The Life in My Years

Trump and MAGA; they aren’t unlike the roadkill skunk decomposing down the block that the animal control boys aren’t getting around to picking up. Festering and funky in the afternoon sun it sits there and cooks, the effluvium is never ending, 24/7/365 – for four rotten years. And there’s no escape.

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It’s dark on the Bay Trail this morning. The sun still has a good twenty minutes to climb up and over the backside of the East Bay Hills before it paints the waters of San Pablo Bay in morning pastels. On other sections of the trail, light intrudes from the nearby, just waking neighborhoods. But not on this one short section. This is where the trail plunges down a steep curving hill under a canopy of oaks, and bay trees.

It’s murky black out here.

I could turn on my cell phone flashlight. But why?

The darkness is peaceful. It excites the senses.

It’s noise free in this short dip in the trail. Noise – the sounds of neighborhoods and cars starting their day.

But there are sounds here. Noise versus sounds; there’s a difference.

Down the bayside slope, unseen, the San Pablo Bay waters are riffling onshore. Somewhere, far out on the dark, placid bay a buoy is moaning. A sighing breeze ruffles the oaks, and morning birds are greeting their day. When it’s very still I can hear Lexi’s nose snuffling. On a moonless morning I can barely see her as she sweeps back and forth in front of me, nose almost scraping the ground, her olfactory radar excited, hard at work, enjoying nature’s special gift to dogs. Occasionally an animal scrunches, unseen, over the ground cover in the oak thicket and Lexi’s ears perk up.

I’ve been covering sections of the Bay Trail for countless years and with two different dogs. For most of those years it was a run. But at 71, and after two broken ankles, a broken metatarsal, chronic Achilles tendinitis, and 55 years of pounding the pavement, the runs have turned into brisk walks. Always thought that the end of the running trail would leave me heartsick but the only regret is that Lexi doesn’t get to stretch out her legs and run. Feel more sorry for her than I do for myself.

But even here, the MAGA scream intrudes. It’s the shrieking, slicing metallic brrrrr in a redwood grove. The roar of a speedboat on an otherwise placid lake. Old dr’unckle Bob, stewed to the gills at the family picnic. It’s trying not to think about Trump when someone says, “Hey, don’t think about Trump.”

I often recall a sign carried by a woman at a May Day protest in Martinez, California. The sign read, Trump has stolen all of the joy and safety of living in America. Fuckin-A right. For any American who is paying attention, any joyful glow gets veiled by the dark MAGA cloud.

It’s even impossible for those trying to live blissfully ignorant to remain blissfully ignorant; that’s called poetic justice.

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At a certain point we all need to find a time and a place to recover our composure. It’s a difficult thing. The ataxia is relentless. It stalks you in the haven of your bedroom at night and even out here in the calm of an early morning thicket.

It’s everywhere – and it’s become routine. Let’s not kid ourselves, America is no longer on the road to the irrational. Hell, that threshold was crossed a long time ago. Some would have us believe that we passed through the doorway on the fifth day of last November 2024. Hardly. By that day the vestibule separating the commonness of reason from the normalcy of the aberrant was already far behind us. November 5, 2024, Election Day, was the day we heard the ominous click of the gate locking behind us.

The vulgar stain of the Trump regime has infiltrated the American fabric. It contaminates every waking hour and, stupid me, I’ve allowed it to infect the joys of my retired life – my grandson’s basketball, photography, and writing. I’ve become so wound up in protesting that I’ve stopped going to Jackson’s games on Saturdays. I haven’t taken a photo excursion, other than photographing protests, since sometime in late winter. And writing? Reading this answers that question neatly.

Woe is me? Let’s just say, pissed is me. I’m angry that a lying, uncouth ignorant fraud, and Stephen Miller, the ferret face Nazi, along with the rest of the regime have stolen life. But I’m not ignorant of the fact that, relatively speaking, and notwithstanding my criticism of the regime, I’m not on the MAGA radar. I’m a 71 years old, white guy, American born of American citizens. If I didn’t identify as a Social Democrat I’d be among the safest of the safe.

So why let it affect me?

It has little or nothing to do with democracy. As I’ve pointed out a number of times, on this site, American democracy is mostly a misconception and has been since, well, the founding. I’m touched by sadness when I see a young Hispanic woman selling trays of strawberries in a supermarket parking lot; the couple selling pupusas in a small office parking lot in Richmond; the stooped old Hispanic man selling helados from the ding-ding-a-linging cart on on the sidewalk in nearby Richmond. Every time they step out of their homes to make their small harmless pittance by selling fruit or ice cream they must wonder whether, come nightfall, they’ll be back home (and still not necessarily safe) or in a detention center (jail). How have we come to normalize a government policy that strikes fear into the lives of peaceful people?

What did that young woman selling strawberries or that old man pushing an ice cream cart, or the teens playing soccer on a rutted field in Richmond, or the Hmong woman at the Asian market in San Pablo ever do to that bitter old fuck on Facebook who wants to get rid of “those illegals.” Did he lose his job selling flats of strawberries in a Home Depot parking lot to some kid from Peru?

I would love to say that I’m completely done with writing about life in MAGAstan, but I’d be lying to myself in the process. If not for any other reason but maintaining my sanity and some smidgen of joy in my life I’m returning to photography, life stories and travel stories. Politics isn’t dead on this site but the regular 47 series is going on the back burner.

But not before some –

Parting thoughts and parting shots.

There’s a protest going on in downtown Walnut Creek, California and I’m doing a walk around with Jan of the Indivisible Resisters Contra Costa. Jan (not her real name) is IRCC’s lead peace ambassador and since I’ve become the de facto lead of Indivisible North East Bay I’m learning the ropes.

Jan’s role as lead also started out as de facto. That’s how the shit works. You get pissed off, join the resistance with the idea of taking on some minor role, or maybe just standing on a sidewalk and holding a sign in communion with a couple hundred other like minded people, all of you yelling “86, 47.” Before you know it, you find yourself with a part time/full time job.

Part time because the active part of the job itself might only require a relatively few hours of your week. Full time because the reason for your labor is the lingering stench of the rot permeating the nation; a stink that sticks to you every waking hour. You lay awake at two in the morning thinking about the task for the upcoming protest, and the one after that, and all of the ones that will follow – for three and a half fucking years – full time.

Sometimes the emotional exhaustion is overwhelming. Sometimes you just want to quit and say, “Fuck it, let ‘em have the country.” Why not? It isn’t as if I haven’t considered moving to my wife’s Philippines or investing in a golden visa in Portugal. They’re both doable and on some days, the worst ones, I take another peek at the American expats in Portugal websites. I could learn to love a good glass of Port in a tulip shaped glass.

Back in Walnut Creek, Jan has far more experience than I, and her experience comes with large crowds. A peace ambassador is part of a team that, for an afternoon, sheds his/her partisanship at a protest and acts as a safety monitor and a conflict mediator in the event that counter protesters or hecklers show up. They keep the peace in peaceful demonstrations. Most of the time a peace ambassador’s job is telling people where the bathrooms are, or asking them not to cross against red lights, or commit other stupid acts while under the influence of social activism.

On this Saturday afternoon, there’s a crescendo of honking horns as passing drivers show their support. “All this honking is all well and good,” I say to Jan. “But these drivers are all on the wrong side of their cars. They need to be out here.”

Jan’s thinking is more charitable than mine. “Sometimes it’s hard to get people to give up part of their Saturday afternoons.” I leave the conversation at that, but inside I’m seething. I’m pissed at the horn honkers. Why are they not out here?

I feel the same anger towards people who walk by and say, “Thank you for what you’re doing.” I’d like to respond, “and fuck you for what you’re not doing.”

Hard to give up an hour or two? Really? Which would you rather give up, a couple of hours of your Saturday afternoons or your democracy for like –

forever.

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I guess they’ll take their Saturday’s, and piss on democracy.

But it’s not really about democracy. We were finding that out during the course of an entire election cycle and it was all hammered home on November 5, 2024, when the price of eggs trumped (pun intended) “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” It was all about a reasonably priced scramble – or kicking brown criminals out of the country. Look at how both of those worked out. Egg prices may have cooled off but we’ve turned into a cruel police state. But hey, that omelet is a lot easier to stomach.

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Okay, so you never could get worked up about that saving democracy shit. Too boring, too abstract. You remember something about democracy from back in 10th grade but it just got tossed in the same ‘I’ll never use this crap’ bucket that you tossed Shakespeare and all those math word problems in.

What does democracy matter when you can still go to the gym, have a beer with the boys, go see the Superman movie, and listen to whatever it is that you listen to on Spotify?

I mean, really, what’s changed?

Tariffs? Haven’t felt those yet. Another one of AOC’s hoaxes.

Sure, some cook in a restaurant in San Antonio got pinched by ICE and is in a detention center (jail). Another town, another state. Doesn’t affect you.

Oh wait.

Someone just called and told you that the cool warehouse guy who you used to joke around with at work got detained (government euphemism for kidnapped). Damn, he was nice. He used to bring tamales for the crew. Wait, his wife got nabbed too? But not his kids? What are those poor kids supposed to do?

Not – your – problem.

Sucks to be them.

Yeah, I know, you didn’t vote for that – if you voted at all. Turns out that disappearing warehouse workers, cooks, and gardeners to hell holes is part of that democracy thing you didn’t want to trouble your little mind over. Still, not – your – problem.

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So democracy still doesn’t move you?

Fair enough.

Maybe you missed the MAGA-nificent idea of gutting the administrative state and replacing it with nothing, or with

MAGA trash.

Trump and the boys and girls who conjured Project 2025 sold the idea of replacing all of those “incompetent, deep state, DEI hires,” with competent, qualified, experienced white experts. They call it a meritocracy.

And so –

Enter stage right (wing), Thomas Fugate, 22 years old and fresh out of the University of Texas, with a shiny new Political Science degree. He’s the guy who’s now running a counterterrorism division of the Department of Homeland Security called the Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships (aka CP3). The sum total of Fugate’s work experience is as a gardener ( a white one, so the ICE boys left him alone) and a grocery store clerk.

The main mission of CP3 was to identify individuals who could pose a terrorism threat. The overall mission was created post 9/11, and CP3 is a recent iteration. It focused heavily on school shootings, domestic terrorism and the dangers posed by right wing extremist groups (you know, like the Proud Boys, Trump’s buddies in arms – firearms). Well, those are all non-issues with the Trump regime. Maybe domestic terrorism – if you count a peaceful Indivisible protest to be domestic terrorism, which AG Pamela Jo Bondi (our version of Franz Gürtner, Hitler’s Minister of Justice), certainly does.

Since the Trump regime took over, the focus of what’s left of CP3 has switched from focusing on domestic extremists to – wait for it –

border security.

Because with the Trump regime it’s all about border security (kidnapping innocent brown people or hassling inbound tourists).

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But if you want to fuggetabout Fugate as just some low level minion who doesn’t really matter, then let’s focus on the capo di tutti capi at DHS.

That would be Kristi Noem.

Literally, as Texas was still reeling from its devastating flood of the century, Kristi Noem was doing what she does best – cosplay. As the Guadalupe River was roiling Kristi was polling her Instagram followers to vote on their favorite painting of her depicted on horseback, riding to the rescue of

certainly not the people in flooded Texas.

Each of the three paintings shows her dressed in stylish cowboy garb. Noem’s lack of seriousness during a major disaster, was a haunting flashback to George W. Bush’s own FEMA guy, Michael (“Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job”) Brown who botched the Hurricane Katrina response.

As for the official Noem cosplay painting, I choose the one that shows her in an SS uniform complete with jack boots and a cap with a death’s head. Or maybe one with more historical accuracy; like the one of her dog, trusting and innocent, looking her in the face, before she shoots the poor beast and leaves him in a gravel pit. Oh, those aren’t among the candidates? They should be. They tell the truer tale of her (lack of) character.

That’s the meritocracy that you either voted for or are supporting with your silence.

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Not captivated by DHS?

Maybe you were fretting over the price Easter eggs when, during the election cycle, the man who would be orange king was flirting with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as a possible cabinet member.

Didn’t ever stop to worry that the man who would likely be making health policy for you, me and the other 300 million poor American souls is a crackpot who once complained of a brain worm, and admitted to dumping a dead bear in Central Park (who the fuck does that?), tells people not to vaccinate their kids (while his own kids are vaccinated), and was personally responsible for a measles outbreak in American Samoa that killed 80 people?

Meet your HHS Secretary. Yeah, that meritocracy.

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The MAGA honchos never had a so-called meritocracy in mind. It was always about getting rid of people who dedicated their lives to public service and replacing them with loyal imbeciles.

Fugate, Noem and RFK? Just snapshots of Trump’s cabinet, which is less cabinet, and more –

like the junk drawer that resides in every kitchen. You know the one. It’s the drawer that holds a souvenir magnet from the Spam Museum in Minnesota, a Blockbuster Video membership card, keys to the house you moved out of 20 years ago, old business cards from people who are taking the dirt nap, – and a collection of loose screws. Collection of loose screws; describes perfectly the Trump Administration. The guy who always boasts of hiring “the best people,” enlisted a gang of morons that makes the Three Stooges look like Mensa, and John Gotti look like Honest Abe Lincoln.

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But like Yoda once said, “downhill runs the shit”, and so it all emanates from Jabba the Hutt with the bad hair job. That would be the guy who remarked to the President of Liberia, where the national language is English, “Such good English, where did you learn to speak so beautifully? The same guy who thinks international trade negotiations are handled like two guys haggling over a hooptie. The guy who sent out sloppily written form letters threatening increased tariffs, ending with the flourish, absolutely bereft of diplomacy, “Thank you for your attention to this matter,” and the preposterous, “You will never be disappointed with the United States of America.” Never be disappointed? That horse left the barn on January 20th and is galloping away to escape this madness. It’s the guy who sent a misgendered letter to Željka Cvijanovićfe, the female leader of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with the salutation, “Dear Mr. President.”

The guy who, when asked about new tariff deals said, “You know, I, I watched the show, this one they were talking about, well, when’s he gonna make the deal? The deals are already made. The letters are the deals. The deals are made. There are no deals to make. They would like to do a different kind of a deal. And we’re always open to talk. We are open to talk, including to you.” A covfefe to all and to all a covfefe.

If Joe Biden had uttered that gibberish the media would have howled that the man’s crackers have crumbled. Donald Trump utters nonsense and it’s business as usual, nothing to see here, don’t rile the prez. Just once I’d like to see a reporter follow up with, “What in the fuck is that supposed to mean?” It would be delicious.

That’s the America that Americans chose.

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But to those of you who stay aloof, and take pride in not soiling yourself over the business of politics, I have some good news for you.

You don’t have to worry about soiling yourself over the business of politics.

Because it’s not about politics.

It’s.

About.

Decency.

Politics left the scene long ago, but not enough people bothered to take note of its absence.

For ten long, grueling years it hasn’t been at all about the muck and mire of politics. Did anyone not get the memo about a guy who mocked; a former POW, a Gold Star family, a reporter with a disability, a Texas Senator’s wife? Was it not such a big deal when the sitting president threw paper towels at hurricane victims in Puerto Rico (people who he didn’t realize were citizens)? For a decade it’s always been about incompetence, injustice, corruption, gaslighting, indecency and cruelty, and not at all about politics. It’s always been about a guy who you would never want your daughter to date, or your son to hang out with.

But that was the old Trump. The mere schoolyard bully Trump. If we survived one Trump term, how bad could a second be? That notion went south at 12:01 on inauguration day.

The 2.0 version was never going to be about surviving four more years of a rude guy hemmed in by the guardrails protecting society. We had previews; the “poisoning the blood” speech, lionizing violent insurrectionists, the “I will be your retribution” threat, and the wild canard about Haitians eating pets.

We had an insurrection, 34 felony convictions, a fraud conviction, a civil rape conviction, and ten years of embarrassment and incompetence to say, “oh hell no,” to. But instead the nation exclaimed, “Thank you, I’ll have another.”

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“This is not who we are,” asserted the 70 year old congresswoman.

Oh really?

Well, we the people have our very own concentration camp – Alligator Alcatraz. Bad enough that we quickly cobbled together a detention center, but so much worse because when the plans for constructing that thing were drawn up, dehumanization, cruelty, and barbarism were made integral parts of the blueprint. It is by all accounts a place where, at the gate, you don’t just check in your personal belongings, you also surrender any protections that the Constitution is supposed to afford you. Alligator Alcatraz wasn’t constructed just to brutalize the inmates, it was constructed to send a message that at some point in the future anyone, from sea to shining sea, could end up in an Alligator Alcatraz.

True the collective we didn’t plan that monstrosity. That was done by a collection of sadists, headed up by Ron DeSantis; prim and proper men and women who all go to their respective churches on Sundays, say grace before dinner, and call themselves God’s chosen. That is when they aren’t dreaming up a konzentrationslager. Until the American people raise a forceful voice of repudiation, it’s ours to own.

“This is not who we are,” said the MSNBC host, as she pounded her fist on the table.

I beg to differ.

Yes

we are the ICE thugs who threw landscaper Narciso Barranco, to the ground and beat him up as he lay helpless. A landscaper and father of three Marines, Mr. Barranco was arrested for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Undocumentded? Sure – maybe. ICE doesn’t ask, they act. And they certainly don’t beg forgiveness when they’re wrong. Mr. Barranco’s other “offenses?” He raised three good sons, taught them to be solid American citizens and proudly encouraged them to serve their country. He’s out of jail now; bruised, traumatized and sorely disappointed in the country that he was once so proud of.

We are harassment aimed at political rivals, universities, lawyers, judges, celebrities and anyone who rubs the dear leader the wrong way?

We are incompetence, injustice, cruelty, racism, misogyny or any of the atrocities we’ve borne witness to. We are Stephen Miller, Tom Homan, Pam Bondi, Kash Patel, J.D. Vance and all of the cowards in Congress.

We are the nationalist nation that rewrites history to further its autocratic ends.

We’ve become the place where day laborers are afraid to show up at a Home Depot to find an honest day of hard work. Anybody up for going to Latino music festival or a flea market or a farmers market? Quinceañeras anyone? Do it on the down low and tell the mariachis to keep the volume down – ICE is listening.

We are the police state in which life imitates art. In a chilling move that evokes 1984, or Minority Report, the United States government has collected DNA samples from as many as 133,000 migrant children and teenagers, and uploaded their genetic data into a national criminal database used by local, state, and federal law enforcement.

We are a nation being led by a draft dodger who booted a decorated, and highly qualified, career Army Major named Erica Vandal, described by her superiors as “a superb officer,” out of the service. Because? She’s trans.

We have forsaken the stirring words of Emma Lazarus, and we have stopped being a beacon of hope, liberty and democracy. Much like North Korea, nobody wants to come here and that’s just how Stephen Miller, Laura Loomer, and the other MAGA bigots like it.

The racist tail is wagging the dog and as long as the preponderance of America watches in silence, this is who we are.

I could go on and on and on and on about who we are, and none of it is flattering. That “shining city on a hill,” is in the process of being reduced to a squalid, crime ridden slum. It’s becoming Gotham before Batman arrived.

How ironic it is that the man whose speeches that were often described as “American carnage,” has created

American carnage.

Something called the 3.5% rule is evidence that Trump’s America is exactly who we are. According to political scientist Erica Chenoweth, a concerted campaign of peaceful protest by 3.5% of a nation’s population can ensure political change, and foil the designs of an autocrat. That’s the good news. A nation needs only a small percentage.

The other news is that the No Kings national day of protest drew between 4 million and 6 million activists; 1.2-1.8% of the US population. On that possibly record breaking day (on the high end, No Kings surpassed the previous record of 3.3 million – 5.6 million who showed up at the 2017 Women’s March) 98.2% of the population was either MAGA, or was yawning or said, “I’m busy today, but thank you for what you’re doing.”

The numbers are in and this is who we are.

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The future is ours to accept or change
What we are is what we are, but it’s not remotely what we might be doomed to become. That will be worse.

If we continue down this path, and I see no evidence of a course change, especially given a cowering Congress, and the Supreme Court’s proclivity towards paving an autobahn for Trump to speed us into a full blown dictatorship, we will become a bland, homogeneous, nation with all the color, flamboyance, culture, and diversity as, oh – East Germany, circa 1965.

Our museums will display what the boss wants them to (see, The Smithsonian and the removal of “wokeism”). The media will be subservient or silenced (see NPR, Paramount and ABC). Theaters will be told what kinds of shows they can and can’t present (see, the Kennedy Center). Libraries and bookstores will be told what to banish from their shelves (see, the banning of books on trans subjects). Universities will come under government control (see Columbia). Cultural festivals will be frowned upon. History will be rewritten (see, the fable of the “harmless”January 6th tour group).

America is making itself deliberately drab. The vibrant colors of our nations diversity (bad word) are being whitewashed by a roller of fear.

But that’s just the minor stuff.

We’re headed down a path where; freedom of movement, of expression, of the press, of religion, of assembly, of the right to face your accuser, of the right to due process, and the right to be secure against unreasonable search and seizure will all be peeled away. We’re bound for Mao’s China, the place where you didn’t know if your neighbor was going to snitch on you. Said Tom Homan, “I’m hoping people start calling ICE and reporting because we have millions of people in this country that can be force multipliers for us if they just call us with information.”

The military will be unleashed on American cities. Oh wait, that’s already happening and dear leader has floated the idea of a federal occupation of New York City and Washington D.C. Just days after celebrating July Fourth, the anniversary of colonists rejecting the idea of keeping “among us in times of peace, standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures”(see the Declaration of Independence), Trump threatened, “We could run D.C. I mean, we’re looking at D.C.,” Trump declared, adding, “We want a capital that’s run flawlessly.”

As the the leadership continues eschewing reason, science and development (see RFK Jr), while rejecting the best and the brightest from other lands (see Marco Rubio and Stephen Miller), America will become a closed intellectual desert (see North Korea and Hungary).

With the rejection of climate science, America will fall behind other nations in cleaning up its environmental act. Increased air pollution, impure water, and more toxins leaching into the ground due to de-regulation, all directed by ideologues, fools and amateurs running the health and safety administrations, will make America sick and dying again. Can you fit “MASADA” on the front of a ball cap?

And what of the millionaires and billionaires who paraded down to Mar-a-Lago to kiss the ring and beg the dear leader’s sanction. As in any autocracy some will remain in dear leader’s good graces but many will find that they sacrificed their pride, their souls and even some of their riches only to be forsaken when their use to the regime has been exhausted.

For a preview all one has to do is take a not so deep dive into Hitler’s Germany, Viktor Orban’s Hungary or Vladimir Putin’s Russia where oligarchs and industrialists fawned all over their leaders, figuring they could either control or flatter the despot. They later found out that they had his favor only until they had reached their ‘use by’ dates. After that, they were hounded out of business and made to realize that in the process of destroying their nation, they’d destroyed themselves.

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The ICEman Commeth
Germany had the Erlking; the Innuit, Qallupilluit; and the Greeks had Lamia. They were mythological creatures who snatched children.

America has the ICEman. Only he’s not a myth. And he doesn’t just snatch children. He snatches anyone who fits a certain profile. He’s a shapeshifter who can appear in uniform and a camo vest; or as a regular guy headed for the bowling alley to meet his buddies. If he carries an I.D. he doesn’t show it, but you can always assume that when he arrives he’s carrying a gun and bad intentions.

East Germans quaked under the threat of Stasi (the secret police), and Americans are quaking under a United States secret police.

Surveilling, appearing masked, militaristic, menacing, and locked and loaded, our own Stasi is snatching people off the streets and sending them to . . . South Sudan – or some other hellhole.

Fluffing up America’s own Stasi was on dear leader’s, and Stephen Miller’s list of things to do. To that end ICE is receiving a windfall, courtesy of Trump’s ‘big piece of shit’ bill. Yeah, our own secret police is getting more funding than the militaries of most countries, including Israel’s IDF.

Trump will tell you that the ICEmen are ecstatic over the new free reign (of terror) they’ve been given. According to credible reporting, that’s a canard, and morale is in the toilet at Immigration and Customs Enforcement. That’s because many didn’t sign up to be SS style goons. Many signed up to stop human, and drug trafficking and catch bad guys. And now they’ve become the most hated men in America (hint – you can always quit).

And the bad news? As if it’s not bad enough.

With the injection of funding, ICE plans on hiring 10,000 additional agents. One would think that, after having see all the reportage of cruelty, anyone with even a barely functioning moral compass would say, “oh hell no.”

That’s the good part.

But there’s always an inverse, like – good cop/bad cop. If principled men and women don’t want to be part of the American Stasi then that leaves

the true believers, the ones who’ve hung posters of Stephen Miller and Tom Homan over their beds,

or were bullied as children and are looking for revenge,

or wanted to cops but failed the character/emotional stability/dyed in the wool bigot tests.

And with Stephen Miller pushing hard for 3,000 deportation a day one wonders if these recruits will go through the entire training program or get the quickie thumbnail version.

I hope they all realize that the so-called Nuremberg – “I was only following orders” – Defense doesn’t always hold up. That’s assuming that they are ever called to answer for kidnapping and other assorted crimes.

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Seething
Anger is what fuels me. Not hope. Hope breeds complacency. Anger breeds activism.

It’s hard to find hope when Senators quake, the Supreme Court lists towards MAGA, and the Democratic Party becomes more and more irrelevant every day, as it waffles in a no man’s land between “it’s always worked before,” and remaining frozen in place as they over analyze polls.

I’m indignant over the crickets on social media – but not surprised. Disappointed – but not surprised. Where are all my Facebook friends in the midst of this?

But maybe what angers me the most is the belief that when (if?) this is all done, the perpetrators will all skate. Donald Trump might be impeached – for a record breaking third time – but he won’t be convicted. When his term is done, he won’t serve one day of jail time for any of his felony convictions. He won’t be held accountable for the mountain of corruption that he committed during his term. It would be poetic justice if somehow the American monster spends his remaining years after leaving office in indigence. There will never be remorse. The last words that pass his lips before he’s delivered to eternal justice will most certainly be

“it was all a witch hunt”.

For all their cruelty and inhumanity and blatant disregard for the Constitution and human rights, Marco Rubio, Kristi Noem, Tom Homan, and Kash Patel will be allowed to fade into private life. At the very least, I hope that everywhere they go they will be treated as pariahs for their cold-blooded behavior.

Stephen Miller? A regular Heinrich Himmler. If anyone deserves to be prosecuted and punished it’s this ferret faced punk. But he to will likely walk.

Maybe at some point, some will be charged and convicted of something. The cast of brigands, crooks, traitors, fraudsters, and swindlers is so vast that some of these criminals will certainly get caught in the net of justice (if that net is ever repaired).

History will be the final arbiter. Trump, his family, his administration, a legion of bootlicking sycophants, a cowering Congress, and an overindulgent Supreme Court will be pilloried by history.

But will they really care?

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I’ve lost family and friends. After ten years of conjuring up excuses for the people who’ve accepted Trump’s gospel of barbarism, I’ve come to the conclusion that in some recesses of the souls I thought I knew, there only resides a malignant spirit. There are no excuses anymore. No more, “well maybe they’re just . . . “ Ten years and they’ve not reasoned it out? No, we have no common ground. My life is better for rejecting them.

I’ve made new friends, but truth be told, if I could trade having met these decent people for a MAGA-free country I’d seal that bargain in a heartbeat. These new friends are the ones who I protest with. The ones who I met through Indivisible and other resistance organizations. Good people. Reasonable people. Moral people. Brave people. We all have our own personal reasons for resisting, but we’re all of one mind, one heart, one soul, one purpose. My life is better for knowing them.

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I tug down on my wide brimmed hat to block the setting sun. The hat is decorated in urban camo and I only wear it in the backyard to keep the sun off my face when I’m outside reading. I bought it at the local classic car show one Sunday in June of some year long past. I don’t even know why I got the damn thing, but it does come in handy when I need some personal shade.

On this evening the neighborhood is Sunday quiet. I’m comfortably tucked in a garden chair. Looking up from my book I see a bird splashing about in the bird bath a few feet away. Just above the bathing bird another is hammering away at a branch of our yucca tree. Lexi, laying at my feet, takes momentary interest in the birds and then in a lazy sun warmth induced gesture that says, ‘fuck it,’ she puts her head back down. Ha! Some bird dog.

Just inches to my left a bee buzzes from flower to flower, hard at work sucking nectar from the purple salvia. Just in front of me a hummingbird flits among the flowers of a white profusion salvia. If I want, I could make a futile grab for either the bee or the hummer, they’re that close. Sunday evening. Even for this retired agnostic there’s something sacred about these Sunday evenings.

The only people sounds are faint ones coming from the joyous notes of a mariachi band in one of the nearby neighborhoods. Probably a quinceanera. I can imagine the dancing, the Tecates, the tequila shots and the spread. Oh that spread; tamales, carne asada, pollo, and camarones for the taco bar. Guacamole, and homemade salsas from wimpy mild to palate numbing hot. And the rice and the refritos – oh my God. Occasional whoops from the crowd. Once the gaiety is over and the guests have all gone home, what goes through their minds? They’re all, every single soul, probably here legally, but still a looming fear must dog them every waking hour, and torturing their nightly dreams. What in God’s name did they ever do?

What in God’s name have we become?