This Is Us

However this movie ends -- and while my prediction wavers week-to-week, I think Biden squeaks through, though it will definitely get much uglier regardless -- it seems we may owe ol' Fuckface Von Clownstick a verrrry begrudging measure of gratitude. [pauses while readers collect their dropped jaws and exploded heads] Why? Hear me out.

1. The political system. Obviously it's a swamp of corruption and always has been, ever since it was an actual swamp waiting to be architected by some frog. But by simultaneously chanting the mantra "drain the swamp" while merely restocking it with his own gators, Trump forced observers to confront their own cynical assumptions about our political system, which is really just a vehicle for institutionalized graft and rentier capitalists, and to collectively turn away from it all with each of our assumptions, however individually divergent, confirmed. That is to say, whether you think it's more corrupt than ever, or whether you (amazingly) think he's doing everything he can to clean things up, your suspicions have been proven true to you.


2. The media ecosystem. The corporate (aka mainstream, "lamestream," ad nauseam) media are on their collective heels, ravaged by private equity vultures and by years of ad revenues lost to internet competitors. They are mostly just horse-race coverage now, vainly clinging to a transparent veneer of pretenses to some hallowed "fourth estate" principle they have rarely ever tried to live up to. It's just a rotating claque of fifty-percent prognosticators taking their tired opinions and slapdash analyses from panel show to panel show, and a gaggle of impotent losers stenographing lies and talking points (which are also lies).
   
   Nothing new is ever mined from these dismal pockets of (b)ore, just fools' gold. They are consistent only in the sheer paucity of original thought, and in the complete disconnect these bozos have from anyone with a real job -- so much so that they are routinely gulled, in their stupid Cletus safari articles, into collating either the marketing points of the chair of the Bumfuck County Republicon Party, or the foaming rants of some fist-shaking codger at a roadkill eatery.
   
   Mostly, though, the ease with which Trump has been able to render them as collectively supine, obedient, and utterly impotent, should make each and every media consumer out there wonder exactly what they're handing over their money and time for. Turns out they get paid whether or not they actually do their job -- or maybe being useless and compliant is their job after all. There's a Lucy-with-the-football dynamic in a lot of areas, and when it comes to the media and the average 'murkin, take a wild guess who's Charlie Brown.


3. The Republican party. Oh, if he loses they'll insist he was an aberration, an anomaly, a sui generis force they heroically endeavored to contain. The people who will be fooled by that want -- no, need -- to be fooled by it. There is nothing new in pointing out that Trump is simply the boorish but entirely practical culmination of GOP policies and strategy for the last fifty years -- steer racist whites into voting to let billionaires become trillionaires by hoovering ever more money out of the peons' pockets. That's all they've ever stood for in my lifetime, even counting Nixon's few liberal feints toward the EPA and such like. Anyone who continues to deny that at this point is either lying to you or to themselves. (Probably just to you, in order to profit for themselves. Because as we know, the only thing that matters in this world is money.)


4. The Democratic party. There are a few bright lights, but it's mostly a bunch of terrified bureaucrats more worried about losing their Wall Street donors than they are driven to motivate the burgeoning base of frustrated non-voters. I have no empirical data to support this, but I am convinced that for every lazy slob who just can't be bothered to give enough of a shit about anything to cast their lot, there is at least one other non-voter who is waiting for something or someone to vote for, rather than the evil of two lessers. I know because I was one of those people when I was young and foolish.
   
   Now that I am old and foolish, I can say that voting is definitely an exercise in futility, but one that would paradoxically become less futile in proportion with increased participation. In other words, the bastards keep winning because they are successful at discouraging you. Soon as you understand that it's not a one-time event, not the Super Bowl or the Kentucky Derby, but an endless exercise in process improvement, you focus on the dynamic aspect of improving the process, and the people who participate in it.
   
   For now, that means getting rid of the Republican party in its entirety, and putting the Democrats on notice. The old, entrenched entities of the party need to be made to understand that unless they are willing to fight for every inch of ground, they will be replaced at the earliest opportunity. Regardless, Trump has shown the current lineup for who and what they really are -- completely willing to spend months drafting performative bills to rot on Moscow Mitch's desk, but shrugging that there's simply nothing they can possibly do to counter or impede the open corruption of Trump and his dog Bill Barr. Either you use every power you have at your disposal, or you don't.


5. This is America. The COVID death count is about 160k at this point -- almost the combined total of WW1 and Vietnam. It will probably be over a quarter-million by the end of the year. Trump has found ways to be increasingly feckless and erratic throughout, getting worse and more brazen by the week, and his approval ratings have risen in the past couple weeks. He's made it clear he doesn't give a shit how many people die from this entirely preventable situation, and it's okay.
   
   You can make all the usual excuses about the media being in the tank or whatever, but there's no getting around this fact. Ignorant, nasty, spiteful people are fine with being ignorant, nasty, and spiteful. They've made a choice just like you and I make our choices. This is what they are, this is who they are. And when there's enough of them, to the extent that we humanize a nationalist mythos, imbue it with its own personhood and agency, it becomes a critical mass that determines what the country is, what it intends to be and do, what its role in the world should be and become. They have made themselves clear.
   
   The billionaires who really run this country, who own and operate the political system and all the nodes of information, make no secret that they hate you and me and everyone who isn't in their elite net-worth status. You're nothing but ignorant rabble to them, something to be manipulated and sold and used up as needed. They don't try to hide any of this. They would literally rather spend thirty or fifty percent of their precious profits subsidizing Rush Limbaugh or Fox News or some shithead think tank, than pay even one percent tax. That's just the way it is. You already know this.
   
   And it makes sense that Limbaugh or whoever is willing to take their money -- hell, I'd be happy to to take thirty million a year to do what he does (for a year anyway, before pulling the pin on that grenade and telling the audience to go fuck themselves), because you can bet when he finally kicks off, someone will take that job, and millions of broke peons with nothing to gain and nothing to lose will be happy to listen to whoever is willing to stoke their racial and class fears. It's a drug as potent as whatever strain of opioid is running through their dried-up towns this week, and they don't have anything else. That's the thing -- at least you can say Limbaugh and Hannity are in it for the money; to what extent is up for debate. But their listeners and viewers are cutting their own throats for free. (It's a small consolation to know that the billionaires and the talking heads they rent hate them too.)
   
   We'll see how it goes in ninety days, but unless it really is an unstoppable blue tsunami that completely eliminates these monsters, it might be time to consider that nations, like humans, have a lifespan, they run their course and then they turn to dust, and that maybe our individual lifespans are simply too short to keep at the futility of trying to talk suckers out of their tree. But again, as with the the above groups, Trump has clarified this dynamic for everyone.
   
   Liberals can no longer fool themselves into believing some tired variant of if only they knew. It should be clear by now that they know, and they're good with it, all of it. They want more of it. So maybe it's time to consider real estate prices on the Adriatic coastline or something. If this is how it is, then there's not really much you can do or say to change their minds. You can march in the streets and get your skull cracked and your eye shot out, maybe get whisked away by unmarked men in an unmarked van, maybe pull twenty years in Club Fed for throwing a rock at a Robert E. Lee statue. See what changes as a result of all that. How's it been working out so far?

I wish I had something more positive to say, but it's become impossible to have any faith or trust in any of this country's political leaders, media monkeys, or even average citizens. All the institutional bulwarks have failed, and all it took was someone with the nerve to completely ignore them. Too many people are simply too lazy and cynical to pull it together and change course, and that weighs down whatever idealism there is. I wish I was wrong more often than not. (If that was the case, then I'd probably have a cushy cable-pundit sinecure, or a NY Times column.) But you can feel free to go back through fifteen years' worth of archives, and you tell me what my batting average is.

I do think there is one last chance here to snatch the fat from the fire, but it will take dedication and commitment and consistency, for years after the election. This fight is not going away; they have a lot more money, and they use it weaponize that laziness and cynicism, and pit people with common interests against each other. Again, most people know all this already, but knowing something and acting in accordance with that knowledge are obviously two very different things, otherwise we wouldn't be where we are.

It takes more than a willingness to engage in the banal distractions of trying to convince some asshole on your Facebook feed or whatever. It takes voting with wallets, every day, as well as ballots every couple years. It takes sending periodic emails to companies and congress-critters alike, and letting them know where you draw those lines for yourself. If enough people did just those things -- which are free, and so many people have so much time on their hands now -- they would have to listen.

Either it's worth fighting and expending effort for, or it isn't.

So what's it gonna be?