The Good Virus

It’s the global pandemic you’ve no doubt heard about. For me and millions of others in most of 2020 thus far, a novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has necessitated keeping “proper” social distance from most other people. Sadly, social distancing is one of the few counters we’ve had to the virus since its emergence and subsequent spread nearly everywhere. It’s only one of the problems that’s been nothing but exacerbated by our president here in the United States, Donald J. Trump.

George Floyd mural outside Cup Foods

How bad Donald Trump is for the United States (and the world at large) simply cannot be overstated. From the beginning, there have been his apologists, the people inside and outside of government who would like to explain his presense, speech, and actions as mere differences of political opinion. Many of these same people would also like to portray any counters to his abuses as only driven by some sort of irrational, blind hatred of the man himself. It ought to be obvious by now that neither of these arguments holds any water at all. It ought to be, but isn’t. While he and the country continuously reap the whirlwind of horrible leadership, there currently is an unbelievable percentage of Americans that still cling to his distorted MAGA vision. Or, if not to that, to their “justifications,” their “reasons.” Trump is simultaneously a symptom and a cause of national strife.

And here in the United States, today, is another symptom staring us in the face: the systemic racism that has led to the death of another black man, George Floyd, at the hands of the police here in Minneapolis, Minnesota. No, it’s not just a few bad apples down at the Police Department. It is an us vesus them, increasingly militaristic culture that pervades police departments all over the country. Further, policing in the U.S.A. didn’t just appear out of nowhere: it’s a racist history that has delivered us here to the present day.

Floyd’s unjust death has already resonated throughout the world. There’s been a demand for change and justice everywhere. There’s been social distance, yet distance has collapsed amidst protest in the streets. Has the desire for justice gone viral? We can only hope.

Happy 2018, But Not For Donald Trump

Twilight Zone with Donald Trump

Just like the headline says, Happy 2018. It’s now been nearly a year since Donald Trump entered the White House. By Trump’s own design, each day, then each week, of his administration has featured mind-blowing, (and too numerous to list), antics, lies, and plain old bullshit. Trump believes — just like anyone with good reality show TV experience — that these antics are absolutely necessary to try and “get over” with 30-something percent of the American People. It’s all made worse by the fact that Donald J. Trump knows he’s absolutely guilty of everything.

Of course he denies it, but he knows he’s guilty of Russian collusion and almost every other charge directed his way, and it’s eating away at him. Trump is a haunted man, but unlike on the old Perry Mason TV show, he’s not going to just suddenly confess everything in court. (Notice how the trombones sometimes enter when whoever-it-is confesses?)

Some mental health care experts have offered that maybe President Donald J. Trump is losing it. Of course he is. He’s in one of the most uniquely ridiculous situations a citizen of the United States could possibly find themselves in: Unintentional Presidency of the United States. Trump is completely out of his depth. Daily, he tries to deal with subjects beyond his grasp while simultaneously possessing an ego which self-labels “stable genius.” This, dear friends, is where bluff and bluster meet their limits. Or is it?

Sure, you could write this plot into a movie and some people would believe it. Some people would, which is how he got elected in the first place.

It’s Trump’s Old Party Now

Yeah, I know. This space hasn’t been updated in a long time. I may have been distracted by something.

Trump steaks promo

Sharper Image? Should have gone with Skymall? Trump steaks!

Some time ago, I wrote this article about the Republican party’s seemingly irrational communiques to those people we affectionally know as the American People.

You don’t have to read it again. Here’s the gist: a (non-healthy) amount of what Republicans rely on to maintain political viability and power is actually play-acting, designed to mislead, frighten, outrage, and/or “lather-up” an electorate already made vulnerable by their own unwillingness to pay attention. Acting is behaving truthfully under imaginary circumstances, and in the case of the Republicans, the circumstances are often pretty imaginary. In the preceding years, President Obama has taken the brunt of many of these fanciful scenarios, designed to “prove” that anything he’s associated with is a disaster. The facts tend to tell a different story.

From a short distance, Donald J. Trump looked on all the Republican vaudeville enviously. He’s a guy who has always truly loved to get in on the act, and soon did as one of the original “birthers.” As a young man, he inherited a lot of money. Like the fictional but likable Elmer J. Fudd, the real but obnoxious Donald J. Trump had more than enough money for a mansion and a yacht. Consequently, he got bored easily and needed something to do, so he built up an image of himself as a master businessman/deal maker. True? Nope, but if Donald J. Trump has proven anything in the course of his career, it’s that — provided you start with enough money — you can fail sideways by “leveraging” a ridiculous, gold-leafed, classy-with-a-k, brand. Trump did the book. Trump did the board game. Trump did the vodka and steaks. Trump did the Reality TV. Trump did the completely unaccredited university. Trump even did the fictional comedy chicken joint:

Last summer, a Trump run for the presidency seemed jokey. Trump came down an escalator. He hired supporters. Trump was a windy bozo, and was compared to every other windy bozo — your uncle being loud and embarrassing at the family reunion, your uncle being loud and embarrassing at Walmart, your uncle, loud and embarrassing on the back stoop drinking beer while complaining about all the foreigners ruining everything.

Now, as we head into the summer of 2016, Donald J. Trump is the (presumptive) nominee of the GOP. In the beginning, there were 16 other Republican contenders. 16! One by one, Trump dispatched them all with a witch’s brew of braggadocio, nonsensical school-yard taunts, xenophobia, and misogyny. He did it without really being a politician, and without really being a Republican. Trump crashed a party that, while managing to stay pretty old, quit being grand around 1865. It’s morning in America now — there’s a weird smell no one can identify, and red solo cups are strewn everywhere.*

*Don’t worry, though, Donald J. Trump has more than enough money to cover the cost of those red solo cups, I will tell you that.

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