The State of the Union

This has some bad words in it 😬

Politics are like gravity: it’s either vague and distant or crushingly immediate.

We don’t think much about how the planets stay in their orbits, but it’s hard to think about anything else when your car spins off a bridge and you are plummeting to the bottom of a gorge.

---

I don’t like to write about politics. I’m not particularly good at it. I don’t know how I feel about most political matters most of the time. I have core values and I try to measure the events of the day against those values. This is probably what most people do!

I’m happy not worrying about how the roads get repaired, how prepared our military is, or how medical research gets paid for. Those are matters for other people, and I vote for the people I think are going to do things that align with my personal values. Again, this feels like what most reasonable people do.

But We Are Beset By Unreasonable People

Donald Trump is way more than just “unreasonable,” and so are the people who voted for him.

I wrote most of the below before that utterly insane meeting between Zelenskyy and our President. What before was a vague unease before the election turned into outright anger after the inauguration which has now become incandescent rage. I am disgusted by what happened there, and what continues to happen. I’ll try to spell it out.

We Call It Bear Baiting

Watch the press conference closely (or don’t, if you value your good mood). Vance immediately goes in on Zelenskyy’s unwillingness to talk about Putin in nice terms:

Vance: The path to peace and the path to prosperity is, maybe, engaging in diplomacy…That’s what President Trump is doing.

This is a direct shot at Zelenskyy’s unwillingness to take a conciliatory tone with Putin, the authoritarian dictator who has been very public about his intention to take back what he thinks belongs to Russia and who has invaded a sovereign country, bombed its cities, and killed its citizens.

While Vance strikes Zelenskyy with one hand, he strokes his boss with the other. He knows what Trump wants: obedience, praise, compliments, and credit. Which is why, when Zelenskyy refutes the notion that he needs to be nice to the guy killing his people and calling him a Nazi, Vance pushes his boss (who is barely paying attention to any of this) by saying:

Vance: And do you think that is respectful to come to the Oval Office of the United States of America and attack the administration that is trying to prevent the destruction of your country?

This is directly and specifically intended to get Trump mad. That’s the only reason he said that, and that’s the only reason he’s even sitting there.

Power in Washington is given to people who are obsequious enough to the President, who repeats his stupid lies back to him, and who join in his refusal to accept obvious facts.

This whole situation makes me feel like I’m going crazy. How can anybody support this circus?

What the Fuck Are We Doing Here?

Have you seen what happens when a reporter asks a Republican politician to speak an obvious fact that goes against the wishes of the President?

The President believes, or says he believes, these things:

• the 2020 election was stolen from him and that he actually won

• Ukraine was not invaded by Russia

• the President has absolute power over the entire federal government

Those are just three of the big ones, but there are tons more. The things that he seems to believe are not true. They are not facts. They are lies.

Trump Lost the 2020 Election Because He’s a Loser

But he’ll never admit it in public. He is surrounded by Wormtongues who nod and agree and pump him up and tell him everything he wants to hear. He’s so easily manipulated that the ones who do so skillfully are the ones who reap the benefits of their proximity to power.

If you disagree with Trump then you become his enemy. He makes things bad for his enemies. Sometimes he just fires them, but sometimes he mobilizes a mob of his followers to bust down the doors of their workplace, beat up their guards, shit in their offices, and try to hang them.

Make no mistake: I have zero percent respect for any of the pro-Trump crowd. Let me be specific: if you think Trump is good or you support what he does, please help yourself to a walk through the nearest window. I have no time for you, I think you have low intelligence, and I suspect you might actually have something deeply wrong with you. In other words, get fucked.

Trump represents the politics of grievance. He has no platform that isn’t cobbled together from the manifestos of white supremacists and Christian nationalists who piled into the space left by establishment Republicans who tried to nudge his populist barking into something coherent and were pushed out of the nest by spitting fascists like Steve Bannon.

There is no unifying ideology, no vision for a better country, nothing. The people who support Trump are tired of getting pushed around by other countries, they’re tired of pretending like they have to be nice to people with dark skin, they are sick of hearing people speak Spanish at the grocery store, and they’re scared that some big transgender woman is going to kick their door down and take their guns away. They’re mad! They want someone to demand respect.

Just like Vance was baiting his boss, he was baiting his base, too.

And I’m really fucking sick of it.

Senator, is gravity real?
Well, we can’t really say. I definitely feel something when somebody throws a can of soup at my head, though.

I Haven’t Even Gotten to Elon Musk Yet

I’m so tired.

There are very powerful people who cannot even disagree with the president or his cabinet of clowns because the richest man in the world has promised to fund their rivals. If that weren't enough, they are also afraid of being murdered by Trump's followers, who have demonstrated their willingness to destroy and tear apart the institutions, buildings and people who get in the way of their leader's grabs for power, influence and money.

Even the followers who aren't personally willing to inflict violence on Trump's behalf widely and loudly support those who do. Regardless of whether or not January 6th was an organized insurrection it was at least a riot created by an aggrieved wannabe-tyrant that got actual people badly hurt and at least one person badly dead.

Members of Congress are afraid to voice their differences because the current monarch-in-chief has loyalty and obsequiousness as his only values. There have been many opportunities to stop all of this from happening, but each one was squandered by Republicans who saw the Trump administration as a means to an end and Democrats who kept tripping over their dicks at every turn.

That end is and has always been power. They wanted power over people, over the country, over the world. They got it. Congratulations, you pigfucks. Enjoy the ashes of whatever it is you think you're burning down.

I thought we were better than this. I thought we had principles. I thought a lot of things that have turned out not to be true.

They Don’t Have a Plan

There is no guiding principle. There is no grand vision. Trump is mad at people who aren't loyal to him. Have you seen what happens when reporters ask a Republican to state a simple fact: that Trump lost the 2020 election? It's nuts. They refuse to say it! Public disagreement with the president makes them his enemy.

Here’s the vice president refusing to admit it.
Here’s the Attorney General refusing to admit it.
Here’s the Secretary of Defense refusing to admit it.

Why are they so obsequious? Why don’t they state obvious facts? Why do they pretend that true things aren’t true? Because they want that power, baby! That’s all it is!

You know what he does to his enemies? Ask Mike Pence or his security detail.

The guiding principle of this country has always been based on what I would call core Enlightenment values.¹ These values are, roughly: facts are indisputable and laws should be followed. These assholes in power don’t want laws to be followed, and they think the facts are whatever Donald Trump thinks is true.

So What Do We Do?

I don't know. I'm sorry, I don't have a solution for you. I don't write that kind of stuff. I have my own ways of fighting back against this authoritarian encroachment. I’ll get to that in a second.

Let me be clear: I don't care about your political party. I don't even care who you voted for, because voting is only a very small (and of questionable mathematical significance) part of our responsibility as a citizen².

In years past, I shrugged as Republicrats won and lost their elections, because I believed then (and still do) that they were basically the same party with slightly different talking points.

My core values haven’t changed — I still believe in the essential dignity in all humans, that we are all basically good and do things for good reasons, and that all people are better off the more freedom they have. My values roughly align with what’s considered liberalism and enlightenment-era ideas about expression, religion and commerce. Neither party does super well on those values, though occasionally one of them does. Lately it’s been the Democrats, even though they sure do a great job of making it hard to root for them. I am often encouraged by opposition parties, because they’re the ones who are moving against (or just standing against) the authoritarians.

For a long time, nothing ever really changed for people like me. The people on the margins always suffer the worst excesses of the rulers, but white men usually get the better end of the deal. I have done what I could the best way I knew how, by giving money to charities so they could do good things with it. I still think that's the best way for me, personally, to offset the damage being done by King Dump and his Dumplings. I won’t tell you which charities you should give your money to because that’s a deeply personal thing and you need to make a decision based on your own values.

This time it feels more urgent than before, and that’s partly because a few people in my immediate orbit have suffered, will suffer, and continue to suffer because of what Trump has been doing.

This Time, It's Personal

Some people I know are at risk of actually dying and I don't say that lightly and I don't mean that they will be forced to hear opinions they don't like or find new jobs or whatever. I am not even referring to people who will have to find new ways to pay for their medicines or healthcare or the people whose very existence is disputed and degraded, but that’s bad enough and it makes me mad, too.

When I say I know people whose lives are endangered by Trump's brainless orders, I mean that literally and specifically. The police and military are full of Trump supporters. The people with the guns are on the side of the tyrant, and they're extremely capable of using those guns against people who look like somebody they're supposed to hate.

Those future and potential victims are just the most obvious and unavoidable reasons I'm so angry about the state of things in this country, but every day provides more. It's only been a month since that pile of dirty diapers didn't put his hand on the bible when he was sworn in, and it's only going to get worse.

The Bible Thing Was an Omen

I have zero percent christianity in me, so I do not care whatsoever that Trump didn't put his hand on the bible when he was sworn in. The important part of the bumbling fumble of that swearing-in was his rejection of the little traditions and norms that all make this country what it is.

I like it when Presidents have an understanding of the office and what it means and who sat in that office before them. I don't demand any huge intellectuality, but I do like it when the President respects the office as a servant of the people, not as its only, towering authority.

You Really Did it This Time, My Mom is Protesting

I can count on a single hand the number of times my mom said something bad about somebody else.³ I don’t remember her ever being particularly political, though she’s always volunteered and helped out in the community. National politics hardly ever entered the family conversations.

Imagine my surprise when this photo appeared in the family group chat:

That's Anne Foreman and she's mad. You absolute fuckers.

I asked my mom why she was protesting:

I am protesting because right now, there is really nothing else in my power to do. Dealing with the horrible frustration that many of us feel due to the events of the last month in our nation is overwhelming at times. I am many generations away from the beginning of this grand experiment called The United States, the basic tenets ratified when the states approved the draft of the Constitution have held us together until now. The crisis is tangible. Demonstrating with signs is one way of standing our ground against this administration’s lack of respect for the rule of law. Many honks in appreciation have led me to believe there are others out there with similar fears. The cold right now is an issue when standing in freezing rain and ice but as I recall my great (times 6) Grandfather, who fought and bled with George Washington in freezing cold and sizzling heat in the Revolutionary War, the least I can do is feel a little discomfort.

Family friend Bryn did some protesting, too. Here's what she had to say about it:

It’s hard to pin down all the things to protest. Mostly the wealth disparity. But that includes lots of other things like healthcare. Protesting the destruction of federal programs that help everyone.

But I think her signs speak even louder:

The planet spins, things are always changing, and just as sure as gravity keeps holding us down, I’ll have something new to be mad about in a couple of days and hopefully things can settle down and get back to some kind of normalcy.

Until then, though, Elon Musk, Donald Trump, JD Vance and everybody who likes them and supports them can eat a big bowl of shit.

---

Programming Note

Don’t worry. I’ll get back to writing about my feelings and grief and stuff. In fact, I’m changing the name of this newsletter again, so when it comes to you next time it will be called “Middlebrow” because I want to write more about all kinds of stuff that are interesting to me. If you’ve been here a while you remember the last time I sort of tried to do that but now I’m serious! Nothing will change on this end of it except some branding.

Anyway, you have that to look forward to.

1. “The central doctrines of the Enlightenment were individual liberty, representative government, the rule of law, and religious freedom, in contrast to an absolute monarchy or single party state and the religious persecution of faiths other than those formally established and often controlled outright by the State.” via Wikipedia

2. to be clear, if you voted for Trump, please don't tell me

3. That's not entirely true -- she has nothing good to say about the bad drivers of West Virginia