Welcome to this week’s Bill Harvey Blog.
August 14, 2026
Cosmic Crossroads Beyond Division
The trouble started long ago when Democrats started demonizing Republicans and vice versa. When I was a kid, it wasn’t this way. It was like rooting for the Yankees instead of the Dodgers, although living in Brooklyn. It was surprising but not something to rouse animus.
Sportsmanship has always been an attractive characteristic of individuals, athletes, and famous people. People could be rivals, kid one another, but never come close to demonization.
My first realization came about the turn of the Century. Someone sent me a Halloween card whose cover said, “Want to wear a really scary costume this Halloween?” Inside it said, “Dress up as a Republican.” I had to shake my head.
After that, it came on in slathers, and the buildup was tsunami-like. My beloved business partner, the late Bill McKenna, called liberals “Libbies,” and it was obvious from his tone of voice that the female surname “Libby” was a giveaway that all Liberals were effeminate and not masculine enough.
The algorithmic intensity of modern media has brought this to a level absolutely on a plane with Brave New World and 1984. In fact, the proportion of movies, video series, and books about dystopia has shot up. It is as if the whole population is helping to order up dystopia to engulf us in consensus reality, by the amount of our thinking and dreaming about it, which is helping to bring it about. We are “Living the Nightmare” in our expectations, and now we have accepted it as the necessary reality.
It has become literally mass hypnosis.
We now accept it as normal that our leaders will be corrupt, lie to us, bully us, shoot us, and steal our money in every way possible. Yet, we go about our daily routines less happy than usual and more prone to escapism. We don’t rearrange our fundamental thinking about our loyalties because that would be too much to bear; the fear of the unknown floods in when we even come close to thinking about that.
We would not be that way if we were not surrounded by all of our tribe and reinforced in our tribal thinking by very select use of media channels that echo chamber us and keep out the bad memes that would undermine our sense of self and drag us down into doubt.
“This is who I am,” we think, without words, down at a level below our own conscious awareness. “I have chosen this course in life, and it’s far too late to turn back and become somebody else. The other Party is far too radical and ugly; none of my best friends and family like them.” In these subconscious self-conversations, we do not have enough intellectual prowess to point out to ourselves that there is a third option of not being hung up on either Party. If we take the time away from escapism to have these self-conversations at a conscious level, we will have more controllable intelligence to make sense of things. The third option is to become a political Independent, which about half the US population has already chosen. That would allow us to vote based on individual merits rather than robotic puppeting the party line.
It’s hard to admit to oneself that one has been a puppet and played like a violin for decades of one’s life. It’s better to let awareness of the truth come in rather than to protect oneself against the truth and to live in a shell of self-deception. The truth will sometimes show you that you say one thing and do another, and that the high and noble precepts you mouth are not reflected in your actions. Yes, this is a painful experience, but so is childbirth, and both types of temporary pain lead to an infinite amount of emotional payoff in the end.
This is a moment for cosmic re-evaluation starting from an open mind.
Love to all,
