There’s the story of the guy who kept getting told by his boss he was going to be laid off. Week after week he was warned the cuts were coming. At home, he budgeted and told his wife to spend as if there would be no paycheck the next week. Slowly, over time, he accepted his fate, and started actually enjoying life more. One day his boss calls him into the office and asks him to take a seat. The man sits down with a resigned look on his face. “Great news,” his boss smiles, “the company got a big new order, your job is safe!” The man lowers his eyes and doesn’t talk at all. “Don’t you have anything to say, buddy,” his boss laughs. The man finally raises his head and simply says… “I quit.”
In America people are working very hard to enjoy their lives, even as it becomes clear their political system and the government it produces are imploding. People want selfies with friends, selfies with celebrities, selfies with family, selfies with…themselves. There now exists a near pathological desire, reflected in Facebook and Twitter accounts throughout the land, to let people know “I am living life to the fullest. It’s great to be alive!” All this as a nihilist POTUS runs roughshod over the Congress meant to stop his rabid whims in their tracks.
Far from retreating toward any dustbin, Trumpism now seems poised to co-opt the GOP, which first held its nose, then got on its knees. And the electorate? Of course many are determined to resist, and lose sleep nightly, jaws clenched, pondering the outrage of the day. But many others, perhaps the ones who count most, are determined to tune it all out. They no longer distinguish narratives; it has all become one cacophony, shrill and more than just annoying, a threat to well being.
The Trump campaign portended to anybody with decency and a set of eyes and ears a breakdown of established norms that had to threaten something. No candidate for any public office, let alone the Presidency had ever spoken so recklessly, lied so casually, and basked in policy ignorance like Trump. As the campaign wound down, certain he would lose, and fully unbound by any responsibility, he began to resemble Jim Morrison in descent, stuperously fumbling lyrics, and actively trying to incite riots. The system is rigged, Trump babbled over and over. They’re going to steal the election! And then the impossible happened. Nobody was more crestfallen that Wednesday morning than the man with no plan. But awful men do not rise to occasions, they just don’t.
Inaugural hopes quickly gave way to the horror of his CIA speech. A full bank of CNN analysts sat stunned, afraid for the future. And the die was cast.
Now the 35-40% that celebrated Trump’s election demand he lead them further into the chaos of government by tweet, honing their grievance and hatred to a fine edge, moths ever more attracted to the light of atrocity.
The resistance, such as it is, determined to stand for principles they have only just discovered can be fungible, subject to different assessments depending on just how much one stands to lose, braces for the worst. The rest? They don’t say it, probably couldn’t articulate it, and surely would never admit it, but they are busy proving to themselves life can be enjoyed with democracy lost. Forget what it meant and you won’t miss it when it’s gone.
Dictatorships have kids soccer leagues just like democracies. And Thanksgiving will surely still be celebrated. And fireworks are fireworks, even if what they used to celebrate no longer means anything past an old beer commercial. It’ll be ok. Just take another selfie. BC