ARRIVALS: Hannah Arendt was on the scene...

THURSDAY, JULY 3, 2025

...when an arrival occurred: How might we most instructively picture the nature of this latest arrival?

Within the House of Representatives, this latest arrival continues this very day. Even as we type, the megabill is about to be approved by the House, extending the political dominance of the current sitting president.

His ongoing political success is supported by tens of million of neighbors and friends—by tens of millions of our fellow citizens. He came down the escalator in 2015. What accounts for the ongoing appeal of this vastly surp arrival?

Those of us in Blue America have a hard time seeing the ways we ourselves helped set the stage for this potent arrival That said, and for better or worse, the forces of MAGA America continue to advance. But what would be the most instructive way for us to picture what has been happening?

For ourselves, we juggle such pictures as these:

When we see the Secretary of Homeland Security speaking, in full sincerity, about the cannibals who may be inclined to eat their own arms, we think of the portrait offered in Men in Black, in which an extremely strange set of alien beings are secretly living among us.

(We refer to the secretary herself, not to the alleged cannibal.)

The scenario offered in Men in Black is comedic. We think of that comedic portrait when we see players like Noem offering highly peculiar assessments.

But when we see people like Watters, Failla and Gowdy assailing a CNN journalist by name—a journalist who reported on an actual DIA assessment;

When we see such people doing that in the immediate aftermath of the murders in Minnesota;

When we see them doing that in support of the sitting president, who said the CNN journalist should be "thrown out like a dog;"

When we see them doing that in support of the president who said that CNN and the New York Times are "scum" because they reported that (actual) DIA assessment;

When we see President Trump, plus Watters, Failla and Gowdy, behaving in such astonishing ways, we toss Men in Black to the side. We think instead of the murderous way the rage-filled Achaeans came over the walls of sacred Troy at the very dawn of the West.

How should we understand the rage which leads people like Trump, Watters, Failla and Gowdy to behave in the dangerous way they did? Which leads a person like Lisa Boothe to put the life of Dr. Fauci at risk through the astonishing attacks she has delivered in several of her appearances on the Fox News Channel?

At this site, we're looking for other arrivals which might help us understand and portray the arrival which is still unfolding here. As we've noted, that leads us back to the portrait of a disastrous arrival—a portrait which was offered by the PBS series, American Masters, this past Friday night.

How did it [ever] get this far? That's what Don Corleone asks at one point in The Godfather. Today, we might ask a similar question about the MAGA movement:

How did this movement ever get stated? What explains its arrival, which continues along today?

Last Friday night, American Masters debuted its latest documentary. The PBS program is now in its 39th year. By clicking here, you can visit the website of its current episode, which you can watch in full:

S39 Ep 5
Hannah Arendt: Facing Tyranny

Premiere: 6/27/2025 | 01:23:45 | TV-PG 

Discover Hannah Arendt, one of the most fearless political thinkers of the 20th century, who transformed her time as a political prisoner and refugee during World War II into daring insights about totalitarianism which continue to resonate today.

Hannah Arendt was indeed a major figure of the last century. It's portrait of her is TV-PG, the website says—but along the way, this documentary discusses one of the most consequential arrivals in all of human history. 

The program discusses the way the Third Reich first gained purchase in 1930s Germany. Breaking a rule of contemporary journalistic discourse, the program seems to compare the early years of that arrival to the way our own nation's current arrival gained purchase.

On its face, that's a highly unflattering comparison. At this point, it's important to state an obvious point:

The deranged leader of the Third Reich went on to stage "the genocide of about six million Jews and millions of other victims."

President Trump has never done anything like that. Beyond that, we know of no reason to believe that he ever would or will.

Whatever one thinks of President Trump, he hasn't engaged in such conduct. That said, the American Masters profile of Arendt draws an obvious comparison between the arrival of the MAGA movement and the arrival of that other movement in the Germany of the 1930s.

Was the program wise to do such a thing? Given the horror of where the German movement went, is it decent to create and broadcast such a comparison?

Readers can judge that as they wish. For those who want to ponder the history of the current arrival, we think it's worth restating what the PBS program chose to present.

President Trump has done no such thing. But what explains his political appeal at the time of his arrival? Who was drawn to his arrival, and why?

The portrait of that 1930s German arrival starts at roughly the 20-minute mark of the American Masters program. You can click over there to see what the program says.

For the record, that program does a very poor job identifying who is providing the background narration at various points along the way. In spite of that major shortcoming, you'll surely get the gist pf what the program is saying.

Tomorrow, we'll show you what the program says about these two arrivals. The programs tells us what Hannah Arendt, then a young woman, saw in Germany at that time. It also presents some of what she later said about the appeal of that arrival.

According to the program's website, "Actress Nina Hoss provides the voice of Hannah Arendt." When Hoss provides this narration, she is reading the actual words of Arendt.

Several scholars also provide the narration as this German arrival is described. To our ear, the program clearly compares that arrival to the rise of our own nation's current dominant political movement.

For reasons we can't even remember at this point, we were struck by what the American Masters program said. Tomorrow, we'll transcribe its intriguing account, trying to remind you of this:

The foolishness and arrogance of our own Blue America helped set the stage for the rise of the MAGA world. 

Quite frequently, Donald Trump's supporters have legitimate complaints to make. It's the lunacy of the cannibal spottings, married to the inability to rein in the rage, which leads us first to Men in Black, then to the murderous assault on sacred Troy and on those within its walls.

We Blues helped set the stage for this arrival. Why did it take hold?

Tomorrow: "The ideal subject was [the person] for whom the distinction between fact and fiction no longer existed."