Eleven months ago, I began writing essays on Substack, adding my own bit of cynical humor to the thrum of voices opining on politics. I only wrote seven, but they got great response and I was flattered and inspired to keep at it. Until I wasn’t. George Floyd’s murder changed it for me. The news cycle ceased being something I could lightly mock. A torrent of shocking stories moving so fast that I couldn’t get a grip on my overwhelming sense of anguish surrounding the BLM and Coronavirus. As much as I tried to write -my desktop is covered with half baked articles and research- my attention span was too scattered, I had a crisis of spirit. So for months I just observed and absorbed. My son and his girlfriend were here, it was warm out, birdwatching, cooking, and hiking soothed my rattled nerves.
Until the election roared into focus and trump ramped up his BIG LIE that if he didn’t win, it would be because the election was rigged. He repeated this BIG LIE over and over despite every poll indicating Biden clearly in the lead. Rather than push back hard against this bullshit, we dug into electing Democrats across the country, mainly Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and in the end… We Won! The White House! The House! The Senate! But then quite literally while we celebrating Jon Ossoff’s success and counting the electoral votes in Congress, just like in a horror movie when at the last minute after a harrowing battle in a haunted house, the teen protagonists discover the key to the basement door and escape the blood thirsty zombies only to realize that more zombies hiding in the woods, a tsunami of LYING hurled forth from the diseased mind of donald trump, with the GOP and his right wing media parroting him, and we watched paralyzed as he turned tens of thousands of his craven supporters into a weapon against American democracy on January 6, 2021.
407,000 Americans dead from Covid, a lethal fascist riot at the Capitol, trump impeached twice and yet, never removed from office (until tomorrow). There is no way to process this set of facts without breaking your brain.
The sigh of joy and relief we anticipate with Biden’s presidency and the demise of the trump era is darkened by the shadow of white supremacy. Just today with 24 hours to go Mike Pompeo, the outgoing Secretary of State, tweeted this on his official account, ”Woke-ism, multiculturalism*, all the -isms —they’re not who America is. They distort our glorious founding and what this country is all about. Our enemies stoke these divisions because they know they make us weaker.” *bold was in his original tweet
Pompeo has spent his time in office circling the globe promoting a racist, fake Christian, rabidly anti-CCP ( Communist China) so-called “Pompeo Doctrine”. There is no such thing, official American foreign policies aren’t named for fat windbags like Pompeo. It’s a branding scheme to gin up future support from countries (cough Israel) and companies (cough Koch cough) that subscribe to his authoritarian view, so he can tap them for funding when he forms his campaign PACs. He has every intention of running for president in 2024 on the coattails of trumpism.
What is it about racism and hating the disadvantaged poor that maintains such an iron grip on white people who have everything and much to spare? What is it about fairness that is so awful? Awful enough to start another civil war. These people aren’t tribal elders fighting over ancestral lands, this is a simply a war of ideas. The idea that you are not entitled to what I am entitled to; like the right to vote. What the outgoing Secretary of State is actually saying out loud is that inequality is better for America. Minority (soon to be majority) people of color do not equal white people.
Why o’ why does the Republican party want to be this. Surely amongst the Qanon cultists and traitors there remain sensible Republicans who understand and have understood for a decade that playing to this grievance based fantasy is a loser’s game. That you can’t indefinitely maintain a workable political party with a smaller and smaller (and angrier and crazier) base of loyal voters and expect to win, yes gerrymandering but still. I mean they almost hung Mike fucking Pence. It’s like looking at groups of potential voters and passing on the ones at the college or the shopping mall, but opening a penitentiary for the criminally insane and saying, “I’ll take these.” Who does that? A lazy arrogant opportunist. Are all future campaigns based simply on more anarchy? How does that work? Do you still get your Congressional pension when they torch the Treasury? How does that affect the portfolios Heidi Cruz manages at Goldman Sachs?
(Too) Much punditry is spent analyzing the republican base. Even today 77 days after the election the New York Times ran this story on the front page, “Trump’s Base Nurses Anger Over Election.” Hey NYT’s thanks for the heads up, would never have known. Whether they are Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, Zionist zealots, Evangelicals, Charles Schwab, Charles Koch, Pillow makers, policemen, soccer moms or just assholes, the Republican Party, the party of trump, is a party of white nationalism, and fascist autocracy that lies with impunity. And this weakens us terribly. Just as donald trump sat transfixed in the oval office, basking in the scenes of the mob screaming his name as they ransacked our Capitol, whadaya wanna bet that Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un, MbS, Erdoğan, Bolsanaro, even Xi Jingping, were delighted as well. America is a wounded animal and they know it. Not because of the bullshit Pompeo is spewing, it’s not our multiculturalism that weakens us; it’s him and his ilk. Because they are not trying to govern the country and lead the world. They spend their waking hours obstructing the Democrats who are trying to do something positive.
The Republican Party is a catalog of sins, but the hypocrisy of their laziness riles me the most. They are a ridiculously lazy party, especially in light of their Calvinist ‘pull yourself up by your bootstraps’ theme. They are to a person, too selfish and indolent to try and make government work, even for their own constituents. For example; the right to bear arms is enshrined in the Constitution, they don’t have to constantly ‘fight’ for it, They HAVE IT NOW, it’s a ridiculous issue, it means nothing, nada, zip. I can’t even begin to address the insanity over mask wearing or Biden’s socialism/communism. That these fools win elections is just mind boggling- well they cheat and have expended enormous energy suppressing the Black vote - so there’s that. There wasn’t a single policy in their national 2020 platform, only fealty to donald trump. Seriously. They are too goddamn apathetic to come up with possible solutions to real problems nor even acknowledge that there is a future that our children will inherit. With all their high falutin’ education, they are just a band wastrel nihilists. In twelve years of screeching that the ACA is communist plot inflicted on innocent capitalists, they STILL have no alternative.
A friend told me about her seven year old nephew who has what is now referred to as Oppositional Defiant Disorder. A lot of kids, boys in particular are behaving in this way, in part due to the stress of not having the structure of school and the companionship of their peers. It seems like a lot of American adults have ODD too. They just hate everything. Authority, norms, rules, women, government. Think of the decal of Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes sneering over his shoulder while peeing. You can’t see what he’s peeing on but you know it’s not a toilet. Trump appeared as the physical manifestation of that decal. Mean, stupid, arrogant and above rebuke. He was the perfect avatar for their brand of ODD.
Tomorrow on January 20, 2021 President-elect Biden will accept the transfer of power the way we always have, publicly, with dignity and celebration albeit with 25,000 soldiers and most of Washington DC boarded up. Kamala Harris will be sworn in as the first female Vice President in history. So much to be grateful for. SO much to do, but finally, for a moment, we can breathe a much needed sigh of relief. Bust open the Vueve and shed tears of happiness. Celebrate. We Made It! He’s Finally Gone!
Then it’s back to work. More on that next.
this is a beautiful missive and rant that captures so much of how we are collectively feeling. We've been trapped in one of those crazy walls you see on detective shows with the yarn and the maps. Dump said he was a builder but all he built was crazy. looking forward to more Wendy.
It's been a crazy ugly four years. On January 21 we will all wake up with Joe Biden in the White House & wonder if it was all just a really bad dream. Nice to see you back at it, Wendy.