Month: October 2024

Final Thoughts on the (Possibly) Impending Cataclysm

What’s wrong with you, America? Have you gone mad? Is this just a terrible dream? Are you trying to scare me?

Mission accomplished!

What is it about Trump you love so much? His eloquent, insightful speeches? His command of facts and figures? His empathetic affection for humankind? His warm sense of humor? His life of selfless public service? His personal charm and good looks?

 I suppose it would be paranoia on my part to think that so many of my fellow Americans openly adore this repulsive convicted huckster just because they know it drives me crazy. But I can’t come up with any other explanation.

If Donald Trump wins, I may have to move. Not abroad–I wouldn’t desert my country in her hour of need. Just to a state where recreational pot is legal. How else am I supposed to get through the next four years?

It’s strange that Trump claims that immigrants are destroying this country, considering that all four of his grandparents were either immigrants or foreigners, not to mention his own mother, two-thirds of his brides, and his running mate’s in-laws. For goodness’ sake, four of his five children are the children of immigrants.

But maybe he’s on to something. It only took one wicked immigrant to ruin Twitter.

But (you object) Trump is mainly referring to “illegal” immigrants. It’s not a distinction he always makes. But in any case, this country badly needs a lot more immigrants. We need them to build houses and harvest crops and care for our sick and elderly. We need their intellectual talent to enhance our teaching and research ranks, as Kamala Harris’ parents did. We need them to work and pay into our dwindling Social Security fund. We need them to start families and help our aging society to stay vital.

And all that requires a secure, efficient, humane immigration system. But a festering morass of politically astute resentment named Donald Trump put the kibosh on the bipartisan bill that would have done just that,

The New York Times’ poll watchers have recently floated the possibility of Donald Trump actually winning the popular vote. What would be more dispiriting: Trump playing the electoral map better than Harris and winning a second time in spite of losing the popular vote, or finding out that most Americans really do want him as their president?

In the debate between the vice-presidential candidates, journalist Margaret Brennan pointed out to Vance that not so long ago, he had described Trump as “America’s Hitler.” And Vance didn’t flinch. He didn’t deny the charge. He responded that he had been wrong, had been misled by “the media,” and had since changed his mind about Trump.

So Vance and I are in absolute agreement about one thing: since Vance likened Trump to Hitler, Trump hasn’t changed; Vance has.

Journalists love to ask Kamala Harris what she would do differently than Biden. Harris has been unable to answer the question adroitly. “Well, I’m obviously not Joe Biden” was funny the first time, but it’s not an answer.

Still, it’s a dumb question. Harris still has a day job, namely, vice president of the United States. That job consists first and foremost of enabling her boss to do his difficult and supremely important work. In what particular universe do you make your boss’ job more difficult by publicly nitpicking their performance? Unless your boss does something really awful, like trying to destroy our democracy….

We Surrender!

“I think the bigger problem are the people from within. We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And I think they’re the — and it should be very easily handled by — if necessary, by National Guard or, if really necessary, by the military.”—Donald John Trump, Republican candidate for president of the United States of America, Fox News interview, October 13 2024.

Dear once and possibly future Commander-In-Chief Donald Trump,

Don’t shoot! I surrender!

I am terrified that I might be included in your target demographic of “sick radical left lunatics.” Do you have to be all four to qualify, or just one? If you could please clarify!

I don’t consider myself sick, though I have had the sniffles lately.

Nor radical. Probably the most radical thing I ever did was vote for the independent presidential candidate John B. Anderson in 1980. Remember him? No? Anyway, not exactly a Marxist revolutionary.

I like to think I don’t belong in the lunatic category, but let’s be honest, that’s pretty subjective. I mean, injecting COVID patients with bleach? Only a lunatic would suggest something like that, ha ha! No, wait, don’t shoot!

But I could be fairly described as “left.” It doesn’t take much these days! For example, in my house we compost.

I don’t feel like an “enemy,” but the U.S. military isn’t too concerned with making fine distinctions within the other side once they get rolling. And you have been making me feeling uncomfortably “other” lately.

So let me proactively repeat: I surrender!

Because basically, I’m a coward. I mean, I can probably throw a punch about as well as the next Medicare-eligible U.S. citizen, but I don’t do so good against, like, shrapnel or machine-gun rounds. In the defensive weaponry category, I don’t own so much as a BB gun. And even if I had a military-grade assault rifle like so many of your lunatic, I mean patriotic, fans carry around, it would probably hurt more than help against your Abrams tanks, your Stryker armored vehicles, your mortars light, medium and heavy, your A10 Warthog fighter jets, your what-have-you. And beyond all that, I’m really not interested in opening fire against my fellow citizens, in uniform or out.  

So I’ll go peacefully. You can pick me up anytime and cart me off to Guantanamo. If possible I’d like to take along a few books, a package of Nutter Butters, and a bottle or two of Jameson’s.

If, on the other hand, the nice, sane, thoughtful, principled candidate wins, as I desperately pray that she does, then you can take your mean-spirited fascist threats and stick them up your fat felonius spray-tanned gold-plated [expletive] [expletive] sand-trap.

Sincerely, Garden of Eaton