New York Times Newsletter, 8 February 2025:
* Trump said he would dismiss several board members from the Kennedy Center, the storied performing arts group in Washington, and install himself as chairman.
* A clutch of young aides have swept into agency headquarters with black backpacks and ambitious orders to break the system.
So, one gets banned on Facebook for accurately predicting the future.
We suck. We voted for this. Yes. We. Did!! (Actually, We voted for Nobody, but since We steadfastly refuse, and have refused, to recognize Nobody as a candidate in Our elections, this does not get Us off the hook.) We voted for this, just as Germans voted for Hitler and his party, with their avowed intent to destroy democracy by democratic means. We did not prevent it. We have not stopped it. We own it.
There are rumors in the wind of opposition to 47. Just as there were rumors in the wind of opposition to 45. Those rumors came to nothing. The odds are not great that the rumors of protest will come to anything now. The risks are higher, and 47’s mandate is greater. It nevertheless represents a chance (a last chance?) to reverse the trajectory we’re now on.
Perhaps it will transform Our system of government from Republican to republican … and allow We the People to reflect on how we can champion “democracy” when practically everything we buy is the product of a corporate royal house, every job we hold is in thrall to a corporate royal person.
Perhaps it will rein in the Black Backpack Gestapo … and allow We the People to reflect on how We allowed Our government’s bureaucracy to become dysfunctional to the point that it could plausibly become a target.
Perhaps it will allow some sort of resolution in the Middle East … and allow We the People to reflect on how We allowed a people that suffered a twelve-year Holocaust, that ended with the destruction of its perpetrators, to inflict a 77-year (and counting) Holocaust, the leaders of which are glorified around the world and in Our own churches and governing halls. Perhaps it will allow We the People to reflect on the true purpose of religious movements, and the wisdom in a secular world of tolerating any of them.
Perhaps it will allow (probably temporary) resolution of the red-blue divide in Our formerly-great Nation by permitting the peaceable secession of the New England Union and Cascadia.
And pigs fly. Because, at this point, to realize any of this, some of Us are going to have to give back things, and things are the sole objects of our true worship. Some of Us are going to suffer deprivation. Some of Us are going to be in pain. Some of Us are going to jail, or into exile. Some of Us are going to die.
But, if We are not prepared to die for what We accept to be correct, how then are we any different from those who most ardently perpetrate those things and ideas that We hold to be wrong?
And hey. A lovely carved rock awaits those who pass away, as an enduring token of authentic atonement for Our sins.
