No one really does know what tomorrow or the next few weeks are going to be like for the US. We've spent the past, oh I don't know, 236 years filled with uncertainty. I mean, it's actually 4 years, but the last two months of the Dumpsterfire Presidency have been utter chaos. Which was the whole point.
During this time I've written and rewritten, edited and scraped a few newsletters. A bunch, really.
I hate change and I hate not knowing. I have a hard time getting used to new pants. The first few weeks at a new job are hell for me. When I sit in a chair and it finally remembers my ass print, I can rest easier and focus on stuff, rather than my unwelcome buttocks. So having a Cheeto-in-Chief running for reelection to save his life during a pandemic, in the middle of a generation-defining racial reckoning, on a dying planet, is Not Fucking Comfy.
What are you getting at, beardful pajamad writer? I realize there isn't a thesis here. I don't know what's going to happen. But, not always but this time, that's not important.
This is what I wrote a few weeks ago. It’s not great, but it’s what I got. After that, I want to remind you of what kind of articles were being written in 2015. You’ll like it.
VOTE THE FUCKER OUT.
The US used to be cool
When my father passed, one thing that struck me a while after he assumed his place in the Greek soil was that I could never, ever know some truths. Did he like me? I can tell myself that he did but, if I'm being honest, I don't know. As I am pushing 36, I wonder whether he felt the things that I now feel. I couldn't find a definitive response to these queries. It was, and still is, maddening.
This is what I think is so triggering about watching US politics in the era of the reality TV president. The fact that we no longer have access to the truth. But even worse than a dead person who cannot reveal their thoughts, wishes and desires, bar the unlikely metaphysical communiques, is the purposeful pollution of every single source of information with quantities of bullshit so vast, the depth of blackholes seems familiar.
I'm overall not a political person. As a person with a heart and a conscience, liberal causes almost always find me on their side, but rarely is my passion fuel in their fire. But the current dumpsterfire unfortunately has pulled me in with a moth-like obsession. And I am scared.
For one, the president (purposeful lack of capitalization) is the most powerful leader of the United States to date. See, he has a weapon no one has ever wielded ever before. Far more powerful than atomic bombs, more agile than fighter drones and more insidious than the CIA. He is a malignant, narcissistic sociopath. From his position of power, he controls not the narrative, but the truth. He summons hordes to investigate the non-existent. He wills into existence disasters, court cases, a slew of fraudsters. He incites violence openly because he is fully aware that he can deny ever saying anything, and insist until his accusers are out of breath and morale. I am scared.
I have held hope that seeing their president's demise would make Republican operatives grip their filthy chairs tightly and revert them back to the way things have been done for about 150 years. They would take the loss, rid themselves of Trump and vie for power within the confines of Constitution and the established mores. It's not looking that way, though. They have developed a taste for the sweet poison of authoritarian-level power. I am terrified.
We in Europe have long predicted, perhaps anticipated, the fall of the US empire. I have no research on the matter but my gut instinct. But as it is nearing, what is at stake is becoming all the more evident. The US is not just the cultural and economic overlord of the globe, although it is both those things. It is the only superpower with a modicum of democracy baked in the cake. Or rather, not really baked in its system but strewn artfully atop it. Apparently, no one every thought that someone might step up to the cake stand, take the democracy off and then just meander, cake in hand, to perform unspeakable acts on it.
Another metaphor for the American democratic experiment in liberty. The obsession with "tyrannical regulation", states rights and one specific, old rendition of the Constitution has left the nation unprotected. The US is so afraid of being overdressed for the occasion that a naked fucking 70 year old is running things. And you remember the whole King's clothes thing, right? That.
I fear that this all-consuming mania started when I got on Twitter after a decade of ignoring it on purpose. I fucked up on that front, clearly.
So, we are in the midst of an historic, terrifying, life-altering couple of years. There is a ruthless virus, a tumor of a US president, a media and information landscape that makes Escher sketch look like a blueprint. There is no light at the end of the tunnel because there is light and darkness at the same time and we don't even know if we're in a tunnel or in a rolling prairie.
The thing about having a dead parent is that, well, it sucks. But it's natural. The maddening nature of things left unsaid is the way it's supposed to be, take or leave a bit. This *hand circle* shit right here, that isn't normal. And it's scary.
If everything works out, we will experience the joy of procrastinating by reading articles like Do people actually wear pajamas?, and I for one can’t wait.
Much love,
Chris