The Tangerine Typhoon Is Upon Us. We’ll Get Through It. Somehow

A giant orange hued storm is about to hit. Since I woke up this morning I’ve felt like I was back in my hometown in southern Illinois where I lived my first 26 years. Deep downstate, and just eight miles from the Mississippi River. It sat at the highest elevation in the county – just west of the town limits the landscape started dropping down into the river’s “bottomland” but the geography made for too many ‘interesting’ times. As vast frontal systems swept across the plains you could see the line of the system in the sky approaching. You could actually feel the storm coming, the change in the air even if you weren’t outside or in a part of town where you could look west. Either way you knew things were going to be bad. You hoped, and many prayed damage would be minimal. Sometimes it worked out that way. Sometimes even without tornados actually touching down the damage was severe both in my town and others east of us, including fatalities.

My point is that for all the dread, and seeing the worst happen we got through it. Structures and life, including in families that suffered injury and even death went on. Rebuilt. Perhaps not the same as before but eventually the storm passed.  Shattered lives and entire communities find a way to carry on. For all the negative things in the human spirit which is capable of so much good yet also so much bad overall the urge is to carry on.  To make the best of things once the worst has passed.

We see it again and again after natural disasters.  Sometimes it takes years, even a generation to get back to whatever the new normal turns out to be but people pick up the pieces.  Is it easy? Of course not. Is there anger and bitterness sometimes? Sure. People can and do prepare for the worst, especially in areas prone to disaster. And sometimes it’s not enough. Sometimes a natural disaster turns out to have been made worse by human activity/actions starting long before the disaster. Think the Army Corps of Engineers and seventy years of trying to tame the Mississippi and how New Orleans’ devastation was made so much worse because of it when Katrina hit.

Sometimes people know, they KNOW what they are doing makes them more vulnerable yet for whatever short-sighted reasons they keep on doing it. Like voting not once but twice in great enough numbers to allow a flaming orange human shaped rectum that’s overstuffed with the nastiest excrement one can imagine ready to explode to sit in the White House as President. Many who voted for him will of course come to regret doing so. Not that they will ever admit it to others. That’s a longer topic for another time. Worse, not even a majority of the country voted for him. Unlike 2016 and 2020 he did manage to prevail in the popular vote but only by about 1.5 percentage points. Mandate my ass!  He couldn’t crack the 50% barrier and that’s got to be eating him alive.

Trump always intended retribution on not just his political enemies but on this country for not voting for him in OVERWHELMING numbers in 2016 and 2020. And again this time. I have no doubt in my mind a good chunk of his new alliance with his “tech bros”, dudes who could buy and sell him for tip money is more than enough proof that he intends to take care of himself, a select few “Oligarchs” and do all he can to screw over everyone else. For not worshiping him the way he feels he should be worshiped.  We are ALL going to get coated in nasty, orange colored Trump excrement. So will the free world.  I’m reminded of a scene from Full Metal Jacket, a briefing by a young Captain to his small band the morning after the Tet Offensive in 1968:

Many reading this weren’t born in 1968 but those of us old enough to remember recall how the Tet Offensive impacted events here. North Vietnam’s General Giap knew all those attacks would ultimately fail and they did. That wasn’t his goal however. He wanted the narrative in this country to change (if you’re not old enough you’ll never understand the impact of Walter freaking Cronkite saying the war was unwinnable) and it did end the Presidency of LBJ. And we got Nixon, and with him Watergate which shook this country to its foundation. However we got through it all.

We’ve been through plenty since. Some good and some pretty damned bad including the financial meltdown in 2008.  We got through it. Then COVID. We got through it. Getting through it hasn’t meant lasting and damaging consequences, but somehow we’ve managed to fight our way out through to something better than the awful storm. To rebuild after political disaster just like we do after natural disasters.  Even if things aren’t as good as they were before sometimes just getting back to an ability to have some basic stuff working is one hell of a victory.

That’s where I am this morning. Feeling the very air itself change. Looking at the sky and seeing that frontal system, a straight line stretching across the sky as far as I can see from south to north. Knowing what’s coming is going to be bad, and even horrific if I’ve seen weather forecasts and news about what’s already taken place as that frontal system passed through other states. I recall the images of hurricane Katrina slowly moving along. It was massive, the clouds covering the entire gulf of Mexico. I think of now, and an even larger storm see from space only colored Trumpian orange.

There’s not a damned thing anyone can do to stop it. Or avoid being caught up in it. All we can do is hunker down, save what we can as it ravages everything in its path and when like all storms it eventually ends pick up the pieces and rebuild. This country has done it before, including in times where WE created or at least allowed (via inaction or ineffective/weak action) to allow it to form in the first place.  But we’ve gotten through.

I’m an old fart now, officially a senior citizen. I hope I’ve got plenty of years left but even if I hit 80 or older the damage about to happen won’t be fixed in my lifetime. I’ve struggled like hell with that for a number of days now. Summoning the will to pitch in and engage in doing what I can to mitigate the damage, and then rebuild when it’s time to do so is a tough task for me. For many others. However, in the end we don’t have a choice.

Dig in folks. It’s a long and painful time we’re about to go through. What we all have to do is resolve to honor those who came before us, and who in the darkest of times endured. And rebuilt after incalculable damage was done.

For now the Orange Orangutan is on his way to the Capitol. If you want something amusing to think about consider this. He was all set to give an “American Carnage” speech again – to a crowd of enthusiastic MAGAs. Alas, bitter cold prompted cancelling the outdoor ceremony we usually see and instead the Inaugural Address will be delivered to four hundred or so VIPs in the Capitol Rotunda. It is NOT a place known for good acoustics. On the contrary. Don’t let the recent even for say President Carter, or for others who’s caskets have been place there to honor them. Those giving remarks do so in somber, muted tones.

If Trump tries to to give a rousing speech and allows his voice to ramp up in volume it’s going to make what’s surely going to be an appalling speech that much worse. Hearing the sound, the echoes later on when he watches will make even HIM realize how pathetic he is. Well, that might be a subject for another article later today. However even if you can’t bring yourself to watch it you’ll be able to see clips. And it might well make for some ‘mock Trump memes’ right out of the gate!

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