Please Bow Your Head, The Golden Age of American Exceptionalism Has Begun
“Society is like a stew. If you don't stir it up every once in a while then a layer of scum floats to the top.” ―Edward Abbey
Yesterday was bright, sunny, and cold in Central Texas. On our morning walk, we spotted a dead buck lying in the woods about 30 feet from the dirt road where he was most likely hit by a truck or car. Deer’s native medicine is gentleness and we could see it. The sun was shining on him and he looked tranquil and magnificent (as it was in his life, so it was in his death).
Now it is Monday, Martin Luther King Day, Inauguration Day, and this evening, the final college football game of the season will be played—Notre Dame v. Ohio State. Winner take all!
We have arrived at an historic moment in American history, and I’d like to record a few observations about how it feels. In one sense, it feels normal. NFL teams are facing off in the playoffs. Diners are dining. Shoppers are shopping. The sky seems to be in the exact same place it was, except it is grayer today and as a result, colder.
Inside the nation’s TV studios, it’s all sunshine, unnaturally. The mainstream media is practically giddy in their embrace of today’s political theater. You can see why. The hero of this story is also the villain. His court is full of jesters and sycophants, but it’s a coronation nonetheless.
People still love a monarchy. No, that isn’t exactly right. People want order and in theory a King offers it. We say we cherish liberty, but what do our actions say? Even when we honor freedom, too many of us are willing to trade it for what we perceive as security, even when these false notions of security are more lies peddled by an apex predator and enforced by his criminally capitalist cronies.
❦
I must say, it’s pretty wild to see what Don Trump unleashes in people. He sets his followers free in ways that other public figures do not. He emboldens them and makes them feel part of a special club. At the same time, he repels and frightens his critics and enemies. He’s got Nixon’s dirty tricks, Reagan’s ability to entertain, and Bush’s boundary-pushing aw shucks audacity, and it’s all working for him.
According to Financial Times, the Trump effect is also working for corporate America.
The election has also accelerated a wider shift back to more conservative social and political stances and an embrace of unfettered capitalism. Companies are scrapping diversity, equity and inclusion departments, cutting their support for racial diversity charities, and dropping out of climate change groups. They are also scrubbing anything that could be perceived as “woke” from public statements, corporate documents and advertising.
To make America great again, the unchecked forces of capitalism must be free to ravage labor, law, and the environment. It’s the lesson of our time.
❦
The pendulum swings violently in America today and the rope that carries the weight of our democracy is frayed from friction and misuse. When it snaps, the land of the free may find itself in a free fall.
Greed is a form of violence and hate is undiluted poison—we can’t have a healthy, safe, or free society on a diet of poisons. The poisonous diet destroys hope before it extinguishes life. It’s greed that we must overcome, not one particularly greedy man or group of men.
Greed led generations of Americans to take what wasn’t theirs. We don’t have to keep on repeating that pattern today. We can choose to break our ill patterns and weave a new fabric that honors the collective and nourishes the land.
Don’s desire for Greenland, the Panama Canal, and territorial expansion generally is a great example of what’s wrong, not just with him, but with the entire concept of imperial power. Vanity and vice might look good on screen, but we don’t want them in real life.
❦
As a people, we have work to do. We can’t let our disillusionment and angst be a home-brewed poison. We need remedies, not more poison.
Politics and media are powerful partners, and they’re counting on both our passivity and their ability to normalize and then glorify tyranny. Let’s disappoint the masters of war. Let’s piss in their foul wind and disrupt their plans. Let’s defend ourselves, our communities, and our values.
Don wants his subjects on bended knee, and disgustingly, he often gets what he wants because We the People are not organized, and the opposition party is in tatters. The good part of this deeply troubling problem is what it points to—it points to the need for self-reliance and interdependence on a community level.
Close to 90 million Americans, roughly 36% of the eligible voting-age population, did not vote in the 2024 election. That’s how unpopular and seemingly irrelevant national affairs are today. Instead of seeking to make a corrupt system better by small degrees every few years, we need a way to govern ourselves. While we seek it and work for it, let’s also focus on solving problems at the ground level, where we live. People helping people is the healing balm and a great equalizer. The other way, the way of the tyrant, is to be swallowed up in the sea of propaganda and utter nonsense. Let’s not go there.
No matter which party holds power in Washington, the federal government’s agenda is not the people’s agenda—it never was and it won’t be until we truly change the system. We the People need food, affordable housing, education, healthcare, and jobs. USA, Inc., on the other hand, needs revenue. It also covets obedience.
I did not anticipate the day when telling the truth about where we are in America would be considered civil disobedience, but here we are in this new Gilded Age where tech barons reign supreme and truth and justice are in woefully short supply.
Here’s a haiku I wrote to commemorate the occasion.
I am uncle Sam
Will you serve and obey me?
I only ask once