I should take a step back writing about Donald Trump. I’d been planning to watch the debate and then comment on it, but of course, there was no debate. There was a schoolyard bully, flailing around aimlessly, aggressively, disgustingly and frighteningly. I know the majority of people reading this were as horrified as I was, watching that shitshow… and for those who think otherwise… well, there’s really nothing I can tell you. In talking about Trump, I’m either preaching to the choir or talking to a brick wall. Either way, to a great extent, I’m wasting my time discussing it. All I can say is that if you still support that deplorable, awful excuse of a president, there’s nothing anyone can say that will change your mind. Therefore, I will leave it at that, with one final point:
I’ve said before I don’t watch a lot of TV – not because I don’t want to, but because I just don’t have time. I’d binge watch 12 hours a day for a few weeks, given the opportunity. My “to watch” list grows a lot faster than I can get through it.
As a result, at the moment, I’m a few years behind… and watching the second season of the excellent adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s “A Handmaid’s Tale”.
It’s very good… and very relevant. It deals with a dystopian future, where the first season’s episodes flash forwards and backwards – dystopian future/normal past… but, unlike most SciFi of that genre, the dystopia is not in the distant future; rather, it’s probably no more than 5 years apart… and it all takes place “now”… it could be 2005 to 2010 or it could be 2018 to 2023.
A lot has changed in those 5 years, and the differences are made clear in the first season. But now, in the second season, it’s starting to fill in the blanks… how exactly do we go from a normal society, to a messed-up fascist military occupation based on religious zealotry?
It doesn’t happen overnight, but it doesn’t take long. It’s frightening to see the fiction of the show and compare it to the realities of the U.S. today. While it might sound a little alarmist, if things really derail, it will be impossible for anyone to actually say, “Jeez… didn’t see that coming.” All of the signs are there… signs that history has seen time and time again.
Let me assure you, when the president is doing the wink-wink-nudge-nudge to a group of neo-nazi white supremacists who’ve waited all their lives to unleash their violent hatred… well, unfortunately, anything is possible. And he’s so arrogant, so flagrant, so unapologetically offensive – because he knows he can get away with it. Because it empowers him. Because that’s the kind of person he is, and because it’s what his unshakable core of people want to hear.
The real question looming on the horizon for that potentially-soon-to-be-formerly-great country is pretty simple, and it will be answered on election day… just exactly how many people out there want to see it all crash and burn? Hopefully, the quieter majority (who most definitely do not)… will finally stand up and do something about it.
For the moment, the U.S. is still a democracy, one that many people lost their lives creating and defending. To see it slip away, especially like this, would be unforgivable.
The HK Daily Report (1.75min read)
Wondering if you were being ironic with the use of “step back” in your opening line. ????
My thought for today was to post: To those of you who say that you just can’t get excited to support either candidate or party; wake up! That is how we got in this mess in the first place.
And then see how many responses were about the US election and how many were about the BC one.
I didn’t watch the debate, life’s too short. Like Thenardier he is a life long shit, not worth my spit.
At this point, I am happy to just watch the whole motherfucker burn to the ground.
It’s ctrl+alt+delete time.
Horacio, for some time now I have had the same thoughts about the parallels between The Handmaid’s Tale and the situation in the US. I am horrified that that formerly great country seems to be spiraling towards Gilead. US citizens need to wake up and vote in droves before it is too late.
Strangely enough, Trump’s performance wasn’t surprising to me at all. True to form. Perhaps a little amped up, but when you have a rat cornered he will try anything to escape.
Powerful comments! If only they would fall on (deaf) ears. Come on our US cousins, stand up and be counted.
Things are already too far gone for there not to be something really awful happening in the closing months of this year. trump is saying that flat out. If he wins another term he will have license to do anything. If he doesn’t, then his most vile core of followers will cause a shitshow as trump refuses to accept the result.
Trump was stupid for waiting 6 months for Biden to emerge from the basement and then cutting him off every time he was about to bury himself. The debate was awful. Poorly moderated. Trump was unruly. And, sadly, Biden was like a kid that memorized some stuff (mostly lies) then struggled to say some of it at the proper time and with any conviction. Still, better than one would have expected from Biden and a wasted opportunity for Trump. But how could anybody think that a Biden win, given that he’s not even there any more, is less scary than a Trump win given his successes as president?
Dracarys.
Ex-cult members came out of it somehow, many because friends and family, or whoever, journalists, bloggers, said something that planted a little seed of an idea or encouragement – think it’s important to never stop talking and never give up on changing peoples’ minds. Balanced out with rest and what’s good for the writer, tho.
Hopefully Trump will have alienated enough Hillary haters with his despicable behavior and lies. I still fear that he will not accept defeat at the polls as he has said he can’t lose a ” fair” election
