Nine Weeks In and Counting
This is my country - a sinking ship of fools, a burning theater of the absurd
This is my country.
Land that I love.
I thought.
Then I saw that video of that dog-shooting clown with a blow torch wearing her Rolex, standing in front of that hellscape of a prison in El Salvador, all that humanity lined up behind her like wooden puppets.
And I remembered Abu Ghraib. And the burning villages in Vietnam. And the firebombing of Dresden. And the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And the lynching trees. And the consequences of the worst angels of our nature. The unlimited depths of our inhumanity to other humans.
This is my country.
Land that I love.
Right now, this is happening.
Green card holders, student visa holders, people with temporary protected status - disappeared.
Rule of law, habeas corpus, Geneva Conventions for prisoners - disappeared.
Respect for national security, intelligent decision making, truth, an adult taking responsibility for one’s action - disappeared.
Like his fake set in The Apprentice, Trumps administration is all staged, it’s all theater. It’s all theater to humiliate the hunted and scare the observer.
It’s the experimental theater of illiberalism. It’s the absurdist theater of no boundaries.
It’s a tech rehearsal for fascism. It’s a dress rehearsal for authoritarianism.
It’s happening now.
Watch us now move from disappearing these people to disappearing your neighbor. This is what happens. This is what history teaches us.
And after your neighbor - you.
In the meantime, we are forced to watch this vaudeville show of clowns with blow torches wearing Rolex watches worth the last 20 years of all my income combined wreck the country I love.
Like theater, I liken the events of the last 8 weeks to being on a ship of fools.
This administration surrounds us with the seven C’s - callousness, capriciousness, confusion, corruption, contempt, cruelty, and chaos. Trump is the chief pirate of this ship of fools on these high seas. He is buoyed in this journey by his ax wielding first mate and his crew of absurdist, incompetent and ignorant crew who move the ship by the sheer amount of hot air they blow into their sails.
We are captives on this ship, attempting to raise our own sails, desperately looking to the leadership of someone, anyone, to steer us away from the impending shoals.
But we won’t even make it to the shoals. This ship is being deliberately destroyed from within. It’s not about encountering slight obstacles on our way to reaching a destination on a better far shore. Donald Trump may stroke or die, but JD Vance is ready to take over. Curtis Yarvin cheers as he knows it’s all about the wrecking ball from within. Russell Vought has the playbook to share. Peter Thiel is ready with his money. Zuck is moving with his AI. Jeff Bezos has his ship pointed to the moon and Elon Musk is gearing for Mars. This ship will burn. And it will sink far out in the high seas.
And even if you know how to swim, it’s long way to shore.
Like captive slaves chained to the deck and rowing for our lives on a sinking a ship of fools, we are trapped in this theater of the absurd and it is burning down around us.
This is my country. A ship of fools. A theater on fire.
We are just 9 weeks in and counting.
Peace, while you can find it.