242. The real outcome of the Trump campaign's efforts to delegitimise the US presidential election

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Normality is slowly restored in the US political system, after the incumbent president’s failed attempt to overthrow the election. The mainstream body political breathes a sigh of relief and declares that institutions held surprisingly well and the effort got nowhere. Alas, this may be complacent. The orchestrated attack on truth, fact and reality will have long lasting consequences and could be, if not remediated, a stepping stone, increasing the chances of success of the next attempt. On thinking about this, it is worth quoting, one more time, Hannah Arendt: ‘The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for who the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist’. Through this prism, today’s outcome is not a victory, but rather a precarious truce, an adjournment, calling for vigilance and action, not celebration 

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Location: Hereford, UK

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