white nationalism | The Direction of Intention

Read The Rings [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on July 24, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

“The “Lost Cause” is a revisionist narrative that emerged in the American South after the Civil War to romanticize the Confederacy and justify secession. It falsely claims the war was fought over “states’ rights” rather than slavery, portrays slavery as a benign institution, and asserts that Confederate defeat was caused solely by Union advantages in resources and manpower.” ~ EBSCO

In 2023 I wrote a play entitled DIORAMA that explores our nation’s inability to deal honestly with our history. Even after all of my research and immersion into the topic, I have been agog at the lengths the current administration has gone in the past 18 months to whitewash our history in order to reinvigorate The Lost Cause narrative. White supremacy cannot face the mirror of history so must selectively distort, assault and/or eliminate fact and truth.

Last week Stephen Miller labeled progressives – or anyone who does not agree with his white nationalism – as less than human. We were witness to the president of the United States call the democrats and progressives “a danger to our democracy” and dust off the tired-old-chicken-little-cry: liberals are communists! It would be sad and laughable if history had not taught us of the dangers of desperate dictators and their nationalist sycophants.

As we have previously written, a storm recently broke our mighty maple tree. Kerri’s relationship with this guardian reaches back nearly 40 years. She has a long and precious history with this gentle giant. I have only had a fragment of that time but felt deeply the loss of this near-century old spirit. It is part of our history. As I watched the crew quickly take it down, I couldn’t help but think about how long it took to grow. It seemed unfair how rapidly it was removed.

Destruction is easy. Growth takes time, nurturing, patience. Perseverance.

A healthy history – a healthy nation – relies on the strength of its roots – all of its roots. The rings preserve and tell the story of the good, the bad and the ugly. To attempt to cut out the bad and the ugliness of manifest destiny, slavery, the trail of tears…to eliminate the rings of diversity, suffrage, the struggle for civil rights…is to badly weaken the tree. Kill the history and you kill the root. Kill the root and the democracy will not survive. And that is precisely why they attack our history. To be successful, an authoritarian regime needs to weaken and then cut down the tree of democracy. Systematically. Efficiently. And the fastest route to dismemberment of democracy is to amputate its history, eliminate entirely the struggle for equality.

Of course, like our tree, they can remove the exhibits from the institutions, they can fire women and people of color, they can vilify DEI, they can ban books and force universities to suspend programs of study…but that will never cancel the truth of the history of our nation. It lives in us as powerfully as the history of our tree lives in Kerri.

The Nazis made the same mistake as did the Daughters of the Confederacy when they concocted their Lost Cause narrative. Whitewash only temporarily covers the substance; it is not the substance. We the people hold the history, not a made-up curriculum. History is lived.

We-the-people are the “burning point of our ancestral ship”and history teaches us that sooner or later, given enough time, these scrubbers of history, these fearmongers, will eventually scrub themselves. They will become a single ring in our tree, a marker of a bad time, a forest fire that we survived and transcended. A moment in time that ultimately made our democracy stronger and, hopefully, a ring that marks the time when we finally faced – without fear – the complete story of our nation’s history.

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read Kerri’s blogpost about THE STUMP

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Filed under: Edges, Identity, KS Friday, Metaphor, Transcendence, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democrat, dictator, fact, history, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Lost Cause narrative, perseverance, progressive, story, studio melange, the melange, truth, white nationalism | Leave a comment »

The Shallow Truth [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on November 7, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

We had a quiet yet lively debate last night. The question was, “Did they know what they were voting for when they chose the candidate who vowed to end Democracy?” They certainly know that their candidate lacks all decency; he made no effort to hide his depravity. Kerri is of the opinion that they know. Only rage, fear and hatred could vote for a party that so explicitly promises violence. I am not so sure. Or, perhaps, I do not want to believe it.

The scholar of fascism (I didn’t catch his name) referenced Plato: Democracy inevitably leads to tyranny. “The people have always some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness. . . . This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears above ground he is a protector. . . . having a mob entirely at his disposal, he is not restrained from shedding the blood of kinsmen; . . . After a while he is driven out, but comes back, in spite of his enemies, a tyrant full grown.” (Plato, Republic) The scholar said it was fascinating to watch his life’s study, the rise of fascism, happen in real time. I would choose a different adjective. Horrifying, maybe. Unimaginable. Certainly it is sad.

Tyrants lack reason. Tyrants rise from emotion untethered from rationality, logic…intelligence. Emotion untethered from intelligence is a great definition of Fox News, hate-tv, the megaphone of the tyrant.

Last night Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist and dinner guest of the tyrant-elect, tweeted, “Your body, my choice. Forever” It is a sentiment not unlike the famous Access Hollywood tape, the tyrant-elect bragging of his fondness of and predilection for sexual assault. “When you are a star they let you do it.” Of course, now we must seriously consider the ramifications of the word, “Forever.”

If they truly didn’t know or understand, with the coming of the promised nationwide abortion ban, their daughters, sisters, nieces, mothers, wives will soon fully grok the reality, living as they will, without any agency over their bodies. They will come to understand. Certainly they will come to understand when the women in our nation – as is happening now in Texas, are maimed and/or die when life saving treatment is available but illegal.

I don’t want to believe that they know what they voted for. I don’t want to believe so many of my fellow citizens are so ugly. I prefer to believe that they are titanically ignorant rather than malicious.

I decided during our late night quiet debate that, at this early moment in the shock of coming tyranny, it is a pointless conversation. A few years into the tyrant’s reign, we will discover whether or not they really understood what they voted for. When the greatest economy in the world tanks, when – as happened last time – family farms are driven into bankruptcy from needless tariffs, when we join the world’s autocrats rather than resist them, when the new class of oligarchs hold the reigns of power, when we are fully feeling the “promised pain,”… then the answer to our question will come out. Will the voters for tyranny ask, “What happened?”

I hope so.

I’m writing these words today so that two years from now I will not have to say what I suspect is the shallow truth of our present moment:

He was a star so you voted to let him do it.

(to be continued)

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE VOTE

Filed under: DR Thursday, Identity, Perspective | Tagged: Access Hollywood, artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, fear, hatred, ignorant, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, malice, Nick Fuentes, order, plato, Rage, reason, story, studio melange, the melange, truth, tyranny, tyrant, white nationalism | 3 Comments »

Ash On The Sills [David’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab]

Posted on July 20, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

I was excited when I learned that David Neiwert was living near me in Seattle. I was preparing to direct a play, a docudrama by Steven Dietz called God’s Country. The play explores the rise of the white supremacist movement in the USA. David is a journalist and has authored several books on domestic terrorism – one entitled In God’s Country. That’s how I became aware of him. He was generous with his time, asked many questions to better help serve me as I shaped my thoughts on the production. He was not only a valuable source of information, he was deeply caring, kind – a guide. I believe David, through his work, was-and-is trying to sound an alarm for the nightmare in which we now find ourselves.

One of his images has stayed with me. Ash on the sills. I hope you take the time to read it – if only the introduction that tells the story of the image. It will stay with you, too. It may prompt you to respond – with your vote for democracy and against white nationalism – to the alarm that David has been ringing for a long time. At least I hope so.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE NIGHTMARE