My Turn: What I saw at the devolution

Glenn Carstens-Peters/StockSnap
Published: 01-31-2025 8:42 PM |
With the ringing still in my ears, it’s hard to imagine America being in a more tenuous position. Having pocketed as many chicken and vegetable wontons as I could manage at the Liberty Ball in D.C. tonight, it struck me that I may have just spent the last three hours in the most unholy place on earth.
Let “Daddy Trump” take care of whatever is “wrong” with this country, and maybe we won’t be upset when our freedoms end up in the trash can. Perhaps my companion tonight labeled it most accurately when she referred to this evening’s spectacle as a “MAGA prom.” Expensive dresses and overpriced shoes, and who really cares about the Constitution anymore?
The checks and balances that have granted us liberty are now under threat from a willingness of “the people” to once again embrace “the tyrant.”
Entry-waiting for two hours in horribly freezing temperatures would have been a complete waste of time if it were not for the auditory spectacle of avarice. The line that wrapped around several blocks (coincidentally I’m sure) took us through the high-end retail district, and those tuxed and Botoxed for the evening were probably each of them wondering how much they could gain by being a barnacle onto the evil that is authoritarian zeitgeist.
What strikes me even now is how full-throttle some of the more fervent Trump supporters wish to “deport them illegals.” America has truly gone full circle.
Sometimes I bite my tongue in these types of situations, but I didn’t give a second thought to the idea of pointing out to anyone tonight that European settlers (whose progeny primarily filled the convention center) were the original illegal immigrants to this land. Whether or not we want to fully buy the written record, it’s more or less established as fact on both political vantage points that settlers from Western Europe thought the North American land mass as theirs for the taking.
Jump forward a couple hundred years, and these illegals say they are “real Americans,” and those entering our borders seeking refuge and opportunity are considered threats to our nation’s greatness.
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Nah, that’s different. You see “we” were the good guys, and the native peoples of this land were uncivilized and savage, and “everyone” knows that. Genocide as a historical marker could maybe perturb some of the ruling elite, but the sad fact is we’ll never know.
One of my younger family members, when I told her I had somehow finagled two passes to an inauguration ball, asked me if I could try to manage Melania Trump’s autograph. Such innocence children have. The likelihood of some common schmuck getting anywhere near America’s royalty is probably as likely as any questioning of today’s batch of executive orders.
Massachusetts has an interesting year ahead if our presidency truly puts boots to backsides as it says it will. Now that immigrants are slowly being given the not-always-so-accurate tag of criminal, any status of sanctuary will ultimately be granted by the men with guns. What seemed so striking is the fact that openly discussing war declarations and raids within American cities was more the rule than the exception tonight.
Sociologists and psychologists alike have not been silent when noting the psychopathy that exists among the wealthy elite, though lately they must have been too busy attributing all of society’s evils to President Trump alone.
Therein lies the most hysterical element to all of this. If the far and progressive left had only just let him fade away into his own ego, America may not be in its present predicament. If the Jan. 6 individuals were dismissed as over-enthusiastic rednecks, or (perhaps more accurately) subjects of effective propaganda, we would not be witnessing a deification of yesterday’s villains.
Essentially, the point I am attempting to make is that America’s far right swing was a seed cultivated by the undisciplined anger of those who align themselves with the likes of democratic socialism. Watch enough professional wrestling, and you’ll notice that the crowd will often swing toward favoring the heel.
The Holy Grail might be a cup, or it might be our long-lost common sense. Now that diversity, equity, and inclusion are drastically shifting in popularity, it begs the question as to what other sureties of American culture are on their way out. When protesters chant that they will “not go back,” MAGA diehards point the way forward to an Age of Fool’s Gold.
Maybe the wontons weren’t that good after all.
Ahmad Esfahani lives in Greenfield.