Disaster Nationalism

Just starting Seymour's latest book and I ran across this: "Patriotic rituals revere it( the flag) as the embodiment of a bloodthirsty totem god who organizes killing energy." Carolyn Marvin and David Ingle I'm thinking of the militaristic displays before football games, the fly overs by gunship helicopters or fighter jets right after the national anthem is sung. The crowd roars with patriotic zeal and bloodlust He also explains how "conspiracy theory...is responsive to the depression and boredom of late capitalist life, suggesting hidden or unexhausted possibilities in an Exhausted Age. The title of my next book! Seymour is not afraid to mix in a little Lacanian psychoanalysis with his political economy and I find it adds a lot to his explanation of hard Right ascendancy. We have to think of MAGA and Trumpism in a global context, as a symptom of a widespread dis- ease. We are dealing with a pathology and saying the price of eggs was too high is to avoid the problem. Again.