Pam Bondi. What a piece of work. Best say nothing at all. Pete Hegseth. Reflective war as exercise in penis envy. The whole gang. 21st century unlimited laying down its tracks one stretch at a time. There’s no way stations along the way. No banquettes on which travelers gather and sit awaiting their connections. Automatons. A coma only a true reckoning with reality can revive.
Self-governance has outgrown its usefulness and now is a plague the insurrectionists are spreading under the guise of authoritarianism dressed up as a modern-day Mussolini. The commander in chief role is refurbished as autocratic convenience and divine right. Hadn’t the people voted? They’ve agreed that the Constitution needs a makeover. Presidential powers can be absolute. Mad kings from the past required shrewd maneuvers from their immediate sycophancy. Since now we no longer have foreign enemies, we become our worst threats to ourselves.
The irony of it all should not surprise us. That we have gone on believing one thing, only to discover it’s opposite could be equally appealing to many. Surprise. What should we have known or been prepared for? History is always there to guide us, but now, the past is inconvenient and largely forgotten.
We’re screaming about what is wrong while unable to unite as a common front, so the pundits keep reminding us. Perhaps Democracy with a capital D has become tiring, cumbersome, expensive, or unresponsive. History’s most successful example of “By the People, For The People” is now the so much less taxing “For the Leader.” The techies have all lined up since they know which side their bread is buttered. Pathetic Mark Zuckerburg with his new curly hair makeover looks like a junior in college playing BMOC. The whole crew glommed onto the stage awaiting the supreme ruler’s nods, testosterone fueled orgasmic submission of the Information Age apostles.
Life in the boroughs, burbs, and countryside chug along guarding their illusions like a bad hand of bridge. Trump has all the “trumps.” So lay down the dummy hand. Who has the high cards? Who the most hearts or spades? Dummy hand cards are like Trump supporters. He plays them where they’re most useful.
The internal battle can never be more than the posthumous tale of the deceased fixer Jeffrey Epstein, the ghost in the machine. The undampened stench. Dramatis personae, perverted sex addict, Trump chump. Tom Homan is runner up in the contest for most double dealing. $50,000 for what? And where is it? Newly minted representative Adelita Grijalva is awaiting confirmation due to slimy Michael Johnson, head of House Republicans preventing her from being seated at all costs. Trump didn’t get his Nobel Prize. Broadway can’t write this stuff.
Dysfunction gets dull. It takes away our sense of self. We head off in all directions looking for things that truly matter in our lives. Tropes we need to let go of. Uncertainty is a sponge soaking up energy we need to put to better use building and supporting what we need, personally and collectively. I look around and friends and neighbors here in delightful Shelburne Falls are always just who they are. On the surface our lives are not torn apart by goings on in Washington and elsewhere. We bring to our lives here a sense of inclusion and community. Many of us practice principles of peace, consciousness, meditation, and inclusion. We know that above the common fray, reality takes a different turn, one that is supposed to be controlled by us. But the peripheral noise has consequences. Voices like Mandani give us hope with real life issues.
March 4, 1789, the Constitution became the founding principle of our new self-governance. In all that time, despite the efforts to twist its meaning, it has held up the test of time. Why are we tired of it now? What has so twisted our perceptions of ourselves that large swaths of the population can neglect or not grasp the importance of their own voices? It has taken our shared histories to chronicle the expansion of rights absent when the document was signed. In the country’s beginnings, large swaths of the populace like Native Americans were robbed of lands and had no vote; Aug. 18, 1920, Women got the right to vote; 1964 the Civil Rights Act passed; 2015 the Obergefell v. Hodges decision codified same sex marriage, now under Trump’s microscope.
But here we are, battered by wars misjudged, rights misunderstood, an authoritarian administration, a Stephen Miller, robotic and over rehearsed. So can we produce one big unifying force that will turn the march around? Can we emerge from our comfort and complacency, demand our leaders help under one battle cry? Start here with the local demonstrations in our area on: Sat, Oct 18, 11 a.m. NO KINGS Ashfield / Sat, Oct 18, 1:30 p.m. Amherst/ Sat., Oct. 18, 2 p.m. Greenfield.
Alan Harris lives in Shelburne Falls.