*record scratch, freeze frame*
yep, it’s me. you’re probably wondering how we got into this situation.
i. election 2020.
i found myself saying the same goddamn thing this year, as well. no surprise there, i’ve been saying the same goddamn things over and over these past four years, living in the cyclical dystopian nightmare that is the united states under a president trump. in this instance, though, it was the simple knowledge that results would not be certain that tuesday or maybe wednesday or maybe even weeks after, the result of the avalanche of mail-in ballots made necessary (for some) due to an uncontrolled (in america) worldwide pandemic and the almost universally maligned electoral college which makes possible our entire election swingable by a fraction of votes in a couple of obscure midwest or northeast swing districts responsible for our last two republican nightmares. like, i get that we’re a republic, okay? but i don’t see why the citizenry is in need for, like, an additional layer of representation. but what do i know? i’m just a queer stoner transboi, graduate of berkeley.
ii. the communist plot to install joe biden.
because a tell-tale sign of a communist plot these days is, apparently, a mail-in ballot. but that is neither here nor there, i suppose, because we all knew where this would go, those of us in our right minds, that is. zeroes and ones had been imprinting onto our minds for months various wild scenarios spouted for months by trump’s depraved, vampiric lawyers, by his brainwashed, meme drunk followers explaining away twenty thousand votes here, two hundred thou there, their q, their kek, and their b00g@l00. it would all fall apart in the courtroom, case after case dismissal, donnie’s delusional dreams falling further with each of them. at least for us, as it turns out.
iii. a post-thanksgiving surge, cubed.
and, of course, while all of this was going on and on and on we would watch our fellow citizens, delirious from covid lockdown, enter airports to board planes by the millions, off to infect great grandma while the college kids fled to quintana roo, mexico, off to infect locals employed by the many vacation resort fucktopias that dot highway 307, all the way from cancun to tulum, and return home here to america bringing with them colorful souvenirs, sunny stories of fun times and family bonding, and a daily death count of, what is it now? four thousand a day and climbing, covid exploding over the land like a mushroom cloud, while they’re all marvelling at it like it’s the fireworks show above cindarella’s castle at disneyland.
and, of course, while of that was going on and on and on dump truck donnie and his bootlicking, alt-reIch sycophants would continue on and on and on denying the pandemic, denying their loss, denying, like actual reality falling further and further down the rabbit role of delusions put forth by a madman of a cult leader, the end result of the southern strategy, the basis of a new lost cause.
iv. the covid relief bill & the grinch who stole christmas, revised.
a comment on the cruelty of forcing everyone to sit around christmas day, small talking like they haven’t been left with their economic dicks in their hands, wondering if that three day that’s coming will be taped on their door in six days while donnie played golf with lady g as his caddie and a big ‘ol poop in his pants. “if only,” we say together with a sigh and a rather large exhale of weed.
i woke at five that morning, that january sixth, eyes open and wide awake, started a french press for myself, and dug in for what i suspected would be a shitshow, something along the lines of maskless q people with trump signs praying and speaking in tongues praising pepe the frog, @ry@n ivanka, and their orange dadi donnie. “if only,” we say together with a sigh, as we light up our dab rigs.
instead we’re left with another national moment, a la that terrible day in september, ten years ago this year, this one an inside job, whipped up by a reality show president, addicted to addies and spray tan, executed by an angry, racist populace, who have spent the last forty years listening to a bucket of lies put forth by their party and elected officials who have done nothing for them. oh, how close we came, my friends.
the pundits when punditing would say over and over that our institutions held in the end, but neither is so. an institution is only as good as its people and i have a feeling we’re nowhere close to the end.
