Where Did The Day

 Maybe they’re right. I mean, what do I know? Twenty years ago we managed to re-elect a man of such singular stupidity that by the next day it had become a trend for the not so stupid people to apologize online to the rest of the world. Remember that? Eventually there was even a website and a book. I didn’t pose for an apology photo myself. I still remember having watched John Kerry at the convention and knowing we were absolutely going to lose. The podium was less wooden. We were doomed. (Absolutely no point now in reminding anyone, but just for fun, throw your mind back to those good old days and also remember just what a filthy, mendacious, grotesque campaign the other side ran in that one. Doesn’t matter anymore, but just in case one might feel forgiving of ol’ George Jr. or nostalgic for the 2000s.)

How smug I must have felt the day after! I wasn’t happy obviously, but I’d done my duty and voted without enthusiasm for the better man — yet again — and when we inevitably lost I do not doubt I told someone “I told you so,” if not in so many words. 

Imagine my blushes thinking about that now. Arrogant prick. If you will, please consider this my apology for being that guy. Back then I still subscribed to that business of “election cycles” and pendulum swings and the inevitable survival of American democracy. It was easy. We didn’t know any better really, did we? Feels comparatively innocent but maybe I’m wrong and the slope, she was already slippery. I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore. I mean I wasn’t exactly young then, but I will say I am SO much older today.

Anyway as I’ve said probably none of that matters now, history I mean. Also embarrassment, apologies, slippery slopes and pendulum swings and Steve Kornacki’s khakis, also politics, elections, democracy, the Truth, not sure what to do with any of that this morning other than ignore it all. Maybe that’s the lesson. Maybe that’s the way. Seems to work for them. 

So I’m not going to read the newspapers on my phone anymore. Just delete those apps. I’m never reading The Atlantic Magazine again, or Huff Post, or Apple News, etc. None of it. No television news either. No CNN, no MSNBC, no PBS News Hour, or Frontline. Nothing like that. I’m changing my car radio pre-selections to those “oldies” stations that just play that one Bruno Mars song every hour. Maybe a country station or two. No more NPR ever. Done.

And no more nonfiction generally unless it’s something safe and apolitical like murdered women — excuse me, “true crime.” All media. New rule. NO podcasts. 

I should just stop reading altogether. If I were to really commit to living like them I should abandon my books if not burn them but I think we all know I can’t do that. Maybe just read dead white men? There are a lot of’em and a number are among my favorites. Fiction anyway, that would seem to be the safest bet if I can’t give up reading entirely. Maybe stick to genre. I can’t even pretend to read Romance without glowing like a hot kiln — embarrassment, not passion, mind. It is all (ALL) just so bad! So maybe more murdered women. Maybe a western now and then. Dickens won’t work. Too much conscience. Maybe try the Bible again. Such a bad book though. And it’s not like most of those people even own one and the ones that do still read with highlighters! Like children! How mortifying.

I’m really not sure how any of this is going to work. I’ve frankly no idea how they do it, how they live as they do. How does one vote for an actual pile of shit, easily the worst man to ever occupy the office, the worst man to be elected twice, and then justify voting for him by saying breakfast cereal costs too much? Eggs? Gasoline?

Doesn’t matter. They did it again, and by a much wider margin and without a doubt this time. Done. And they seem genuinely happy. I don’t just mean the crazies in the red hats, the cultists standing in empty stadiums for three hours in the freezing rain waiting for their messiah who like all messiahs is inevitably late. Fuck them. Fuck all of them. That doesn’t change. No. I mean all the rest, the ones who don’t talk to reporters or pollsters, the ones who pretended to be “undecided” even up to the day. The ones who never went to a rally in their lives. Those are the ones I’m thinking about. That’s the lifestyle I’m after now.

Maybe they’re right. Maybe it’s better. How would I know? Instead of torturing ourselves with rationality and doubt, or for that matter with the true intent of The Gospels and the example of the Saints and so on, why not just ignore any and everything and everyone not, you know, me? Wait! Simpler even. Overthinking this because it’s pretty obvious that self awareness let alone self examination is not a part of what they do ever. See? It’s like I can’t let go even as I try seriously to let it all go.

Look. What I’m looking for is just a way personally to survive the next four hellish years — because who knows if even that rule will still apply? — and maybe not hate my country. They don’t. I doubt very much that they have any but the very vaguest notion of what this country is or was or was meant to be, but the point is that none of that matters to them. Get it? What matters is supposedly “biological men” in girls sports and unisex bathrooms and none of that actually matters to them either. It is really so much simpler than you can imagine. Of that I am finally convinced. Yes, it is a coalition of religious primitives, fascists, capitalists, racists, misogynists, and generic goons who control that party, but there will never be enough of them to win any national office. For that they need the people I’m determined to be like myself hereafter. Why not? Why not join the new majority?

No, I can no more say what they are than I can say who. That’s rather the point. They aren’t the enemy. We know the enemy. One can smell the enemy, see them everywhere. They will come looking eventually for us. I don’t want to switch sides. I simply want to stop worrying about what’s going to happen now. That’s it. Hasn’t been doing me a bit of good anyway, bad actually for my heart. All I want is to learn to not look beyond the end of my nose except when I’m at the till. I can still be perfectly nice to strangers, have friends of a kind, go out or stay in just as I like. It seems one can have a family, like children, own pets. None of that seems to require even a thought beyond the immediate need, no sympathy beyond the people noted on a short form tax statement.

Defining anything by the negative is always a bad business. Yes, but what ARE you?! But what choice do we really have? They aren’t anyone in particular are they? The last time this happened I remember reading all sorts of statistical analysis and population studies and all that. This time I’ve read about disaffected X and indifferent Y and the loss of traditional coalition members Z. Not helpful. Women voted for the man (!) again. More men probably but doesn’t matter now anyway does it? How does that help? Who is that meant to help?

These people aren’t. That’s who they are. I know that rhetorically that is some lame shit, but here we are. They aren’t. They don’t read. Maybe they read something on their phones but nothing in paragraphs. They watch funny clips of people falling on the ice? Everybody does that though so that’s not probative. They don’t read newspapers or watch the news or read books with un-sunny covers. They evidently don’t do any of the things that have made me personally so well informed as to again be completely miserable this morning. To restate the obvious, they aren’t me or I ain’t them or we’re not better say because they are never going to read this. (“Too long” would be the nicest thing they’d say if they ever did which they never will.) 

What they do, what they did do again and in greater numbers this time, they voted. The argument Bill Clinton made over and over until even I believed him was that if we vote we win because our ideas are better but we just need to vote. So maybe yet again we didn’t. I won’t argue. In fact, I don’t really want to argue any of it anymore. Seems contrary to my whole resolution, argument. You’ll get none to speak of from them, let me tell you. Did you seen the person on the street interviews before the election? I don’t mean with the rally nuts. Those at least are entertaining in a sideshow way. “See a man pull a conspiracy out of his ass! Watch as a grandmother turns the air blue while mispronouncing the name of both the Vice President and the former Speaker of the House!” No, I’m talking local tv reporter, big clumsy mic, lady in a grocery store parking lot, rather shyly talking vaguely about inflation, a man in an old concert T-shirt complaining at a gas-pump. They don’t make arguments. They just state or more accurately misstate the obvious. That’s the ticket.

So let me just try to state the obvious then. Maybe they are right. Maybe don’t think this through. Maybe don’t try to reconcile this catastrophe to history or try to compensate for the staggering loss of all three branches of our government. Just… don’t. They clearly will not be thinking about consequences because they clearly could give a fuck so long as the price of eggs comes down and their gas bill comes down and maybe some “biological” boy who thinks he’s a girl gets kicked to death in a restroom — though honestly? That would just be sad but nothing really to do with anything anyway. I mean, these Trump voters, they’re not monsters you know, most of them. They’re just trying to get by like the rest of us, right? And besides, think about it. Think about that kid’s parents. Aren’t they really better off? I mean honestly, isn’t the kid come to that? So embarrassing. Don’t even like to think about it. 

Think about something else. Who has the time to think anyway? I WISH I could find the time to read! This is way too long. Have you seen the prices at the supermarket?! Somebody should do something. They’re all the same really though, aren’t they? They’re all crooks. No difference really. At least he tells it like it is! Can’t help but like him. At least he’s real, you know? And you don’t get to be that rich without doing something right! But don’t listen to me! What do I know?! Jeez Louise, look at the time. Where did the day do, am I right? 

Ooooowwww, I love this song!

“…there’s not a thing that I would change / ‘Cause your amazing / Just the way you are…”

Those people are so gifted, aren’t they? What is he anyway? He’s so little! Have you seen him dance?! They can all dance, I swear. Me I’ve got two left feet! 

Anyway.

Where did the day go?