I’ll admit this is worse than 2016. I experienced the death of loved ones including my parents much earlier in life than the average person. Grief is something I’ve experienced lots of times, and not just over the loss of people. It’s part of living. And in normal times it’s easy to acknowledge that all living things die. In it’s own way our form of Democracy, a Constitutional Republic was a living thing. Like people, the United States I grew up in is dead.
Grief again is overwhelming me. Yet I know from experience that despite the hole left by the loss of something or someone deeply loved with time a way can be found to carry on. Life will be different and perhaps never be as good again but again, experience has taught me that one can still experience some good now and then. But first I, and you too have to come to terms with the fact that something precious has been forever lost. None of us can take much time to do so but we have to grieve, at least in part.
First and foremost however is to FIGHT the urge to just give up. To quit. Please, I beg anyone reading this if you think nothing else in the hours, day, weeks, months and even years ahead when you are thinking “what’s the point?” tell yourself this:
DON’T GIVE TRUMP AND MAGA THE SATISFACTION!!!
I’m reminded of a paragraph from Peter Gent’s The Franchise where the main character, a pro-football quarterback finds something his best friend wrote shortly before being murdered. “Bobby” had learned how the head of the player’s union had conspired with owners to screw over the players. They found how he’d learned what was going on hence he was murdered. What did “Taylor” read? “They can kill us and they can eat us but that doesn’t mean we have to taste good. We can still stick in their craw and make em sick as f**king dogs!” I’m working on developing the mindset that if Trump/MAGA wants to feast on me to be the nastiest sh*t sandwich they ever took a bite of. Admittedly I’m not there yet but I’m working on it. You should too.
That’s the kind of feeling I’m working on building up in my own mind. I’m also thinking back to when I was a better than average ballplayer. I went through a lot of years of awkward growth before my last couple of years of high school. But from the time I was a kid I practiced, and practiced and practiced. I never knew until later on how many people saw me out there grinding away. And despite my height wondered why I bothered given my clumsiness from a couple of growth spurts. But all those years paid off and I became a fierce competitor.
How fierce? With a single exception in games where in the closing minute or two I knew we would lose, I still fought my a$$ off to cut the margin if only by a point or two. Only once did I want to just leave the floor and head straight to the locker room before the final horn. It was the last game of my high school career when we lost the Regional Final to an inferior team. But you know what? I kept playing after I got into college. I wasn’t Division 1 level talent but I played enough at a lower level to prove I could. The experience wasn’t as good as in those high school years but still worth it!
My point (again) is that sometimes things won’t ever be the same or good but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth putting in the work, the effort to create something new that’s worthwhile. Forty nine years after she died (I was 18) I still miss my mom every day. Dad died five years later when I was 23 and while I haven’t thought of him as much since Trump came along almost every day I’ve done so. (He predicted what’s come to pass.) Both losses affected my life deeply. And not for the better. Still, while there have been ups and downs (mostly downs in the last ten years and aside from politics) I’ve had some periods where life was better than I thought might be possible growing up. At times, to quote the late and great Jimmy Buffett I would during good times say to myself “The pleasure was worth all the pain.”
Anyway, I dealt with grief, changed life circumstances and carried on. And through other profound losses both of people and other things too. THIS is a much tougher thing. We all need to admit that and right now. But you know what? Despite what our country and the world is about to go through it’s happened before.
In the 1930s the German people elected their own version of Donald Trump. You all know what that led to. By the end of the decade he’d conquered everything in Europe but the British Isles and that too seemed inevitable. He’d forged an alliance with Russia (yes, they didn’t come to us begging for help and become an “ally” until Hitler attacked THEM) and other dictatorships and Japan too. Plenty of isolationist sentiment existed in this country and there was a growing chorus of people who wanted us to become Nazis too. You’ve read about it here on PZ recently.
It took a couple of leaders surrounded by politicians telling them to capitulate to say NO. Somehow we are going to fight back. And against all odds FDR and Churchill rallied our respective countries to begin the long and terrible fight to overcome all that evil that seemed unstoppable. I won’t bore you with a detailed history of the costs in pain, suffering death and even money. You know enough as it is.
Yet against all odds freedom prevailed. The forces of evil were beaten back. Like the KLAN they are never truly eradicated but history also tells us what came after that storm was the likes of which the world had never seen. Our country built something good and helped others to do so. Who knows? It might turn out that another country leads the charge and winds up helping US rebuild in some new, “someday” Marshall Plan. I’ll probably be dead and gone by then.
However I know this. Our country is broken and what was will never be the same. It can’t be welded or glued back together because the damage is far from done. However I also know that nearly half of us fought to keep what’s happened from happening. That’s a lot of people. A lot of people who right now like me are devastated. Wondering whether it’s even worth fighting back. Thinking about QUITING. Or worse. So once again I say:
DON’T GIVE TRUMP AND MAGA THE SATISFACTION!!!
The barren tree in the title image will regrow its leaves. Our country is that tree, and it’s up to us to nurture it to a point where it can once again grown green leaves. I’ve seen trees that were badly damaged by storms including being hit and split by lightening. Some have, albeit with hard work and care have survived. They don’t look the same but are healthy. Think about that. Companies go bankrupt yet sometimes emerge and survive. They might not be the same but they continue providing products/service and jobs. Often when experts said it wasn’t possible. But no fight is won if a person doesn’t at least fight back.
So grieve but not for too long because there is so much to be done. Even if you aren’t healed (and I won’t be for a long, long time) there is precious little time to lose. Our leaders who might organize some resistance NEED to know we’ve got their backs so please, summon whatever you can as quickly as you can and make that clear. If half the country makes it clear we ARE going to fight back it WILL make a difference. For now, as is said at moments in the Naval Service when a fight’s about to commence, “Stout Hearts.”
Exactly what I was telling someone a couple of hours ago. we HAVE to keep on going. The minute we give up is when we lose EVERYTHING!
I wrote yesterday that DOJ shouldn’t do Trump’s dirty work for him by shutting down the cases against him before he’s sworn in. If he wants the prosecutions he SHOULD have to face shut down, then make HIM commit his own damned (new) Obstruction of Justice. Garland and Smith will, like Dr. Fauci have a MAGA target on them for the rest of their lives either way. Might as well make it worth it by refusing to capitulate to Trump!
As for MAGAs coming for me well they might. If they do I want to go to hell in a crowd if you catch my drift.
“Stout Hearts” I like that.
As of Jan 20 I will cease pledging allegiance to the flag. Our fallen have died in vain.
Eat sh_t and die the others.
Donate to the ACLU. We as a nation are going to need them.
My grandfather fought in WWI and was shot twice in the neck. It bothered him the rest of his life. My father fought in WWII and would have died in the attack on Pearl Harbor if not for being in sick bay. One of my uncles died overseas in WWII. My husband proudly served. None of them losers nor suckers.
Because of tyrant’s stupidity, my husband got a mild case of Covid but still had heart and kidney failure. He has one barely functioning kidney because of fuckface von shitzenpantz. And he had heart attack and triple bypass surgery in March. My late stepfather always said if our experience in life don’t make us bitter, they make us better. I believe that. Every bad thing that has knocked me down (too many to list!) have brought me to the very good life I had up until last Wednesday. Now I am trying to figure out how to save it all. I can’t. I just cannot figure it out. No matter what route I take we lose.
At the gym yesterday the 3 worst of the magats, all loud mouths, were crowing to one of the managers about the idiot Democrats. I started yelling that they have a policy against intimidation and better put up signs to leave politics at the door before fists start flying. If I can’t get my earbuds to work I cannot continue to go there. I got some consolation in playing the “fuck Donald trump” song over and over, very quietly. It inspires me. But I still have less than three months to protect what we worked so hard to accumulate. The idiots today don’t know about tightening your belts, not using credit cards nor loans, and saving money so they cry that they can’t afford a house nor bread and eggs. Wait until the tariffs and deportations raise prices sky high. Of course, it will be president Biden’s fault. He’ll be in jail or shot January 20th along with so many other of the orange toddler’s “enemies”. What will the world do? What Can they do? Look on in horror just like the rest of us while the magats scream for fux to televise the bs.
In one day everything I and all other Americans have accomplished, from fighting for freedom, accumulating a nice nest egg/portfolio, the best economy in the world (thank you President Biden!!), and attempting to save democracy from the morons is about to be gone. No country will save us but one will come in and take us over. Trump will sell us. I expect it will not get better in my lifetime. Maybe my grandson’s? I am not giving up. But I read agenda 47 vs project 2025 yesterday. So much will be torn down and he is too big a moron to build it back, no matter which route is taken and no matter who “helps” him.
So, how do we protect ourselves first so we CAN live to fight? I do not know. I am planning to lose it all or at least a lot of it. I’m hoping we can survive the next 100 year reign of king menace and his family. Maybe there WILL be one tree left after he drills on all government land, builds his peace or patriot cities I think he calls them where women crank out white babies all built on government land, builds the too numerous to count “iron domes” all around the country, and all the other damage. But we will be lucky if one tree remains.
My word he is a f@cking MORON! And the people who think this is good, that this will be better, are total A$$HOLES!! Even more so than I knew before. It will give me not satisfaction to say I told you so to them. They still won’t see the truth.
As usual, well said. Simply put: When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Instead of GOTV the egenda now should be GO = GET OUT. Knock on doors/heads the Dem message of Hope, the need to be alert for and join any organisation that acts for the people, for rights. GO and be visible. Walz and others: time to rest when we are dead as will surely be the case if 2025 gathers force and smothers the light.
Thank you Denis. This may be your best work ever. It speaks to how I, we grieve, but how we can own it, acknowledge it, but not give into it. Our nation has vanquished greater enemies than that fat, smelly lying slob. We have work to do.
Oh, and Denis. I’m so sorry that you lost your parents at such a relatively young age. That’s a long time to go without their love, wisdom and life experiences to turn to.
Thank you for sharing it with us. It could not have been easy.
I was brought up, as were I think most people being taught life wasn’t supposed to be or would be easy. However, if you worked hard in school to learn (and even small towns like mine had good schools up until about 40-45 years ago), and worked hard once you were an adult you could have a decent home and a family, go on vacations with them and when you retired be able to live without worrying day-to-day about how you’d make it each month. That you could have a secure retirement. BUT it would take a lifetime of serious, sometimes hard work.
I was taught to expect, and in fact started learning earlier than many that life would throw some mean goddam punches. To me and to those I cared about. With all that however I was taught I lived in a country that was better than any other for giving people a chance to, through hard work do ok and even leave things a little better for the next generation. I never had kids. I do recall when I left active duty spending five months as a substitute teacher in Fairfax County Virgina being a substitute teacher (I’d gone on terminal leave and after discharge was sorting out what would be next) and wow. In what was touted as one of the best public school systems in the country the Jr. High and High School kids I taught were overall notably behind where the average kid from my podunk town and economically depressed region (southern Illinois) had been at their age. That struck me, what had happened and the attitude of parents. When I was in school a threat to call your parents almost always evoked instant ‘STFU and behave’ but where I was in the late 1980s it evoked laughter and contempt more often than not. That experience kept me from going back to school and getting a teaching credential.
But something had clearly changed, and it only got worse over time. If in our final decade or two of life the boomer generation gets screwed over which seems likely those who had and raised kids (Life didn’t work out that I’d have children of my own) collectively didn’t instill enough work ethic, in part because the one thing those we call The Greatest Generation collectively didn’t instill it enough. Or in enough of the boomer generation.
Sometimes a person or even society has to hit rock bottom before admitting there’s a problem and choosing whether to fix it or just give up. The U.S. has just voted to check out rock bottom and in the years to come will wind up getting a good look at it. I want to get my head screwed back on good enough to be one of those who help others/society deal with the mess they’ve made for themselves and choose to accept where they went wrong and starting fixing their own lives and that of society.
It’s not an easy task and the road will be long and tougher than we can imagine. The same way people felt back at the beginning of WWII. A look at the map in Jan. or certainly by Feb. 1942 had most people feeling it was already lost. As we were just emerging from the Depression with some actual signs things would get better Pearl Harbor was a combination gut-punch, kick in the crotch and fist to the face. So, in those months when so many thought all was already lost if you look back people were volunteering in droves to join the armed services and looking for other ways to help fight back. It’s worth noting that about 35% of those who volunteered for military service were rejected during their physical exams because of years of malnutrition, untreated medical issues etc. during the depression. So many felt like failures, but they so often found some other way to contribute.
I’m pissed off about the finger pointing going on on our side right now. It’s not just unproductive, it’s COUNTER-Productive. There will be time later to dig into what went wrong. What we need to see right now is what the country saw the day after Pearl Harbor. Recuiting Offices with lines around the block of people signing up to fight.
Thank you. So much truth. And so much raw emotion. I’m trying to get beyond the tears. The finger pointing is just giving fux and the gqp more to laugh at and feel superior about. I get a very small bit of solace listening to Nipsey Hussle song “Fuck donald trump”. There was a childhood song called Bullshit. We sang it on the bus on field trips, etc. Many versions exist, but this was ours: “Bullshit it makes the grass grow green, bullshit it makes the grass grow tall. Bullshit, or is it cow shit, or is it bullshit or cow shit at all” I think it’s just the smell of King Fuckface the First and all the BS that pours out of his anus shaped facial orifice and those of his followers. But we must be very careful. He has stopped going on social media. Even on news. Stone cold silent. Holding the cards that closely to his fat chest is not good and we should all be very afraid. And we must try to find signs of what is going on. I worry it will not be good whatsoever. Thank you again. I hope we all live through this.
The silence sure IS deafening. You’re right.
Thank you Denis. I am still skulking around, this is the only place I feel safe enough. I have deleted most other news sites, so please do take my presence as a compliment.
I lost my parents at age 13 (my mum) and 39 (my dad), so I know grief and how to navigate my way through it. My problem is I became a bit of control freak because of those losses, and what life became for me. I went into counselling twice (took me 16 years to ask for help after my mum died, but I asked for help as my dad was dying from cancer, so did most of my grieving for him then – it helped enormously). I am very fortunate in that I met my husband the day before my 17th birthday. We have been married for 32 and a half years now (together approaching 40). As I said on the day the of the election results: I am so so sad, but I am beginning to feel a very tiny glimmer of hope. Our communication facilities are far reaching now (they weren’t as effective nor as accessible in then1930s). I have to hope that those who are enlightened and brave will keep us going and strengthen us to really fight the good fight. I will stay as long as I think there is a chance of getting through this to the other side. Thank you Ursula, Denis, Murf, Dino and Jason. Let’s keep going in the name of all things just.
Politico has a great article on the states already fighting “King Fuckface the First” as Jeff Tiedrich from “everyone is entitled to my opinion” calls him. Mr Tiedrich also explains all the acts of defiance that he has heard. Love the part where mr Tiedrich makes fun of KF the First for thinking there is an actual “faucet” from canada that takes a whole day to open but will give California all the water it needs. I really want to see that giant faucet. How many people does it take to turn it? A whole day….. Geez, and those magat morons elected him. Just shows they are the uneducated he loves so much.