The Trump theater of the absurd is as American as apple pie
Sometimes, you must fill yourself with comforting thoughts and encouraging strategies to keep your sanity. We have been through a lot, so here are some words of wisdom to help you keep perspective amidst political chaos in this jolly season. Things might not be as chaotic as you think. It is more like they were always this chaotic.
The best analogy I can come up with regarding our stunning democratic defeat in the 2024 elections is when I took a difficult test in college years ago. I remember thinking to myself, I was the only one who knew the subject and would score an A, later to find out I was the only one who got an F. Ouch!
Just to recap a little before moving on, I remember libtards salivating over their inevitable victory. "this is the turning point, and now, with a female person of color, we will move to a new time, a new America" or "America is ready for a female president," or "Trump cannot win, it is simply impossible, he has shrunk spectacularly, and he is a clown."
But within a few hours of election night, it all came crashing down, giving way to a wave of doom and gloom that would remain for the foreseeable future. The Harris fiasco still paralyzes Democrats. Exhausted, people don't want to even look at what is happening in politics. Retreat is the best option; inside, the sand has never been a more appealing place to stick our heads.
There is a political numbness that combines hopelessness and acceptance with notes of temporary submission. It is a sudden realization that you are in the wrong place at the wrong time and that there is no way to change anything. No, we are not ready for a female president, and no, America is not changing. It is changing for the worse, much worse. But in reality, it has always been pretty bad. We just think it is worse now.
Some people stopped watching the news or blamed the liberal corporate media for the great fiasco. Or, we become disturbed by people once thought to be liberally cozying up to the emperor at Maralago as they shamelessly kiss the ring and his ass. Many appear to be apologetic to the new regime, a common and previously observed trend when fascists take over.
And we indeed see a parade of errors unfolding at a dizzying speed. Nothing is remotely normal or conventional. All rules are about to be twisted in creative knots with overtones of lawlessness and corruption.
Elon Musk, the immigrant who made his fortune in the United States and was helped by the system of the United States, will run the economy and deny our social security checks to the people who helped build his fortune. Thanks for nothing, asshole.
A child molester will lead the FBI or something like that; I don't even remember what kind of criminal will lead what department, and it seems like a flood. Once one fire is averted, another two pop up, and we see a torrent of smoke filling up the room. There is nothing we can do but run for the hills. It is like an explosion of excrement going directly toward the huge blade of a high-velocity fan on top of us all.
For the moment, our only hope is that everything goes to hell, and if I have to go to hell, too, so be it. This is a kind of "I will throw myself out of the car at high speed to free myself from my captor" type of thinking.
For now, we hope that things will go so bad in the first two years that midterm elections will come to save us. Combined with the lame-duck Trump's second coming, that will do the trick. And that might be just what ends up happening.
We also take comfort in one thing: Republicans don't have anyone to protect them from themselves. They are irrevocably in charge for now and can't avoid confronting their most dreaded challenge - the price of eggs. In America, follow the money.
But we can take comfort in the steady and clockwork beat of American political history. "Other crazy things did happen before, and here we are." America might never stray too far from the medium we see today—no universal care but also no authoritarian coup that will end social security. America, the way we see it today, might continue in the same way indefinitely. And here's why.
Yes, the Supreme Court ruled that Trump had immunity for presidential acts. Or, Trump survived an assassination attempt. On July 13, Trump announced JD Vance as his vice-president pick. And many others. Other bizarre political events occurred before Trump was born, but they didn't change America definitively.
For example, did you know that in 1898, Wilmington, N.C., saw the only instance in U.S. history in which a white supremacist coup overthrew a legitimate government? What about March 3, 1873: The Comstock Act. A man named Anthony Comstock from Connecticut made combating sex in print his life’s work. He tirelessly lobbied until Congress passed “an Act for the Suppression of Trade in and Circulation of Obscene Literature and Articles of Immoral Use” in 1873.
But natural disasters also abound. In 1779, an outbreak of smallpox left staggering death tolls. This reminds us that even now, neither power nor wealth ensures protection from catastrophe. We might revisit these viral outbreaks when the worm inside RK Junior's brain takes over the health department.
What about the New Deal’s exclusion of farmworkers in 1933-38: As America's farmworkers suffered from hunger, sickness, and dislocation during the Great Depression, FDR's New Deal legislation did little to improve their welfare. In many ways, it worsened the situation of many farmworkers. Congress was dominated by Southern Democrats interested in preserving Jim Crow at the time.
In the meantime, many farmworkers were of color. As a result, farmworkers were not included in the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933, the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, the Social Security Act, or the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. Because of complicated state residency laws, migrant farmworkers, even as American citizens, were not eligible to receive public aid. This forced them to live in America without a place to assert their rights. See a full report of America's biggest blunder throughout history in this TIME report.
Relax. At the end of the day, America is the wealthiest country in the world with the most exploited working class on the planet. The only nation in the world without universal healthcare. A nation that sees profit as the actual rule of the land. People before profits is the motto here. This is happening now and has always happened in America.
This might benefit you or not, but America will most likely never change, and the stability of America is perhaps our best asset. There are winners and losers. People will still flock to America as a testament that there is something to accomplish here. This is the true nature of this social-political experiment. We can try to improve it, but it will inevitably fall prey to grifters and scoundrels who abound in the land. The forces of good and evil. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Make sure you have a little more wine.
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