Before the Flood
It's gonna get worse before it gets better
It comes in (red) waves, doesn’t it?
Last week was rough, it goes without saying. But there was something comforting about the uproar, something heartening about the solidarity amid the despair, about posting things like this on Instagram and getting lots of positive response while simultaneously losing thousands of followers. The defeat was crushing, but it was also galvanizing.
The sun came out, and the weekend arrived, and things seemed okay for a second. Maybe you hung out with family and friends and had a good time, like I did, celebrating my wife’s birthday, and maybe for a moment you were able to forget what happened on election day, what it means, and how bad things might/could/almost probably will get. Maybe you’ll forget this weekend too, and things will feel okay for another second.
Until you remember that it hasn’t even started yet.
The new administration doesn’t take over until late January, and then it doesn’t leave for four years. Maybe eight years. Maybe 50 years, now that Trump has all three branches of the government and zero regard for the checks and balances that make America America and keep us from sliding into fascism.
I titled last week’s post or article or essay or newsletter (I don’t know what to call these things!) “False Hope” and I almost titled this one “No Hope” because that’s how it feels. When you’re not wrapped up in the ups and downs of your daily life, it’s almost easy to forget what happened last Tuesday. (Admittedly, even momentarily forgetting is a lot easier for a cis white guy like me, who doesn’t have to worry about being deported or being assaulted or losing my rights.) But when those moments of clarity hit, they hit hard.
And suddenly you’re drowning again.
The recent news doesn’t help. His cabinet selections are appalling, to put it mildly. A collection of the most corrupt, unethical, unqualified dipshits, assholes, and evildoers will be manning some, if not all, of the country’s most important positions, insomuch as those positions continue to exist.
It doesn’t seem like the Department of Education is long for this world. The Environmental Protection Agency may not be either. The president-elect has long vowed to revamp the Justice System, and the irony of his claim that it will no longer be weaponized against political enemies when that is exactly what he pledged to use it for would be funny—so much of this would be funny!—if it weren’t all so bleak.
He’s appointing unqualified people to manage things they want to destroy. It’s almost like he’s trolling us, like he’s doing this to “own the libs.”
And he probably is. After all, the man has no beliefs or policies outside of believing that he can do whatever he want, that his policies should benefit himself and his friends—i.e., people who bow down to him—and should punish the people who don’t. He wants to accomplish two things: to enrich himself and to get revenge.
He nominated scumbag Matt Gaetz, just in time for the obvious scumbag to escape a House Ethics Committee hearing on sexual misconduct, to be the senior law enforcement official in the country. He nominated a Fox News host to run the Department of Defense (and Harris was unqualified?!). He nominated someone who hates the environment to run the EPA. He let bestie-but-probably-not-for-long-if-he-continues-to-hog-the-spotlight Elon create his own department, and Elon promptly gave it the kind of juvenile joke name an 8th grader would use for his fantasy football team. Latest but not least, he is putting absolute nut-job RFK Jr. in charge of the Department of Health and Human Services. The man has no medical degree. He doesn’t even believe in vaccines!
But their beliefs don’t matter. (His U.N. Ambassador, Elise Stefanik, doesn’t have beliefs—or any experience in foreign policy or national security—she just has ambition.) He chose loyalists, people who will do what he wants, what he says, with no pushback, without a second thought, just like we knew he would. Just like we warned he would. Just like Project 2025 said he would. (Yeah, that thing that Trump swore wasn’t his plan? It’s totally his plan.)
So yeah, the next 4/8/50 years are going to hurt. And any Trump supporters or Harris haters who thought it might not be that bad should have been clued in by now, but I wouldn’t count on it.
The people who voted for him—at least those who didn’t immediately google “how to change my vote” directly after googling “what’s a tariff?”—are still grasping at straws to defend Dear Leader. His most outrageous claims were jokes, obviously! And if they weren’t jokes they were fake news, obviously! And if they weren’t fake news, what Harris planned was even worse! And if they weren’t any of those things, it’s Trump Derangement Syndrome!
Which is true. Except they’re the ones suffering from it, not us.
The people who voted for Trump because he’ll fix the economy ignored his long record of business failures and, as Google search trends can tell you, don’t know how tariffs work. The people who voted for Trump because they want the wars to stop ignored Trump’s track record of insulting our allies and kowtowing to our enemies, not to mention his desire to pull out of NATO. The people who voted for Trump because they want the killing to stop in Gaza don’t know much about the people being put in charge of that situation. The people who voted for Trump because they want the Department of Education to be abolished don’t know how essential it is, especially for disadvantaged children, kids in rural areas, and kids with special needs. The people who voted for Trump because of transgender athletes taking over women’s sports clearly don’t know that there are all of 40 transgender NCAA athletes right now. Total. 40. Out of 500,000!
Who are the deranged ones again?
America’s next president once said he could shoot someone in the middle of Manhattan and people would still vote for him, and he was right. While he didn’t do that (yet), he has done plenty of other hateful, immoral, illegal things, from sexually assaulting multiple women and disrespecting military heroes and veterans to defrauding multiple businesses and inciting an insurrection. None of it mattered.
Eventually, someday, it will matter. But it’s going to get worse before it does. We’ve got a long way to go before our righteous “I told you so!” even registers, and we’re all going to have to suffer before it sinks in.
Hopefully we can stay afloat ‘til then.
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Remember This?
I wrote a book! And it will make a great holiday gift for any expecting, new, or veteran parent who needs a laugh and a little reassurance. And who doesn’t these days.
I appreciate you sticking around and doing what you do.
Thanks for keeping up with it all. I cannot. I’m still sick at this election.