This is what can happen when you spoil a child.
Millionaire by 8. Bought through college. Bought out of military service. Grasping grasping grasping. Mean little cruel little boy. You only have to look at him to see the pig-eyed kid he was. If he lost, it didn’t count. He didn’t like the game anyway. You were cheating. He’ll tell his daddy on you. His daddy is rich. You’ll be sorry.
He was prefiguring it for ages. All those talks with Putin : “How did you do it?” “Just try it. If you’re strong enough they’ll let you.” But he was banking on a second term to put in place enough structure to derail the system and stay in forever. The job’s not done in time. And now the game’s over prematurely. He’s lost. And he’s going to smash up the board because it’s a big loss, and on the world stage, and he has no clothes.
But yeah. Lots of angry people who miss America when it was “great”, wave Confederate flags, dress up like Davy Crockett and – after a few Pabst Blue Ribbon – will tell you how you’ve been brainwashed and that the earth is actually flat or otters are dogs or Helen Keller was actually Bill Gates or whatever. They can’t debate around the topics they choose and they mistake examination for disagreement and get hostile. And there are lots of them. And they’re angry because they did a vote but the vote didn’t go the way they wanted. And they are all the experience they’ve had, and so 100% of their experience voted for Trump so it’s impossible that the hairsniffing old weirdo could’ve beaten their favourite TV piggywiggy.
“Stand back and stand by”. Not anymore. But who are these boys and girls? It’s oversimplistic to call them dangerous idiots. They’re angry, they’ve latched onto him because even if he isn’t helping them, they recognise the need he has to grasp everything, because many of them have nothing. They had other shit going on when people were learning sophistry and forensic examination, and debate and science and reason. They rightly associate school with programming but wrongly associate any form of reasoning with programming as well. It doesn’t help if reasoned people dismiss those less used to critical thinking as “stupid” – it pushes us apart. You learn through listening, processing and experimenting. Not by rote. I learnt none of my critical thinking in lessons. I learnt through having the time and privilege to exercise curiosity. And I’m still shit at it – partly because I’m too curious and very easily sidelined. The Trumpies mostly haven’t had any time or privilege to make thought experiments (even though their demagogue HAS had it and hasn’t done it). They have clearly worded websites that give you hints that can quickly train you to think you’ve discovered something clever enough to make you feel just as clever as all the people with the time to call you stupid. It’s why you hear people repeat processed soundbitten phrases to you in sing-song voices when they think you believe something wrong. It’s a world of absolutes. It’s ugly and as somebody who is increasingly certain that everything is wrong, it offends me. The truth, if it exists, is not in absolutes. Or is it? It shifts. Or it doesn’t. The truth is kind of not the point. Unless it is.
They all went to The Capitol today. They weren’t shot by police. They broke windows and jacked doors and stormed right up to the dais and said dumb shit that wasn’t their own and brought international shame on a culture and democracy that was once renowned.
It goes without saying that there’d be more than one dead if they’d been a different type of recent protestor. This is America. And somebody did die, which is a further tragedy. I’m sad for her loved ones. A brute way to leave this plane.
And it happened at The Capitol! The meeting place of Congress? I think this was my only photo of it from last October – in the distance.
I’m imagining these wazzocks breaking in and strolling about with their hateful flags and ideologies because the piggy doesn’t want to admit he’s lost and thinks if he shouts hard enough daddy will fix it. I’m trying to find fellowship with them still and not dismiss them as just plain dumb. But I keep just going back to thinking they’re idiots. Especially since somebody died.
We are looking to America for partnership now we’ve burnt bridges with Europe. We’ll have to buy their medicine soon. It’s kind of comforting that they’re even more fucked than we are. But I’m sad about it all because there’s so much hate in the mix, so much rage. We are still popping up out of the pressure cooker all over the place. Be kind, properly examine all sides and then check in with yourself, listen and be willing to shift. Certainty is usually zealotry. And so to bed.
AlBarclay 