmelo, and Sarah Shahi would be a good fit. As you can plainly see, all three women are drop-dead gorgeous. But the role of Amaru goes far beyond appearances. She’s known for her intelligence, cunning, humanity, and no-nonsense toughness.

Both Gee and O’Neil are Canadian actresses with extensive resumes that include SF roles. Fans of the Expanse are likely to recognize Gee from her portrayal of Camina Drummer, the Belter who captained the Nauvoo and kicked some serious ass! O’Neil, meanwhile, is well-known for her portrayal of Portia Lin/Two from Dark Matter and Lucy Chen on The Rookie, where she stars opposite Nathan Fillion (Capt. Mal on Firefly).

Carmelo, meanwhile, is a veteran and television and film. In addition to bit parts in The Revenant and a regular role in the new series Undone, she’s done extensive voiceover work and was a regular cast member in the Netflix series The Chosen One.

Emile Chandrasekhar

Emile is another challenging character to cast. He’s a bad guy, but he has the ability to convince people he’s a good guy, right on up to the point of betrayal! And of course, he comes from an influential family and has incredible resources at his disposal. So basically, he has to be posh, charming, and intelligent – in other words, a sociopath hiding in plane sight!

After much review, I decided on the following gentlemen. First up, there’s Naveen Andrews, who became famous in North America from his role as Sayid (the Iraqi veteran) from Lost and his more recent roles as Jonas Maliki (Sense8) and Julian Cousins (Instinct).

Second is Dev Patel, the actor who became an international sensation because of his role in Slumdog Millionaire. More recently, he’s done miniseries and films like The Newsroom, Chappie, and Hotel Mumbai. Third up is Sendhil Ramamurthy, a real up and comer whose appeared in Heroes Reborn, New Amersterdam, and The Flash.

Veronika Gallego

Next up is the other leading lady, Veronika Gallego! Whereas Amaru is known for being tough, smart, and secretive, Gallego is a bit more demure. She’s got all the brains and can kick some serious ass when she needs to but doesn’t possess the jaded quality of her counterpart. As such, I wanted someone who could capture the warrior woman motif, but could also convey vulnerability.

I can think of no one better to do this than Sandra Oh. Recently, I binge-watched Killing Eve where she plays Eve, a British intelligence officer who becomes fascinated and even enamored with the psychotic assassin she’s trying to capture.

Second is Marion Cotillard, the veteran French actress who is perhaps best known for playing the villain Miranda in The Dark Knight Rises. Having seen her in a few things now, I can attest to the fact that she can do noble and gentle as ably as she does evil.

And then there’s Anya Chalotra, who has skyrocketed to fame in recent years because of her role in The Witcher. However, that’s just her latest breakout role, which was preceded by leading roles in the miniseries Wanderlust, Sherwood, and The ABC Murders.

Adelaide Cheboi

Adelaide Cheboi is another interesting choice for casting. She’s a warrior woman, tough, and downright badass! Throughout the process of writing the Jovian Manifesto and the Frost Line Fracture, my wife would comment on some of the dialogue or action scenes I wrote for her. Repeatedly, I had to say, “she’s NOT Zoe from Firefly!” But I’d be lying if I said Zoe didn’t provide some inspiration.

Mostly, I wanted a character who was her own woman and understood discipline and service. So after much checking, I decided that there are three actresses I could see playing her. The first is Olunike Adeliyi, a Canadian actress of Nigerian descent. Her resume includes roles on American Gods, Working Moms, and the coming season of the Expanse (I didn’t even know that when I picked her!)

Next up, there’s Rosario Dawson, who played Roxane (the wife of Alexander the Great) in Oliver Stone’s Alexander. Other major titled include Clerks II, Rent, Sin City, and this coming season of The Mandalorian. She’s beautiful, powerful, and has a very good range. Hence, I think she would be a great addition to the cast!

Third, there’s child-actor and dancer turned-leading-lady Zendaya, whom you might recognize from Spiderman: Homecoming and Spiderman: Far from Home, where she played MJ – the love interest of Peter Parker. She was also in The Greatest Showman and will appear in the much-anticipated Dune, where she plays Chani, the Fremen warrior and wife of Paul Mohadib.

Franklin Houte

The role of Houte is an interesting one. He’s a leading man in the series, even though he doesn’t play much more than a supporting role in the first book. Nevertheless, by the second and third installment, he’s a permanent fixture in the story and even has a backstory – alongside his sister, Constance (see below) – which I hope to explore in a standalone story at some point.

The role calls for strength, grace, and a certain stoic nature that lets you know there’s plenty going on under the surface. In short, what you’d expect from a man with a long history and who finds himself having to make hard choices. On the one hand, I would want someone like Adrian Holmes to fill the role. Holmes is also Canadian and has distinguished himself in television and film that included roles in Battlestar Galactica, Smallville, Continuum, Arrow, Elysium, 19-2, and V-Wars.

At the same time, I feel like I want a little star power! Hence why I turned to Chiwetel Ejiofor, the man who not only played the villain in Joss Wedon’s Serenity (the Operative), he’s also delivered brilliant performances in Amistad, Kinky Boots, Children of Men, Seven Years a Slave, The Martian, Doctor Strange, The Boy Who Harnessed Wind, and many more!

Constance Houte

Constance is another interesting role that requires a certain range. On the one hand, she’s a transhuman who exists largely in the virtual realm and barely acknowledges reality (or so it appears). On the other hand, she has a vital and almost omniscient presence in the Jovian network and is revered by many as sort of digital angel. That kind of double-existence requires someone with acting chops, and I had a certain look in mind when I wrote her.

As such, I decided to go with Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Nathalie Emmanuel, and Zoe Kravitz for the role. Mbatha-Raw is of English and South African descent and has distinguished herself in many roles, including The Morning Show, Black Mirror, MI-5, Doctor Who, The Cloverfield Paradox, and will be featured in the upcoming Loki miniseries.

Fans of Game of Thrones will recognize Nathalie Emmanuel for her portrayal of Missandei. She also starred alongside Mbatha-Raw in the Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, the Maze Runner franchise, and the Hollyoaks television series, and the adapted-for-television series Four Weddings and a Funeral.

Zoe Kravitz, daughter of music dynamo Lenny Kravitz and actress Lisa Bonet, has been acting since she was 9-years old. As an adult, she’s played prominent roles in movies like X-Men: First Class, the Divergent series, Mad Max: Fury Road, and will play Selina Kyle/Catwoman in the upcoming Batman relaunch.

Pinter Chandrasekhar

Pinter Chandrasekhar is a strange and complex fellow. He lives a rich life and accomplished so much as a flesh-and-blood man. He helped create arcologies all across Earth, promote solutions for sustainable living, and led various geoengineering projects. After moving to Mars, and receiving multiple life extensions, he became a proponent of terraforming and spent years advancing ecological projects.

He is the ancestral founder of the Formist faction and is considered something akin to royalty on Mars. By the time the Formist Trilogy begins, he has spent many decades existing only as an upload, guiding Formist policy and allowing his grandson – Emile Chandrasekhar – to oversee the faction’s day-to-day operations. Eventually, he is forced to turn on Emile when he realizes that his grandson has become a monster.

I can think of no one who would be able to portray Pinter more ably than Art Malik. This Pakistani-born British actor has played countless roles during the many decades that he has performed. But like many gifted and classically-trained actors, he gets a lot of recognition for the sillier roles on his resume.

These include playing a Bond villain in The Living Daylights and the terrorist mastermind from True Lies. However, you would be robbed if you didn’t get to see him in The Jewel in the Crown, A Passage to India, City of Joy, Turtle Beach, the mini-series Borgia, or his recurring role as retired Pakistani general and intelligence operative Bunran Latif in Homeland.

Xenia Elenko

This role was hard to place, mainly because when I wrote Elenko, I kept having visions of Mon Mothma (leader of the Rebel Alliance in Star Wars). But when it came time to pick an actress to portray her, I immediately ditched that image and began looking for a skilled actress who captured the spirit of Elenko.

She’s an elder stateswoman, smart as hell, and can come off as manipulative at times. She has a complex relationship with Veronika Gallego, who she essentially mentored. Basically, she’s a far-seeing individual who has a way of convincing people to do what needs to be done (and will do the same herself). After much consideration, I chose Stacy Haiduk, Jennifer Spence, and Irene Bedard.

Haiduk is a veteran actress who’s known for her roles in soap operas like Days of Our Lives, The Young and the Restless, and All My Children, as well as prime-time shows like Prison Break. She also has a history of SF/F roles, which include SeaQuest 2032, Kindred: the Embraced, True Blood, Heroes, and voice-over work for Star Wars: The Old Republic.

I first became aware of Jennifer Spence as an actress after watching Travellers, where she killed it as the AI-enamored and blunt-as-hell Grace Day. She also had recurring roles in the Stargate Universe franchise (as Dr. Lisa Park), The 4400, Continuum, Van Helsing, and The Bletchley Circle: San Francisco.

Last, there’s Irene Bedard, an actress for whom the word “veteran” just doesn’t seem to cut it. Her breakout roles were in Disney movies like Squanto (opposite Adam Beach) and providing the voice for the animated movie Pocahontas. She also starred in prominent Native American films like the Song of Hiawatha, Smoke Signals, Naturally Native, and the mini-series Into the West.

She also starred in The New World (as Pocahontas’ mother), The Tree of Life, Vertical, and had recurring roles in Longmire, Westworld, FBI: Most Wanted, and the remake of Stephen King’s The Stand.

Michael Adler

The role of Michael Adler, the mercenary turned vengeful privateer, calls for someone who can be bad, badass, and can dole out a whole lot of murder and destruction with a smile and an even tone. The only person I could think of that is supremely qualified to do all that is Neal McDonough.

The role that I most associate him with is his portrayal of real-life paratrooper Lynn “Buck” Compton from Band of Brothers – the story of Easy Company, 506th Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division in World War II. He was excellent in the role, capturing the full range of emotion that comes with being far from home and engaged in a terrible war that took him from D-Day to the Battle Bulge.

However, I’ve also seen him play the bad guy to perfection! Especially in season 3 of Justified where he played a mobster enforcer from Detroit who came to Kentucky to recruit locals into the lucrative Oxy trade. Other credits where he’s been so good at being bad include Red 2, Arrow and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, The 100, Van Helsing, and Altered Carbon.

Like I said, he’s good at being bad!

Well, that’s the cast I cam up with and I hope you like them. I can think of nothing cooler than actors of their caliber bringing the characters I created to life someday. Hey, it could happen!

The Frost Line Fracture – the Finale to the Formist Series – Has Been Released!

In 2015, I began working on an idea I hoped would some genuine legs. Inspired by my day job (writing about astronomy and space exploration), I finally had a hard SF concept in mind after many years of trying to hone my craft and find my voice. I could tell that this was an idea that could go somewhere, mainly because of how nervous and obsessive I was about getting it right.

And now, five years later, the trilogy that this led to is finally complete!

By the Fall of 2017, I had acquired a publisher and finished the first book – The Cronian Incident. By the Fall of 2018, the sequel – The Jovian Manifesto – was also finished and published. Last Fall, I had finished work on the third and final installment – The Frost Line Fracture – but there were revisions and edits that still needed to be made. The final installment in a series has to be just right, after all.

Earlier this summer, I managed to polish off the manuscript and got it as ready for publication as I possibly could. The professionals went to work and, in spite of the pandemic and all of its bloody delays, they managed to get it ready for publication just shy of the New Year. So from 2017 to 2020, I managed to get three books out there. You have to admit, it’s nice having symmetry!

More importantly, this experience has taught me a lot about myself and my writing. As I’ve said many times before, I have real difficulty with third installments. It all hearkens back to what I learned from George Lucas about trilogies and what’s expected. As he put it in an interview with Leonard Maltin back in 1995:

“In the first act, you introduce everybody. In the second act, you put them in the worst possible position they can ever get into in their lives… They’re in a black hole, never able to get out. And in the third act, they get out.”

Granted, that doesn’t exactly tell you much about how third acts are to be structured or what is supposed to happen (beyond the heroes prevailing). But Return of the Jedi certainly illustrated it well-enough. The third act, as I learned, needs to wrap things up, answer all questions, and end things on a high note.

What I learned from actually writing third acts is that I find them so bloody hard! The first is a labor of love and feels like it has endless possibilities. The second is exciting because that’s when things go dark. But the third – Oy! – that’s where all the obligation is really felt!

Not only does the finale need to wrap everything up and tie off all the threads. It also needs to end things with a bang! It’s an immutable rule of drama: a strong finale is as important as a good opening. It has to leave the audience feeling high on life and like something has been seriously affirmed.

Naturally, I did my best to convey just that and live up to the sense of obligation I felt. I did my best to resolve and tie off all the story threads that I’d created in the first two books. As for the finale, I drew on every good-guys-vs-bad-guys final showdown-type instinct I had to make that final showdown as epic as I possibly could!

It had to as big as possible without being over-the-top. It had to be realistic enough, by science fiction standards. But it also had to be the kind of fight where those involved don’t walk away, they crawl and limp away knowing that they left it all on the battlefield.

In any case, I have it on good authority that this book is the best of the three. I encourage anyone who read and enjoyed the first two to pick this story up and celebrate my first published trilogy with me!

Addendum: I would issue my thanks here, but there are too many people to thank. If we know each other and spent any time swapping ideas, expect a personal message in the coming days!

Some Good News Before 2020 Ends

The year 2020 has been rather interesting, in a totally messed up kind of way! In fact, it’s already in the running for “worst year ever,” a title previously held by 2016. At the same time though, there have been some developments this year that I’m thankful for. And today, I thought I’d share what some of those were.

For starters, I am VERY thankful for my family’s health and well-being. Given that the COVID-19 pandemic appears to be ongoing at this point, my wife and I regularly take a moment to remind ourselves how fortunate we are. We are fortunate that our family members are healthy, and we are fortunate that we can work from home and don’t have to worry about where our next paycheck is coming from.

Then there’s the outcome of the 2020 US Election, which was like a breath of fresh air. Ever since 2016, I have been depressed by the feeling that the world was getting stupider and more violently irrational all the time! But I would say that 2020 is when it all hit the fan and the sheer ineptitude, laziness, incompetence, and narcissism of the Trump administration was so painfully put on full display! Knowing he will be gone by January (and maybe even in jail) is like the light at the end of a four-year tunnel!

Alas, many challenges remain ahead and there’s plenty of confusion, chaos, and crazy to wade through until that time comes. The pandemic continues, we are dealing with tighter restrictions here in BC due to the “second wave” of COVID cases, and we’re all planning for a socially-distanced holiday season. This is one good thing we have to look forward to, which is a limited visit from family, plus some Zoom Christmas calls

Some Thoughts on the 2020 Election and the Future – Part the Last

Congratulations, you’re in the final lap! If I were to offer any excuses for the length of this tirade, it would be that the last four years have been a horror show and this is my catharsis. I recommend everyone do it, frankly! In any case, here’s the last of it:

After his first disastrous year, Trump continued to give living meaning to the term “dumpster fire.” Like a train wreck, you were appalled but what you saw, yet you couldn’t look away! As if that weren’t bad enough, the smell was so disgusting you wanted to vomit repeatedly. Somehow, you just hoped it would burn itself out.

Now, three additional painfully-long years later, we are almost there! But there’s still plenty of time to do the stupid, ugly, immature, petulant, crazy and unhinged thing! Plus, I haven’t even covered the worst of his crimes, failures, abuses, and generally-deplorable acts. Here goes!

Worst President Ever!

Among his many crimes against decency, rationalism and dignity, you also have Trump’s time on the world stage. At the 2017 NATO Summit in Brussels, he pushed the PM of Montenegro out of the way for a photo op, criticized NATO members for not paying enough, extolled the virtues of nationalism, met with Putin in private to come up with an excuse for the Trump Tower meeting, and publicly accepted Putin’s denials of election meddling.

To the whole world, Trump’s behavior towards US allies and its greatest rival told the whole story, as did the images of the two men sitting next to each other – Putin smiling smugly and Trump looking nervous and sheepish. Putin saw Trump as a “useful idiot” whom he helped into power to cultivate Russia’s interests, and Trump was happy to oblige him because he thought they were friends.

They met again in 2018 NATO Summit in Helsinki behind closed doors and Trump demanded that the notes from that meeting be destroyed. At the G20 Summit in Buenos Aires that same year, Trump was forced to sit alone as other world leaders conversed around him and wandered off-stage during a photo shoot with Argentine president Mauricio Macri.

At these and other summits, Trump was mocked behind his back, forced to sit alone as other world leaders conversed around him, and became the first president in history to be laughed at during a speech before the UN. At the 2019 G20 Summit in Osaka, Trump blasted Japan for not paying the US enough, met with Putin again, and was embarrassed by his daughter Ivanka as she tried force her way into a conversations and was ignored.

During his time abroad, Trump also distinguished himself for being the first president to snub America’s fallen soldiers. While in France to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the end of First World War, in 2018, he cancelled the visit to the American cemetery at Belleau (where the Marines who died in the Battle of Belleau Wood are buried) because “it was filled with losers” and “suckers.”

In addition to Putin, Trump also distinguished himself for his willingness to coddle Kim Jong-un. After a brief and short-lived Twitter war that almost led to a confrontation, Kim decided to open the door to disarmament talks with South Korea and the US. Trump met with him and was instantly taken in by Kim’s false charms and left convinced Kim had agreed to disarm.

Not only did Kim not agree to anything, but North Korea resumed its nuclear weapons program and missile tests shortly thereafter (yet Trump insisted he “kept his word”). When news broke that Kim’s uncle, Jang Song Thaek (whom he had executed in 2013), was a CIA asset, Trump tweeted what was effectively an apology to Kim, saying “I would tell him that would not happen under my auspice that’s for sure.”

Once again, Trump sided with a foreign hostile dictator against this own country’s intelligence services. He even begged Kim to come back to the table when he tweeted that Biden was a dog who needed to be beaten to death: “I am the only one who can get you where you have to be. You should act quickly, get the deal done. See you soon!”

A similar thing happened with Erdogan, Turkey’s crypto-fascist president. It started when Trump was talked into ceding territory in northern Syria to Turkish military occupation, which would allow them to wipe out the Kurdish rebels in the region (who were essential to battling ISIS). Trump then wrote a letter to Erdogan begging him to “make a better deal,” which Erdogen then shared with the world in mockery of Trump.

This was in the course of Trump declaring the withdrawal of US from Syria, a decision which effectively handed the country over to Assad’s regime, Russia, and Turkey. It meant abandoning the US’ Kurdish allies, which Trump justified by saying that they “didn’t help us with D-Day.” It also allowed for ISIS to experience something of a renaissance after nearly being totally defeated.

Back home, things weren’t going any better for Trump. With the firing of James Comey and Trump admitting on air that it was because of the “Russia thing,” deputy AG Rod Rosenstein appointed Robert Mueller as Special Counsel to investigate possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia during the run-up to the 2016 election.

In less than two years, the investigation documented all of the contacts and coordination between the Trump campaign team and Russian agents, accounted for 10 separate acts of obstruction of justice (one of which was Trump’s attempts to have Mueller fired), and resulted in 34 individuals and three companies being indicted for felonies – 5 of which were Trump associates and campaign officials.

However, because of Dept. of Justice policy which states that a sitting President cannot be indicted for a crime, Mueller was restricted from issuing (or even recommending) an indictment against Trump. All he could do was provide the evidence and leave it in the hands of Congress, which had the power to impeach. However, between a GOP-led Senate and newly-appointed AG Bill Barr, Trump escaped justice.

Not only did Barr misrepresent the findings of the report in his “executive summary,” McConnell and Republicans mobilized to claim Trump had been let off the hook (if not exonerated) so “case closed.” Again, to every thinking person, it was obvious this way a lie. The reason Barr had been appointed as AG was because of his opposition to the investigation, which he made clear before he was appointed.

Mueller also vocalized his opposition to Barr’s summary and the perception that the report somehow proved “no collusion/no obstruction.” In fact, he spelled it out in the report itself and reiterated as much during two separate testimonies before Congress. As he put it, “If we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so. We did not, however, make a determination as to whether the president did commit a crime.”

He also indicated that according to the Constitution, any crimes by potential a president must be addressed by a “process other than the criminal justice system,” hinting at the possibility of impeachment. He further stressed that
the central conclusion of his investigation was “that there were multiple, systematic efforts to interfere in our election. That allegation deserves the attention of every American.” Does that sound like “exoneration” to you?

But it wasn’t over and Trump would once again collude to interfere in a US election. In addition to McConnell and Congressional Republicans blocking three separate bills meant to tighten election security, Trump began soliciting foreign governments for dirt on Joe Biden. Having won the Democratic primaries, Trump was now looking to repeat what he’d done during the 2016 election.

The worst instance was where he curtailed aide to the Ukraine until they did him “a favor” by announcing an investigation into the false claims they were spreading about Biden’s son, Hunter Biden. Once again, thanks to a completely complicit GOP-led Congress – which stooped as low as to say “abuse of power isn’t a crime,” and “it’s not a crime if he thought he was doing right by the country,” – Trump got away it.

Last, there was the absolute disaster that was Trump’s handling of the COVID-19 epidemic. So much has been said about that, so I’ll just give it a brief pass. In 2019, Trump was warned repeatedly about the threat of COVID-19 and the potential of a pandemic. We know from the recordings provided by Robert Woodward that Trump considered it “deadly stuff”, “worse than the flu,” but that he “played it down” on purpose.

All the while, Trump continued to claim that there was no threat, that it was “nothing,” that they had it “contained,” and that it would “magically go away.” His firm leadership also included appointing his son-in-law to hoard supplies, withholding aid to Blue states unless they flattered him enough, holding rallies in the midst of it, undermining Dr. Fauci publicly, and speculating that bleach and UV light could cure it, if only these could be “injected” or “taken internally.”

As of the writing of this article, over 250,000+ Americans have died due to COVID, for which Trump said he takes “zero responsibility.” Instead, as the pandemic continues to get worse, he’s demanding that the nation “re-open,” has neglected financial assistance (to the point that people are risking their lives to go back to work), and is most angered by the fact that people are criticizing him.

If the last four years hadn’t convinced everyone that he’s a pathological narcissist, Trump has once again proven that the world could be on fire and his only thought would be “how does this affect me?” Much like his handling of Puerto Rico after it was devastated by hurricanes and “Sharpiegate,” Trump only cares about not looking stupid or incompetent while people die!

Yet somehow, he’s still at it. The 2020 election has come and gone and Trump still refuses to concede defeat or even admit it (except accidentally). Republicans in Congress continue to enable him and push his alternative version of reality, and his supporters continue to march in his name and demonstrate their willingness to kill for him.

So… What Now?

Seriously, how the hell did it all comes to this? And what are we to expect, moving forward? Well, if I were to review all of what I’ve written here without anger or incredulity, I would say that it the past years represent the culmination of the following:

The concentration of media ownership into fewer and fewer handsDecades of conditioning by conservative mediaDemonization of mainstream media and opposing viewsThe growth of internet counter-knowledge and misinformationThe mainstreaming of fringe politics and racist movements

In this respect, I am reminded of the psychological evaluations that were conducted by Major Douglas Kelley and Gustave Gilbert during the Nuremberg Trials. Primarily, their job was to determine if the chief architects of the Holocaust and a war that left 70 million people dead on three continents were fit to stand trial.

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At the same time, however, both men sought to address the burning questions that were on everyone’s mind. How could Germany, the most developed and advanced nation in the world during the 1930s, have committed such barbaric atrocities? How could seemingly normal human beings have murdered so ruthlessly and mechanistically?

From their evaluations, certain conclusions and generalizations could be drawn. Overall, three major contributors could be identified:

Culture: During the 1930s, Germany was a nation where people were instructed from childhood to obey their parents, teachers, leaders, and authority figures. So when a man like Hitler becomes Chancellor, he is standing at the head of a nation of 50 million people who think it’s perfectly natural to do whatever he says.Propaganda: Since the Middle Ages, Germans had been taught that Jews and other populations (Slavs in particular) were neither true Germans and beneath them. So when the government starts claiming that they represent a mortal threat and that it’s necessary to eliminate them “for the good of the nation,” people would not be inclined to object.

However, these seemed hardly sufficient to explain the inhumanity of these crimes. The only thread that truly connected these men charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity, according to Kelley and Gilbert was a lack of empathy. In the end, it was only people who were capable of not seeing their fellow human beings as human beings that were capable of committing the atrocities.

This was why, when the Nazi leadership met to discuss the “Final Solution To The Jewish Question” in 1942, it was decided that the task of exterminating the Jews and other people designated as “untermench” (sub-humans) would be given to the SS and the commandants of the concentration camps. Average soldiers and Generals (such as Erwin Rommel) could not be trusted to always follow extermination orders. But men who had been sufficiently brainwashed and demonstrated a capacity for brutality and remorseless killing certainly could!

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The similarities are frightening and they remind us, yet again, that the same force behind Nazis can succeed in America. Sinclair Lewis said as much in his famous novel It Can’t Happen Here, which has experienced a resurgence in popularity in the last few years (I wonder why!) Dr. Kelley himself warned that similar tendencies could take root in America and was concerned it was already happening in the post-war era.

As Burke famously said, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” He was certainly correct. But another thing evil needs is people who are willing to say “it’s not happening to me, so it’s not a problem.”

For the pro-Trump crowd, the fact that children were dying in cages, hate crimes had increased, Neo-Nazis were marching in the streets, police were shooting people of color, dictators were murdering freely, and people were being left to die from war, hurricanes, or a pandemic due to Trump’s extreme incompetence didn’t matter because… it wasn’t them! Hell, it wasn’t even happening because, “fake news!”

Godwin Strikes Again

Yes, I know that this is a perfect example of Godwin’s Law, and I know from personal experience that Trump supporters loathe being compared to Nazis. To that, I am tempted to say, “who the hell cares?” Or perhaps I ought to use the famous line that keeps popping up at Trump rallies on MAGA merchandise: “Fuck your feelings!”

Instead, I think I will explain this one last time to the MAGA crowd:

“Whether or not you think of yourself a racist, sexist, xenophobic, misogynistic, homophobic, intolerant pig, you supported a man who is!”

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That’s right, all you “very fine people” who aren’t Nazis witnessed everything the rest of us did. You saw, heard, and experienced every disgusting, racist, abusive, and corrupt utterance and deed. And what did you have to say? Nothing? Or did you just deflect onto any number of made-up, totally BS prepared talking points? Yes, we’re all familiar with them by now:

“What about Uranium One?”“What about Benghazi?”“What about paying Iran?”“What about Hunter Biden?”“What about her emails?”“What about Tara Reade?”“What about ‘predators’?”“What about ‘you aint black’?”

Here’s the thing about all of these points. They are either lies, half-truths, or complete misrepresentations. Even if every one of them were as bad as you’ve been led to believe, the fact that you seem to have a problem with them and not Trump’s litany of far greater and unambiguous sins only exposes your own extreme hypocrisy.

But it’s not about believing what you say or the facts, is it? It’s about defending your decision to support the man. In that, you are just like the man you supported. You condoned all the horrible things he did, up to and including treason and letting 250,000+ Americans die from a pandemic that knowingly lied about! But in the end, all you care about is how you’re treated, isn’t it?

You want to be able to do and say whatever you want, and never be held accountable for it, right? And when things blow up in your face, it’s somehow everybody else’s fault for judging you unfairly. Wow! The list of things you and Trump have in common is astounding!

Last Word

But I digress, this is not about what Trump supporters were willing to tolerate or the depths they sunk to just to avoid admitting they made a terrible mistake. This is not even about revisiting Trump’s and their litany of sins anymore. It’s about where we go from here. Forgiveness needs to happen, yes, even if it’s not entirely deserved. There’s no way a country can function when people are so bitterly divided.

Granted, that can only happen once the “very fine” who condoned Trump for the past four years make a break from their “alt-right” brethren and take responsibility for their own actions. Until then, the lessons cannot be learned and history is likely to repeat itself. It’s also not fair for the left-of center crowd to once again say “we tend to move forward” and sweep it all under the rug, which is what happened in 2008 (look how that turned out!)

Sooner or later, the current divide needs to be sealed and Americans need to stop viewing each other as mortal enemies. It’s political theater, it’s as pointless as it is stupid, and the only people who benefit are viscous, horrible, lying scumbags (aka. politicians!) The only alternative is that the Red States and the Blue States secede from each other and form their own countries.

But of course, Americans already tried that, and look how that turned out!

That’s all I’ve been wanting to say now for the past four years and I’m thrilled we’re now at the point where I can say it. In the meantime, to people in the US, here in Canada, and around the world, stay healthy, stay safe, and stay positive. Now I’d like to sign off with one word that I mean in every sense humanly possible: PEACE!

Some Thoughts on the 2020 Election and the Future – Part the Second

Welcome back. If you’re not offended or sufficiently angered/disgusted yet, feel free to keep reading!

To recap, since 2008, the GOP had been following the policy of reaching out to the fringe in order to stay relevant. But maintaining support from these elements meant constantly having to appear sufficiently right-wing. But the far-right wasn’t convinced and created their own movement and media, which came to be called the “alt-right” – to any informed observer, it was a thinly-veiled white supremacist movement.

Enter Trump

By 2016, this culminated in the crisis that was Trump. Whereas mainstream Republicans could only flirt with fringe movements, Trump was one of their biggest speakers. Whereas Republicans could only pretend to be “mavericks” or outsiders with fresh ideas, Trump was an outsider. Whereas Republicans could flirt with racism and violence, they had to stop short of condoning it. Trump had no such qualms or restrictions.

This made Trump attractive to impressionable voters who seemed to think his brand of “speak first, think never” rhetoric was refreshing. To the bigots and “alt-right,” it was even more attractive. As David Duke, Richard Spencer, and a slew of other notorious white supremacists would attest, Trump was the man who was bringing their politics into the mainstream.

As Duke said at the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia:

“We are determined to take our country back. We are going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump. That’s what we believed in. That’s why we voted for Donald Trump, because he said he’s going to take our country back.“

And who can forget Spencer’s transparent “sig heil” moment when the 2016 election was announced? “Hail Trump! Hail our victory!” he said to a house that began issuing the Nazi salute. It was not hard at all to see why they thought Trump was their man. His entire campaign was launched on the promise of deporting 11 million Mexican immigrants, building a border wall, banning Muslim immigration, putting “America First.”

To white supremacists, the meaning of these dog whistles and slogans was clear. To those who find such thinking repugnant, Trump’s message was also clear. But there was always a sliver of ambiguity and inconsistency that the weak-willed, weak-minded, and self-serving were willing to exploit to pretend that their support of Trump didn’t make them racists.

Once again, the Republican party was forced to make a decision. Would they break with politics as usual and denounce the beast they helped create? Our would they maintain the delusion that they could control it and try to use it to get what they wanted more than anything – a repeal of Obamacare, more deregulation, and more tax cuts for the rich?

In true cynical and cowardly fashion, the GOP flipped completely and embraced Donald Trump. One by one, they lined up to bend the knee and celebrate the coronation of their new king. The uneasy nature of this was captured perfectly in the photo (shown above) of Romney having dinner with Trump. While Trump beams the smile of the gloating victor, Romney feigns a smile that fails to hide his obvious unease.

This tend would continue through Trump’s presidency and is even going on today! But first, a short review of Trump’s absolutely shameful record as the 45th President of the US. I think it’s fair to say that it has left a dark cloud over the minds of every compassionate and thinking person in the world. It all began with a man descending an escalator to kick off what was arguably the worst campaign in history.

Dumpster Fire at Inception

If elected, Trump declared, he promised to round up 11 million illegals and deport them, ban Muslims immigrants, and put “America First.” As time went on, Trump demonstrated how effective a leader he would by encouraging violence at his rallies, mocking a disabled reporter, insulting the family of a deceased gold star veteran, inviting Russia to hack government servers, bragging about sexual assault, stalking Hillary Clinton around on a stage, and constant name-calling.

While it was hard to imagine, his presidency would prove to be even more shameful and embarrassing. We aot a preview of this during the transition. First, there was the incident where a cool and collected President Obama showed Trump around the White House and Trump expressed surprise at all the work the job entailed. This came as a surprise to very , seeing as how Trump asked John Kasich if he would be his VP and assume all domestic and foreign responsibilities for him.

Then there was his National Security Advisor Michael Flynn intimating to the Russians that Trump would lift the sanctions being imposed by President Obama, which were in response to their hacking DNC and private servers in the hopes of swating the election in Trump’s favor. This would prove to be the curtain-raiser on the central feature to Trump’s time in office, which was his involvement in the Russian scheme.

Once he assumed office, he kicked things off with a flagrant display of pettiness and insecurity. Despite winning the election, he felt the need to claim that he only lost the popular vote because “3 to 5 million illegal immigrants voted,” and that his inauguration crowd was bigger than Obama’s in 2008! He then proceeded to betray some of his biggest promises.

In particular, he appointed a slew of people to key positions in his administration whose sole qualification appeared to be that they were friends of his and contributors to his campaign. He also handed the keys to America’s economic policy over to billionaires from Goldman Sachs. He also made sure that his son-in-law and daughter were the job of overseeing some of the most important policy decision. So much for “draining the swamp!”

Things only went downhill from there. Within his first 100 days, it was clear he was going to accomplish very little of what he promised. The process of “repealing and replacing” of Obamacare because a gong show as Trump shifted the responsibility for the entire process onto Senate Majority Leader McConnell and House Speaker Ryan, who had absolutely nothing of value to replace it with (despite having six years to work on one).

After multiple attempts to force their terrible plan through, which got to the point where they demanded that Congress not even be allowed to read it, they settled instead for trying to kill Obamacare by cutting its funding. Trump then proceeded to offer a sweeping tax cut that favored only the super-rich and left working Americans with nothing. Meanwhile, he refused to divest from his financial holdings and release his tax returns.

Within his first year as President, he also withdrew the US from the Paris Climate Agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, approved the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, cut environmental and economic regulations, fired FBI Director James Comey for not dropping the investigation into Flynn, began planning his wall, and withdrew government financial support to pro-choice organizations.

In the summer of 2017, things turned really ugly! On Aug. 11th and 12th, a crowd of neo-Confederates, the KKK, white supremacists, and neo-Nazis descended on the town of Charlottesville, Virginia, to hold the “Unite the Right.” Ostensibly, the rally was to protest the removal of Confederate statues, but the crowd quickly made it clear that what they were really protesting was the “removal” (as they saw it) of white culture.

Who can forget the images of crowds sporting the Nazi flag and white power symbols, or the marchers with tiki torches chanting “Jews shall not replace us!” and the Nazi slogan “Blood and Soil!”? Along with the countless Confederate flags, many of the attendants wore red hats or shirts with Trump’s campaign slogan “Make America Great Again.”

On August 12th, things turned violent when the Unite the Right crowd diverted from their sanctioned route and grounds in Lee Park and marched to confront counter-protesters nearby. The scene turned violent, with many people hospitalized and one woman (Heather Heyer) was killed by a white supremacist who ran into a crowd of counter-protesters with his car.

For Trump and the GOP, the task could not have been simpler: denounce the Nazi sonsofbitches! But as always, Trump’s response was weak, waffling, and inconsistent. After claiming there was hatred and violence “on both sides” and many of the Unite the Right crowd were “very fine people,” he offered half-hearted and forced condemnations of the hate groups, then went right back to blaming it on the “alt-left.”

The response of the GOP and Trump supporters was equally reprehensible (even now, years afterward). Aside from parsing Trump’s statements to prove that he did condemn the hate groups, they also tried to falsely compartmentalize the crowd into “very fine people” and hate groups, claim it was a “both sides” thing where Antifa and BLM are “just as bad” as Nazis, and ceaselessly repeating internet-based lies about who started what.

The only people who seemed pleased by Trump’s response were (again) David Duke and Richard Spencer. To Duke, Trump’s comments about the “alt-left” were interpreted as vindication: “Thank you President Trump for your honesty & courage to tell the truth about Charlottesville & condemn the leftist terrorists,” he tweeted.

Spencer, also via Twitter, claimed “Trump’s statement was fair and down to earth. #Charlottesville could have been peaceful, if police did its job.” The situation did not change with the passage of time. Years after the fact, Trump would continue to either half-assedly condemn white supremacists or refuse to, as illustrated by his statement to the Proud Boys during a 2020 election debate: “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by.”

One does not have to look far to notice the extreme hypocrisy Trump (and his supporters) have demonstrated when it comes to protests and violence. When protests began over the shooting death of George Floyd and other instances of police brutality, Trump and his supporters quickly moved to condemn the protesters in the most unambiguous terms possible, calling them “looters,” “rioters,” and “thugs.”

Meanwhile, not a word of condemnation was issued for the armed thugs seized the Michigan legislature to protest COVID safety guidelines or plotted to kidnap Governor Whitmer. Neither was he against tear-gassing and shooting protesters with rubber bullets in order to clear the way for a photo op. Trump, a man who was investigated for high crimes and impeached for abuse of power, was suddenly pretending to be a “law and order” president.

If you’ve made this far, kudos and bless you! The third and final installment is on the way!

Some Thoughts on the 2020 Election and the Future – Part the First

Wow. It came (and went) at last! The 2020 Presidential Election and the ouster of Donald Trump. Like most people in United States, here in Canada, and everywhere else in the world, I was pretty much in a state of full-body tension waiting to see how it all turned out. The polls were favorable going in, but we all knew from experience to take that with a grain of salt.

Naturally, I was happy and relieved by the outcome. After four years of wondering when the madness and sheer chaos of the Trump administration would end, the people spoke and the results were crushing to Trump and his cadre. And while this is far from over (they still have lawsuits to file and votes they’re trying to suppress), it’s good to know that people all over the world can enjoy some peace and calm for a little while at least.

A friend of mine (and fellow writer) once remarked that as a Canadian, I could offer a characteristically sober and cool-headed perspective on American politics. I certainly enjoyed being thought of that way. However, I can tell you that that’s not been my attitude in the past few years. Considering that Canada, much like the rest of the world, is directly affected by what goes on down south, I’m naturally concerned about US politics.

As former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau (father to Justin Trudeau, our current PM) once said:

“Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt.”

And, like most Canadians, I have many friends, colleagues, and even family members in the US, which makes me feel emotionally involved when things are really hitting the fan down there. So like most people, I’ve been asking myself the same question for about a decade now.

How Did it Come to This?

It’s a fair question, isn’t it? It also cuts across party lines and ideologies. How did the state of US politics get to the point where almost half the country thought that Donald Trump – a notorious real-estate developer and reality TV star – was the man to lead their country? By all accounts, he was a fraudster, a liar, a grifter, a sex offender, and actively colluding with Russia to steal the election.

His campaign launched on the promise of deporting 11 million people, building a wall to keep immigrants out, banning Muslims from entering the country, tear up trade treaties, repealing the Affordable Care Act (ACA), withdrawing from Climate Change agreements, neutering the EPA, imposing protectionist policies, bringing back coal and manufacturing jobs, and using the Justice Dept. to persecute his enemies.

While some people found these pitches to be “folksy,” “refreshing,” or just liked the idea of jobs coming back, it wasn’t hard to see that these promises were the boasts of a simple-minded man telling people what they wanted to hear. And it did nothing to hide the fact that he encouraged violence among his supporters, intimated Hillary Clinton should be killed, or to drown out the chorus of “Jew-S-A,” “lock her up!”, or “I will assassinate Hillary if she wins!”

The man represented the utter worst in people and taught them that anything said by the media about him was a lie. How could anyone be fooled by this huckster or think his brand of racist, bigoted, mob-mentality and violence was somehow a good thing? How did they not see the parallels between him and some of the worst monsters in history?

The Mind of the Trump Supporter

Luckily, I had the benefit of being able to speak to multiple individuals on the other side of the aisle for the past few years and was able to get their perspective on things before, during, and after the election. They also stuck around to make their opinions known throughout his administration as more and more evidence of criminal behavior was revealed and more people spoke out about his abuses and incompetence.

From them, I learned that (for starters) everything said about Trump by the mainstream media was part of a false narrative created by “the swamp” since he was challenging them. This excuse, simplified into the slogan “fake news,” was always the go-to EVERY SINGLE TIME new crimes and abuses came to light. But it didn’t seem to matter to them that much, in the end. Whether it was true or not, anything Trump did, they found acceptable.

Whether it was the Trump Tower meeting, the Trump Jr. email chain, Jr. calls with Assange, his defenses of Putin, the back-channel meetings with Russians, his associates long history of collusion with Putin’s friends, firing Comey, the Mueller Report, extorting Zelensky, befriending dictators, abandoning NATO and US allies…

Whether it was “Grab them by the pussy!”, the 26 women accusing him of sexual assault (one of whom was 13 at the time!), his support of Moore (another pedophile), his charity scams, his many bankruptcies, his lawsuits for fraud, his friendship with Epstein, his adulteries, his depriving 20 million Americans of health care, his giving the super-rich tax breaks, or his vilification of immigrants and refugees, there was always an excuse.

“We don’t care, we want an outsider!”“I’m sick of both parties!”“Russia isn’t our enemy, so it’s not treason!”“Muslims aren’t a race, so he’s not racist!”“Women often lie about rape.”“It’s not hatred to want to protect your people!”“I’m just glad someone’s doing something about the border!”“There’s always been bounties on US troops, so so what?”“They’re ILLEGALS!”“The cages were build by Obama!”“It’s normal for millionaires to go bankrupt a few times!”“He’s bringing back jobs!”“Hey, the US has done bad stuff too. We’re no angels!”“Better Putin than Hillary!”“He’s protecting us against globalism and the new world order (NWO)!”“What about (insert half-assed story about Obama or the Clintons)?”

So to recap, Trump supporters didn’t care if he was a misogynist, a stupid bigot, an adulterer, a sex offender, a Russian puppet, a fraud, a failure, a thief, a narcissist, or a serial liar. While they’d initially say it was all lies or deflect with the “whataboutism,” they would inevitable admit that they didn’t care. Everything, even treason, dead children, letting Russia pay for the death of US troops, and Russia running the US, was acceptable to them.

The power of populist candidates, people who give someone else to blame and promise to right all wrongs, have historically been very powerful throughout history – especially where unemployment, confusion, and social chaos reign. But this made no sense to me. It was one thing for people to blindly believe Trump would defend America (or their version of it), but this level of denial and compromise was inexplicable.

What the hell could possibly explain this? What could explain right-wingers who called Obama a “traitor” to suddenly championing collusion with an enemy nation? What could explain nearly half of the US thinking a hostile dictator was their friend and their fellow Americans the enemy? What could explain people thinking that everything – including facts – were rightly sacrificed for the sake of loyalty to one man?

In short, when did it get to the point where loyalty to a president somehow supersedes loyalty to the country, democracy, and the truth itself? According to friends and colleagues, it all depends on how far back you want to look. I guess you could say that the situation is like that line from Syriana:

“You dig a six-foot hole and you’ll find three bodies. Dig twelve and maybe you’ll find forty.”

That may be true. But for me, the problems really began around 2008. It was at this point that the Republicans and the political right ceased being cynical, lying opportunists (you know, politicians!) and began their famous descent into chaos, madness, ultra-nationalism, and “alternative facts” – in other words, Trump!

Defeat and Regroup

As you may recall, 2008 was a great year for liberals, progressives, reformists, and forward-thinkers in America. The GOP was effectively routed from Capitol Hill and eight years of campaigning on religion, homophobia, Islamophobia, elitism, and lies was at an end. Bush had been bleeding support for years, and was finally leaving office.

In 2008, Obama swept into office on a tidal wave of support and optimism. Combined with their victories in the 2006 mid-terms, the Democrats were effectively in control of both elected branches of government (the Supreme Court was still stacked in the Republican’s favor). The GOP, meanwhile, was facing an image crisis and a crisis in leadership.

Initially, they tried to reboot their image by embracing Michael Steele as RNC chairman and his message of new ideas and taking the party “to the streets.” It certainly looked like a cynical ploy, with the GOP thinking that putting a Black in charge would draw more support to them for certain (ahem!) sectors of the population. Their logic seemed to be, “it worked for the Democrats!”

Unfortunately, Bush left America with two unresolved wars, an ongoing “war on terror,” the worst economic crisis it had experience since 1929, and serious damage to their reputation. A lot of people were losing their jobs, were fearing for the future, and were looking for someone to blame. It was here the GOP found new life by embracing fringe movements that were emerging all over the country.

To these people, the GOP laid the blame for all the current woes at Obama’s feet. It was an old tune. High spending, high taxes, socialist reforms, unions, economic regulations, the EPA – this was what was killing American jobs! Blame the government, which just happens to be currently occupied by a Black Democrat! And it certainly worked. All across the country, fringe movements claiming to “libertarian” were demanding that someone put an end to it all!

It didn’t take long to reveal that these were largely “astroturf” organizations, which refers to movements that claim to be grass-roots, but are actually directed from above. This was terribly evident about the Tea Party Movement, the largest Obama-era opposition group, which was largely funded by Americans for Prosperity (AFP), a conservative political group run by David and Charles Koch (aka. the Koch brothers).

There was also the Birther Movement, a holdover from the pre-election days that sprang up amid Sarah Palin’s demands that the Republican Party “go negative” against the Obama campaign. After being treated to the lie that Obama was Kenyan by birth (and therefore illegitimate), their refrain after the election became “I want my country back.”

In addition, the Tea Party was clearly taking its marching orders from conservative politicians and political commentators. This included FoxNews, the long-standing mouthpiece for the GOP and under the direction of Roger Ailes (who died shortly after being revealed to be a notorious sex offender), and corporate interests like Citizens for a Sound Economy (also run by the Koch Brothers).

There was also Glenn Beck, a rising media star whose brand was built on conspiracy theories and comparing Obama’s policies to Nazism at the drop of a hat! Several Republican politicians moved quickly to embrace these fringe movements and spokespeople, like Ron Paul, Michelle Bachmann, Ted Cruz, Paul Ryan, and Sarah Palin (who was looking for a new purpose after her failed VP run).

Normally, these movements would give any sensible politician pause because of their militant, anti-government rhetoric (which overflowed into acts of violence), their racially-charged views, and their tenuous relationship with the facts. But it didn’t matter much, because the GOP seemed to think they could ride this beast back to power. By 2010, it was clear who was in control of the Republican Party.

The best illustration was Rush Limbaugh saying it was him, not Steele. Steele replied by calling Limbaugh out as an armchair quarterback, but then apologize to him publicly (for fear of alienating the base). Limbaugh proudly played the apology on-air, relishing in the fact that an RNC Chairman was bending the knee to him.

At first, the new strategy seemed to be working. In the 2010 mid-terms, the GOP regained control of the Senate and House, Reince Priebus replaced Steele, and John Boehner and Mitch McConnell became Speaker of the House and Senate Majority Leader, respectively. Before the election was over, the two men summed up the Republican-led Congress’ new agenda:

“We’re going to do everything — and I mean everything we can do — to kill [Obamacare], stop it, slow it down, whatever we can.” (Boehner, Oct. 2010)

“The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.” (McConnel, 2010).

The only problem was, the nation was still dealing with the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, an ongoing war in Afghanistan, 8% unemployment, and a massive deficit. At a time when cooperation was needed more than ever, the GOP had committed to an anti-government agenda and blamed Obama for all the delays, gridlock, and shutdowns that followed.

Not only did this put them in bed with a cabal of conspiracy theorists, white nationalists, survivalists, bigots, and racists, it also meant that they needed to treat Obama and the Democrats as the enemy to maintain the illusion of righteous struggle. The resistance reached the level of extreme petulance and comparisons to Hitler and Stalin were also very common. As always, the GOP used immigration and Islamophobia to scare people.

You may recall the controversy surrounding the “ground zero Mosque” or Obama bowing to the Saudi king. But it was even worse where health care and social assistance were involved. The GOP could not budge on either, which meant entertaining notions of letting the sick die and the poor starve to death, because helping them in any way was “socialism.”

Between the party and conservative media (FoxNews being the main purveyor), the political right was also committed to attacking Obama’s every move and utterance. Memories of “he does nothing but apologize for America,” the “coffee cup salute,” and the “tan suit” incident come to mind. Much like 1994 to 1998, the sole purpose of the GOP appeared to be undermining a Democratic president. Only this time, there was an added edge that couldn’t be ignored and stunk of obvious racism.

These problems also spilled over into the party itself and led to in-fighting among Republicans. By 2012, when it came time to nominate a candidate for the federal election, they would constantly accuse each other of being RINOs (Republican-in-name-only). Eventually, Mitt Romney received the GOP nomination, but the harm was done and Romney (unsurprisingly) lost.

Among both Democrats and Republicans, Romney was viewed as the kind of politician who “will say anything to win.” During the Republican primaries, he declared that he was in favor of repealing Roe v. Wade, repealing Obamacare, rescinding gay marriage, and a host of other issues. During the election, he flipped on all these issues and it cost him.

Like McCain in 2008, Romney had a serious branding problem, where he couldn’t appear too moderate for fear of alienating his base, and couldn’t appear too far right for fear of alienating moderates. The result of this was that he came off as totally inconsistent. His candidacy also illustrated the problem of the Republican Party, which would haunt them again by 2016.

This piece is part of a series. Stay tuned for the next installment!

Fermi and the Great Filter. Or, Some Thoughts on Why We Haven’t Heard from Aliens (Yet!)

In recent weeks, I’ve been writing a lot about Fermi’s Paradox (“Where is everybody?” aka. where are all the aliens?) As you can imagine, this has involved a lot of research! So much has been said and so much ink has been spilled on the potential reasons why humanity has not found evidence of cosmic counterparts, despite seventy years of looking and the sheer vastness of the Universe.

Today, I thought I might share some of my own thoughts and speculations on that front. In terms of which hypothesis is the most likely, my thoughts are pretty simple and straightforward. But in terms of which hypothesis I think is the coolest and most mind-blowing (in part for the sake of science fiction writing), that’s where things get a bit crazy!

Most-Likely Scenario:

I think that Robin Hanson summarized it best with his Great Filter Hypothesis. Basically, if the ingredients for life are everywhere and there’s no shortage of places for it to have emerged – and enough time has passed that some of it ought to be colonizing entire galaxies! – then there must be something that in the evolutionary process that keeps life from reaching advanced stages.

According to Hanson’s theory, the evolution of life on Earth can serve as a template for addressing Fermi’s big question. If we assume that life follows a similar course in all parts of the Universe, then we can boil that down to a multi-step process that might look something like this:

A star system with potentially habitable planets and organic moleculesReproductive molecules (e.g. RNA)Single-cell lifeComplex single-cell lifeSexual reproductionMulti-cell lifeTool-using animals with intelligenceAn advanced, technologically-dependent civilization (we are here)Colonization of space

As the argument goes, wherever you place the filter in this process will have inevitable implications for humanity and life on Earth. If the filter is at an early stage, it means life has beaten the odds just by getting this far. If it is at a later stage, it means humanity could be nearing a precipice. Neither of these scenarios is particularly cheery because they mean that we’re either likely to die soon, or we shouldn’t be here in the first place!

Given the challenges and existential threats that life on Earth is facing today, there are many theorists who argue that the filter belongs between steps 8 and 9. As intelligent species grow and multiple, so will their dependence on technology and their impact on their natural environment. Eventually, they will reach a bottleneck, where they will either get off-world, or they will collapse before they get the chance.

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Now for the Crazy Stuff!

Hands down, my favorite proposed resolution to the Fermi Paradox is the Transcension Hypothesis. This theory has deep roots but owes its existence largely to cosmologist and theoretical physicist John D. Barrow – who passed away on Sept. 26th, 2020. In 1998, he published a study called “Impossibility: Limits of Science and the Science of Limits” where he proposed a revised version of the Kardashev Scale.

For those unfamiliar, Kardashev proposed that civilizations could be divided into one of three categories based on how much energy they could harness:

Type I civilizations could to harness the energy of an entire planetType II civilizations could harness the energy of their entire sunType III civilizations could harness the energy of an entire galaxy

In contrast, Barrow observed that humans have benefitted far more from extending their abilities into increasingly smaller scales rather than larger ones. Therefore, he proposed a scale that extended downward, where civilizations would be capable of manipulating matter from the scale of objects, down to the genetic, atomic, subatomic, and finally, space and time itself.

By 2002, John M. Smart, the CEO of Foresight University and founder of the Acceleration Studies Foundation, synthesized Barrow’s work and the increasingly-popular theory of the Technological Singularity to propose another resolution to the Fermi Paradox. In a paper titled “Answering the Fermi Paradox: Exploring the Mechanisms of Universal Transcension,” he claimed the “Great Silence” could be explained by technological evolution.

He updated these arguments in a 2011 essay titled “The transcension hypothesis: Sufficiently advanced civilizations invariably leave our universe, and implications for METI and SETI.” In summary, Smart argued that the process of evolutionary development (evo-devo) will inevitably guide species to optimizing their space rather than attempting to expand and fill more of it.

Rather than trying to colonize more star systems, they will be more likely to convert matter within their own system. This could include disassembling planets to create clouds of computronium, shedding their physical bodies to live out their lives in simulations, and soaking up all the energy they need from their sun. Or, as Smart offered, they might relocate to live around the Event Horizons of black holes!

Black holes could be the ultimate source of energy since matter that falls into rings around them is accelerated to relativistic speeds (near the speed of light) and they also emit energy in the form of Hawking Radiation. Beyond that, black holes allow for all kinds of revolutionary physics that only a super-advanced species would be able to harness.

Bottom line, a species that has reached this state of evolutionary development would likely be “radio-quiet” and undetectable by conventional SETI means. Moreover, they would likely lose interest in broadcasting their existence to the outside Universe and would prefer to observe it passively.

Honorable Mention

If you really want to get into the weird and scary theories that make you paranoid and want to question everything, there are few theories better than the Planetarium Hypothesis. This theory states that the reason there’s the “Great Silence” is that humanity is living inside a simulation or engineered environment (that would be the “planetarium”) built by a super-advanced species.

This species could have emerged millions (or billions) of years before we did and is making sure we’re unaware of their existence by making sure the simulation presents us with no evidence of intelligent life beyond Earth. And all the while, they are watching and studying us, maybe for the sake of research, maybe for entertainment, maybe because they created us, or maybe just to keep us controlled so we never threaten them.

It’s like a cross between the Truman Show, The Matrix, and 2001: A Space Odyssey. It’s also akin to the Zoo Hypothesis, which states advanced civilizations are avoiding contact with humanity (and any other less-developed species) out of some version of the law of non-interference (think of Star Trek’s “Prime Directive“.) You could say the Planetarium Hypothesis is the Zoo Hypothesis’ evil sister!

Some theorists have raised the question of how we might test this hypothesis. It’s been suggested that the physics of a simulated universe would have tell-tale signs of structure (“lattices”) that would indicate that it’s artificial. This theory takes its cue from the concept of Lattice Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) environments, where quantum-level interactions are harnessed to create artificial environments (think of a “Holodeck“).

However, this approach is based on the idea that the physics model that is used in the simulation would be reliable – or at least the same as what exists in the real Universe. An inevitable counter-argument arises from this: if the laws of physics (as we perceive them) are part of our simulated reality, how can we trust them to reveal that it’s just a simulation?

That’s what makes this hypothesis so intriguing, as far as I’m concerned. If the very laws of physics were written as part of the simulation, it would make sense that those laws would be in place to prevent us from ever finding out. Even more mind-boggling is the idea that they could be specially-tuned to limit humanity’s growth.

When it comes to becoming an interplanetary and interstellar species, there are two forces that are holding us back: Gravity and Special Relativity. To break free of Earth’s gravity, one needs to generate an escape velocity of 11.19 km/s (6.95 mi/s), which takes a LOT of energy. As for Relativity, it establishes that the speed of light (299,792,458 m/s) is constant and a physical absolute.

One of the consequences of this law is that the faster an object gets, the more massive it becomes. As a result, it takes progressively more energy to accelerate the closer you get to the speed of light. In order to actually reach it, you’d have to generate an infinite amount of energy. Because of all that, traveling to even the nearest star is prohibitively expensive and could take many decades (at least).

That’s what makes this hypothesis interesting to me, from my perspective anyway. If I were a super-advanced species and in the habit of keeping less-advanced species confined in an artificial environment, I would include a physics model that imposes these very kinds of limitations. In other words, I am intrigued by the Planetarium Hypothesis because it’s exactly what I would do!

No spoilers, but all this research also gave me some big ideas for future novels. I would preview what these are, but I prefer to do that when the idea is in the works, and that won’t happen for a long time! I got a few standalone books to finish in the meantime, a trilogy that’s waiting on the release of the third installment, and then a second trilogy to prepare for.

Speaking of which, more new on that front will be coming soon! Stay tuned!

Beyond Fermi’s Paradox Series!

A few weeks ago at Universe Today, I started a series that takes a look at the Fermi Paradox. For those who are not familiar, this refers to the contradiction that was observed by famed Italian-American physicist Enrico Fermi. This contradiction can be summarized as “if life is statistically so likely in the Universe, why haven’t we found any evidence of it yet?”

Or, if you prefer the short version, it can be summarized as:

“Where the hell are all the aliens?”

In the past, I’ve had the chance to summarize the many answers that this question has inspired over the years. A good example of this is the SETI series that I did for Stardomspace not long ago. But never before have I been able to dig into any one of these proposed resolutions on their own. And it’s been pretty fun so far!

Feel free to have a look at all the installments I’ve made so far. I will be updating the list as it gets closer to completion, or if I just decide to add more installments.

Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” I: A Lunchtime Conversation- Enrico Fermi and Extraterrestrial Intelligence Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” II: Questioning the Hart-Tipler Conjecture Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” III: What is the Great Filter? Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” IV: What is the Rare Earth Hypothesis? Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” V: What is the Aestivation Hypothesis? Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” VI: What is the Berserker Hypothesis? Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” VII: What is the Planetarium Hypothesis? Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” VIII: What is the Zoo Hypothesis? Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” IX: What is the Short Window Hypothesis?Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” X: What is the Firstborn Hypothesis?Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” XI: What is the Transcendence Hypothesis?Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” XII: Beyond the “Great Filter”Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” Finale: What If We Find Them?

The Colonizing Mars Series Over at Stardom!

Hey all! As I mentioned in a previous post, I recent joined the good folks at Explore Mars and began making regular contributions to their affiliated website – Stardom! In addition to doing a series on the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), I also completed a series on the colonization of Mars.

It’s called “Making the First Martians,” and deals with the different aspects and challenges of creating a permanent human presence on the Red Planet. Here’s the full list:

Part I: Could We Colonize the Red Planet? Part II: Getting to the Red Planet Part III: Living on the Red Planet Part IV: Building an Economy on Mars Part V: Making a Garden on Mars (Terraforming)

Coming soon, a series on colonizing the entire Solar System!

The SETI Series Over at Stardom!

Hey folks! Recently, I joined the Explore Mars organization, which is dedicated to advocacy, science education, and promoting the exploration of Mars by the 2030s. And as a perk, I also get to write for Stardom, a space news site that is an affiliate.

Recently, I completed a series on the subject of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) that I wanted to share. It comes in seven parts, which starts with the conceptual stuff, moves into the speculative realm, and then takes a look at the history of our efforts and what we’ve been found.

If you’re interested, head over to Stardomspace.com and have a gander:

Part I: The Fermi Paradox & Drake EquationPart II: The Great FilterPart III: The Kardashev ScalePart IV: Megastructures!Part V: SETI Efforts Through the AgesPart VI: Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence (METI)Part VII: What Have We Found So Far?

This series is one of many that I’ve done or am in the process of doing. More on that soon!