We Can’t See What We Can’t Name

One of my favorite anthropological themes is that we can’t see what we can’t name. In other words, we look at our surroundings through the lens of our experiences. Once we’re familiar enough with it to give it a name we can see it every time. Take Ezekiel and the wheel. He didn’t know what was up there in the sky, but he knew what it resembled. He lived in a culture that had invented the wheel and used it daily. Old Ezekiel looked up, rubbed his eyes, then said to himself, ‘Hmmm. It’s a circle with something that looks like a hub in the middle, and I see spokes going from the hub to the outer rim. I see what looks like eyes around the outside of the rim, and they’re all different colors! It doesn’t roll like a wheel, but just goes off into the distance on a straight line, pretty darn fast, too. Wait. There are two outer rims, so it looks like a wheel inside a wheel. Way up in the middle of the air! There’s a song for it! The Charioteers tell the story of Ezekiel with music and amazing harmonies.

When I was really familiar with it, I began to see it everywhere

So Ezekiel didn’t expect what he saw in the sky, but it looked familiar, like a wheel. If he saw it again, he’d remember the first time he saw it. I’ve seen this phenomenon myself. Years ago I would sometimes get a poison ivy rash. It seemed very random. I would retrace my steps but wouldn’t always find it. The old saying was ‘leaves of three, let it be.’ But box elder is a dead ringer for poison ivy sometimes, as Virginia creeper can be. I went to weed books and charts and posters and became familiar with the different ways real poison ivy can look in different seasons. Older vines have a distinctive hairy look. I began to learn how it spreads. When I was really familiar with it, I began to see it everywhere. When I began to recognize it easily, I rarely came down with it. Once I could name it with certainty, I could see it. When I could see it, I could avoid it. In my part of the Heartland there is lots of sassafras. Until I learned that this one species has up to three different leaf shapes, I had trouble spotting it. Once memorized, the leaf shapes give it away easily. Now I can see there’s much more of it than I thought before. The concept is that we can’t see what we can’t name. The corollary to this concept is that once you can name it you can see it every time, and you’ll probably see it more than you expect. Consider this application of the principle. On election night in 2020, certain news sites reported unusual activities. In one state a major news source called the presidential race immediately after the polls closed, but before much of the counting had been completed. It didn’t cite exit polls, it just made a call contrary to all expectations. It happens, we thought.

---

2020 Election pattern

In other states, counting went on into the night with one candidate leading handily. During the night in several of these states, the counting was suspended and some people were sent home until morning. Other people stayed on the job, however, and when the counting resumed a few hours later, the lead had shifted to the other candidate. Trend lines showed that lots of votes had been counted while the counting sites had been “closed.” That seemed odd. There were stories with videos of vans arriving with loads of ballots while the counting areas were supposed to be closed. In these swing states, the shutdowns and counting resulted in a swing to the other candidate in every case. Repeat: in every case. That seemed odd. There were reports than in the days and weeks before the 2020 election that local officials or judges had made changes in election laws due to covid. That might be perfectly understandable, but laws are changed by legislatures, not by local or judicial officials. That seemed odd, too.

---

Support Canada Free Press

---

Election Fallout and Election Deniers

Months after the election, videos began to emerge showing drivers pulling up to ballot drop boxes in the wee hours of the night to drop stacks of ballots into the slots. These same drivers could clearly be seen wearing masks and plastic gloves. The license plate numbers on their vehicles were blocked out. That seemed odd. We began to hear other stories of manipulation including voters who showed up at the polls to learn that their ballots had already been cast. There were many stories of people long dead or who had moved years ago being sent ballots. That seemed odd. Also in the months after the election, establishment politicians and others began to literally shriek that anyone who raised questions about the outcome of an election anywhere was an “election denier” and must be ignored or hounded into silence. Before long, anyone questioning an election result could be lumped into the general “insurrectionist” grouping. Anyone unlucky enough to have been within a country mile of the National Mall on January 6, 2020 could be, and often was, rounded up and jailed without bail for trespassing in public buildings or for “inciting insurrection.” There were no clear definitions or citations of the specific law these people had violated. Two years after their arrests, many of these people still wait for their speedy trials in a very unpleasant correctional facility in the nation’s capital. That has seemed very odd for quite a while. What happened? Were there a string of incredible coincidences in which just the right number of votes were located in just the right number of locations in just the right swing states which relied on mail-in ballots to put just one candidate over the top in just enough counties to stop a wave of support for another key candidate who appeared to have overwhelming popular support? And the candidate who “won” had no popular following, could not attract a crowd, had no message, did not campaign, had suspicious links to some very unsavory activities, and yet still garnered more ballots than any presidential candidate in history, even more than the “losing” candidate who collected more votes than any incumbent ever before? That seemed very odd.

---

There are huge swings in voter turnout.

So we come to the recent mid-term elections of 2022. There is overwhelming dislike for incumbents on the national and state level. No one likes the direction the country has taken over the past two years. Crime has surged, millions have come over the southern border illegally to be welcomed by the current administration, illegal drugs pour through the same southern border in a torrent, killing over 100,000 Americans every year, inflation has soared to 40-year highs, the economy can’t decide whether it’s crashing or not, wages are down, war threatens us from Europe and from the Pacific, and the president enjoys historically low favorability ratings. In other words, it’s a total disaster scenario for incumbents and the supporters of these policies. Election day 2022 comes and goes. Let’s see. . . Certain races get called early and completely contrary to expectations. In some states, ballot counting stations close in the middle of the night, only to reopen next morning with dramatically different vote totals. In other states, counting goes on and on, with deliveries of newly discovered votes coming at odd intervals. When the totals reach acceptable levels for the favored candidates, the counting stops and winners declared. The changed election laws left over from the 2020 election remain in place, preserved by legislatures and courts claiming there is no issue to address. People are still being called insurrectionists to silence them. There are huge swings in voter turnout. In states where there were no mail-in ballots and strict voter ID laws, the red wave materialized. Counties which haven’t voted for a Republican in decades turned to no-nonsense candidates like Florida’s governor DeSantis, who won traditional Democrat strongholds Miami and Dade County, Florida. By claiming a number of narrow victories in swing states, the Democrats held onto the US Senate, and nearly held on to the US House. Only a handful of Republicans give the majority there to the “opposition,” but everyone knows it isn’t enough to actually accomplish any change. After the election the president says he gets the message: nothing needs to change. It’s full speed ahead over the cliff. Haven’t we seen something like this before? Was it 2020? Many stories from that year showed the same result. What did it look like before? Isn’t there a name for it now?