Since Donald Trump has decided to decree that a statue to Hannah Arendt be erected in the National Garden of American Heroes, I thought I would take a few moments and share some of Arendt's thoughts on monuments. https://t.co/kFJ4U6Y9ZL

First let me say that the irony of this order is beyond laughable. After Hannah Arendt escaped Nazi Europe, she emigrated to New York in 1941. She was a housekeeper, a journalist, & an adjunct professor before she wrote her first major work The Origins of Totalitarianism in 1951.

Origins is about the emergence of totalitarianism in the 20th century. Looking to the history of antisemitism, colonialism, capitalism, imperialism, fascism, authoritarianism, and tyranny she argues that all totalitarian movements are rooted in organized loneliness.

Organized loneliness is the mass experience of loneliness felt by a society when people are radically cut off and isolated from one another. It's achieved through the dissemination of political propaganda which distorts a person's ability to tell what's real from what's not real.

Once you've made it impossible for people to distinguish between right and wrong and destroyed their sense of reality through consistent lying you can do anything you want with them--And this is precisely what Donald Trump has done from day 1 of his political career.