I don’t.
Except for a brief check in to see whether or not violence broke out during Trump’s arraignment, I pretty much ignored most of what went on yesterday. In spite of calls for violence from Trump, DeSantis, Lake and every other traitor, there was none. Barely any Trump supporters showed up. Those that did are not worth writing home about.
There’s a quote by Walt Whitman that is reverberating these days —
"Re-examine all that you have been told... dismiss that which insults your soul."
Trump insults my soul. So do those who mindlessly follow him. So does a media that enables him.
If I wanted to have my ethics insulted by lies, I’d listen to the howling of an over large orange baboon trapped in a cage of his own malignant narcissism.
I don’t.
If I wanted to have my intelligence insulted, I’d watch and read media that has abandoned all journalistic ethics by never calling out the baboon’s malformed toxicity.
I don’t.
If I wanted my children’s and grandchildren’s futures put at risk, I’d buy into all the crap the Trumps, DeSantis, and the MTG types throw.
I don’t.
If I wanted to spend a scintilla of time paying attention to people who live in perpetual victimhood, who refuse to use the minds life gave them, who love having an excuse, any excuse, to hate, to refuse accountability for their own choices, I would.
I don’t.
Nor will I be frightened of people so willfully stupid, so ridiculous, so easily manipulated, that they are in a perpetual state of meltdown over M&M’s or Bud Light or Disney or art, or books, or rainbows.
I have had to face real terrors in my life — real is someone I love going to die, am I going to die — moments. More than moments. Years of it.
The poo throwing orange baboon, those who cling to him for a bit of his supposed power, those who sell him to the rubes — the clowns that the MSM has spent years normalizing — don’t begin to come close.
I have a very long intimate relationship with fear and how to carry it. I know damn well when someone wants me to be afraid.
I know when someone wants all of us to be afraid. That is why orange baboon and those who cling to him do what they do. That fear is what they push. That fear is what the clickbait headlines and hate mongers sell. That fear is what those who support them drink like mother’s milk.
That is not who I am.
That is not who we are.
We’ve had our personal battles and god knows the larger fights. The racism and sexism that put so many in harm's way. The unequal economic and legal systems. The anti-science insanity putting our home and lives at risk. The repeated drumbeats of stochastic terrorism. The othering. The demonization. The stripping away of dignity, of basic humanity. Of safety.
In a gun crazed country.
We wonder if our children will return home alive from a day at school.
Or a parade
Or the grocery store.
Or knocking on a door.
We worry about medical bills, the mortgage/rent, and keeping food on the table.
We worry about our democracy, wonder if it will survive.
So, we pay attention. We’ve paid attention for years and we’re exhausted.
The orange baboon’s constant howls, his destruction of every decency. A press that applauds his yowls and the crap he throws. A Republican Party that gave up all pretense of governing in favor of autocracy and power at any cost.
They lie and defame to enflame. They use their acolytes fear and rage like weapons, a ticking time bomb set for the entire country.
We understand fear.
We also understand the courage it takes to rise and fight another day.
Because this is not our first battle and won’t be our last.
We’re done with the pathetic maladroit orange baboon and those like him. They are fundamentally pathetic, sorry twisted things afraid of facing life in all its complexities. Afraid of facing themselves. Afraid to grow. Stunted. We’re done with an afraid of facts mainstream media that coddles them while erasing us.
We won’t be small for them. We won’t cower for them.
We won’t be less than all that we are for them.
That is what they want and we never, ever, give them what they want.
Instead, we stand up.
We are the good people in this country. We are the majority, and we have work to do.
We who believe in freedom shall not rest.