Just What We Wanted

It’s interesting that you hear time and again how America is the new Roman empire – the greatest society ever built. 

Interesting because we leave out the part where the empire came crumbling down because the people that swore to serve it decided that what they wanted mattered more than what the nation needed. 

It was the death of a thousand cuts and here we are, watching our nation bleed out from the same things and cheering as we do our TikTok dances. 

It seems horribly fitting that as Pride Month and the month of Juneteenth ends Donald Trump is poised to re-take the Presidency. It seems fitting that four years of his lies, bragging, posturing, grifting, and hate speech haven’t been enough for the country to want to go back to him with open arms. 

For some reason, there’s a resentment for Biden that Trump doesn’t seem to bring with him like so much baggage. 

Oh, sure, we Lefties don’t like Trump but so many others shrug off the things he has done as if they are nothing. 

As if the crimes he has committed, the monstrous things he has supported, are just part of his whole ‘keeping it real’ schtick. 

We have come to admire thieves and liars, almost because we wish we could get away with those very things. 

The coming election fills me with a chilling reality that the worst-case scenario is going to play out because Americans are so self-absorbed that they think that this is all normal and fine. That seeing people fly ‘F’ Joe Biden flags from cars and houses is normal. That the vitriol and hate for a man none of us has met is normal. That people openly being racist and homophobic under the guise of ‘traditional values’ and ‘morals’ is normal. 

There is nothing normal about what is happening in America. 

There is nothing good. 

I whole-heartedly admit that Biden running for re-election is an act of hubris from a man who seems as if he felt he was never taken seriously and now won’t see when he should step aside and let someone else run. It is not that the Democrats can get out of their own way long enough to promote someone to run for president. 

No, they’d rather fight one another as the Right lines up behind religious fanatics who want to rocket the nation back to the 1600s. 

Just the other day I was driving to work and saw a truck with the ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ American flag sticker in the window and with it was the Punisher skull with a white supremacist group tagged in it. The weekend before I saw a neo-Nazi talking up the Trump campaign at a local fair. 

These people are out and proud and there’s no shame. 

There’s no self-consciousness. 

They are brazen in their hate and no one seems to care. 

We are watching idly by as states force Christianity and jingoism on kids, outlaw diversity, and real American history. 

Fighting these things is too hard. 

Takes too much energy that we just don’t feel like we have. 

Things will be all right, we tell ourselves. 

Except they won’t. 

The planet is telling us that daily – warning us that we are running out of time. 

The world, seemingly inspired by our own brazen embrace of hate and rage, is coming apart at the seams. 

And we think Trump is the man to lead us forward?

We think that a vain-glorious man-child who won’t take ‘no’ as an answer is the steady hand we need.

I grant you that Biden is not perfect and that I wish he had stepped aside, but he hasn’t, and he won’t. So here we are. 

I work with someone who refuses to vote at all, her disdain of both men so great, and refuses to listen to anyone who tells her she should act differently. 

It’s an extreme mark of selfishness and privilege though to cross one’s arms and not vote. Trump, his Supreme Court, and the influence he has had over his party and followers has poisoned the country and pushed the rights of women, and the LGBTQIA+ community painfully back decades. 

We are marching toward an American religious takeover that will affect all of us.

Trump, a man whose only god is himself, is the one leading the charge because he is the perfect vessel for the horrific desires of his party. Perfect because he is empty of any beliefs of his own, outside of the idea that he has been chosen and he is above all others. 

And here we are. 

At the precipice of a change in America that will be one last attempt to save us from ourselves or we shall rocket into the abyss and say goodbye to the freedoms we have cherished for so long. 

We are a nation that loves a good train wreck and we’d rather watch terrible things happen so long as they happen to someone else. Sure, the people we love may lose freedoms but, you know, they’ll be fine. 

Heck, trans folks were doing swell when they hid who they were or denied it. 

Isn’t it better that way?

Sure. 

And what rights do women need anyway?

If they don’t want to get an abortion they shouldn’t get pregnant. 

Am I right?

And American history and science never did much for me, how about you?

I can get everything I need from the Bible. 

The Trump Bible, to be specific. 

Trump is a man who is SELLING HIS OWN BIBLES and yet people cheer him. The religious right look everywhere desperately for their anti-Christ when he is standing at the podium before them. 

The world is slowly moving towards a cliff and while we could all get out of the vehicle we are in, could walk away and live, but we are too preoccupied with filming the ride to the bottom to pay much mind that it’s us who will be dead below. 

So much greatness in this country’s history and so easily tossed to the wind for the vain ambitions of greedy men and women whose self-righteousness seems to know no bounds. 

We had a good run, didn’t we?

But hey, at least Trump will be happy when it’s all said and done. 

That’s all that matters, right?

That baby gets his bottle?

For my part I will vote, not necessarily for the perfect candidate but for the one that holds love and hope in higher regard than he seems to hold himself.

…c…