Weird time to know history and like jokes.
I didn’t plan on writing about any aspect of the ongoing wrecking of America, which is why I haven’t written anything in a while. “Many people are writing about this with style,” is what I thought to myself. “What can I possibly have to say that isn’t being said better?” But no. I can shake my hands out for this. You know the Hillel quote, that you do not have to complete the work but nor are you excused from the work? Well, sometimes this is also the work: Adding a voice to the chorus of shit-talking that is relentlessly deserved by the worst minds of several generations.
One of the problems I’m having in and amongst all the fear for myself, my loved ones, my country, and my planet is that none of these bootlicking, self-important weenies could successfully organize a group takeout order.1 I wouldn’t let J. D. Vance run the Bluth Banana Stand without supervision. Stephen Miller is what would happen if a hard-boiled egg wanted to imprison and kill anyone who disagreed with it. I can only assume he got a poorly timed involuntary erection during social studies class while reading about Stalin’s purges and has been chasing that high ever since. Pam Bondi is That Mom at kindergarten pick-up who keeps talking about how great her five-year-old’s skin is.
They are aided and abetted by greedy sycophants and dead-eyed games-players who imagine that they can stay on top of the log if they only keep running, that the rodeo steer won’t gore them, that they and they alone are playing five-dimensional chess. “Doomed to repeat it” is the bell tolling in my mind, and in the face of these horrors, of black sites and concentration camps, of disappeared ones turned into political prisoners for the iniquitous crime of stating opposition to a genocide, the bare minimum I can do is point and yell as loudly as I can that this emperor has no clothes on, only foundation that does not match his skin tone.
These people aren’t even the architects of this destruction. They are standing on the shoulders of pernicious giants who had no idea what would fill the footprints they left on our democracy. Can you imagine Karl Rove and Dick Cheney’s texts? Can you believe those two men are still alive?2 Imagining their discomposure is akin to the grim satisfaction I experience when I see the results of using a Drain Weasel on my shower.
The gleeful rank-and-file of Musk’s “DOGE” weirdos with three semesters in compsci, no critical thinking skills, and an appetite for destruction under their belts are despicable. These out-of-control cybertrucks of humanity are exercising their worst impulses in everything from the hideous and inhumane to the hilarious and inhumane. Remember how DOGE is dismantling NOAA? Literally declaring war on the weather, possibly because it’s one of the only physical realities they cannot disrupt their way out of noticing. Do you know who also did that? Sean Connery, in the little-remembered (except by me) action/sci-fi film The Avengers, based on the 1960s British TV show of the same name. He and his henchmen wore full-body, off-brand Care Bear suits, complete with heads. Can’t wait for that to be the dress code in the West Wing!
Was getting Trump elected again simply more straightforward than taking the keys to his golf cart away? And why do I have to think about Elon Musk? Two houses, alike in indignity. Two men united in desperation for adulation that they know they could not possibly earn, so they bought notoriety instead. And then even that curdled in their acid hearts. And then… they did this. It might kill us all, but on the way, I refuse to let anyone forget that Elon Musk paid Marvel Studios $3 million to appear in Iron Man 2. That’s a whole three votes for a Wisconsin Republican. Take note, Marvel. Ask for more money next time.
Katelyn Burns has a fantastic piece today about how we must stop taking conservative ideas seriously that I strongly suggest you take a moment and read. I found it bracing. We must take our bracing where we can find it, our joy where we can. This weekend, millions of people came out to protest the actions of the few and the unworthy, to protect one another, and to remind those in power that we are the people. Keep calling your reps. An unvented spleen is a terrible thing to waste.