Harper\'s Magazine - 03.2020

48 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / MARCH 2020

Deceit, tracked (to quote Prepper Camp

material) the

history of the liberal, deep state, com-

munist party agenda, to fundamentally

change America to a communist

country from within. The people be-

hind this Agenda had a very de-

tailed, 50 year plan, to destroy Amer-

ica, and they have achieved almost

all of their goals from the 1960’s to

today. Come to our Key Note Ad-

dress to find out how we can save

this country from the liberal socialist

Globalist agenda.

There was almost too much to

dislike in this description, beyond

the fact that the word “globalist”

has long been an anti- Semitic dog

whistle. I knew I would have the

urge to flee, so I planted myself in

the center of the audience, where I

would be surrounded by people eat-

ing up this bullshit and would have

to remain seated until the end.

Curtis Bowers came out. He was a

mostly bald man hiding his head un-

der a baseball cap, a former Republi-

can state representative in Idaho, the

owner of fondue restaurants, and the

father of nine homeschooled chil-

dren. “Doing my part to populate the

earth,” he joked, to applause.

He talked about reading the

1958 book The Naked Communist

and realizing that the Communists

had a long-term plan to destroy

the “culture of morality” of Ameri-

ca and to get people to “accept ho-

mosexuality and feminism.” He

said in a voice rich with sadness

that he couldn’t take his boys to

Walmart because the covers of

magazines show what used to be

considered pornography.

Other notions Curtis Bowers

promulgated that night were: That

the Communists planned, as a part

of their agenda, to destroy “beauti-

ful” art, meaning figurative art, and

to institute abstract art in its stead.

That Senator Joseph McCarthy

“did not destroy a single person’s

life.” That public-school teachers

are trying to indoctrinate students

with Communism.

At the end of the talk, Bowers

got a standing ovation.

I steamed back to my tent and

was kept awake by the ants, the

night birds, and the neighbors, who

were having a giant party at a camp-

fire. I would have attended if I

hadn’t been too frightened of being

inadvertently shot by a gun hoarder

who’d had too many beers.

9.

Every man discriminates between the

voluntary acts of his mind, and his in-

voluntary perceptions, and knows that

to his involuntary perceptions a perfect

faith is due.

S

unday morning came cool and

sunny. I ate my granola with

almond milk and packed my

rental car with a glad heart. The in-

somnia and constant orange-alert-

level anxiety were wearing on me,

and I had decided to run away to a

hotel in Greenville after the day’s

sessions, to luxuriate in a pool and a

soft bed and order room service. I

would enjoy the benefits of modern

society for as long as shit and fan re-

mained far from me. As I was rinsing

out my bowl, I heard an electric

crackle and looked up to see two po-

lice cars rolling through the grounds.

Someone’s in trouble, I thought.

Then, in one of the more surreal

moments of my life, I watched them

stop beside my rental car. One cop

got out with a hand on his holster.

“This car’s been reported stolen.

You steal this car?” he said. No no

no no no, I absolutely did not, I

told him. I showed him the Hertz

rental agreement.

All around me, preppers peeped

out of their tents and pickup trucks

to look at the cops, then at me, that

weird lady who came to survivalist

camp all alone, who kept herself

quiet and apart, who had now invit-

ed cops into a camp for a group of

people who had, let’s say, a fraught

relationship with governmental au-

thority. I thought of the weapons

they surely had hidden in their cars

and campsites, how so many of

those were probably untraceable if

not totally illegal. One of the po-

licemen called dispatch to try to fig-

ure out what was going on. Some-

one in Atlanta, he was told, had

reported that her boyfriend had sto-

len her car. I said that I wasn’t in

Atlanta, I don’t have a boyfriend, I

The Fall of a Great

American City

examines the urban

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how money is

driving away all the

things we love about

metropolitan life and

how we can, and must,

get them back.

KEVIN BAKER’S

LYRICAL ELEGY FOR

NEW YORK CITY,

A HARPER’S MAGAZINE

COVER STORY

IN JULY 2018,

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