01/24/2025: Underneath the Executive Order Slush Pile
I hope these words find you as well as they can in these weird and trying times. Within a mere week’s span, we’ve been overwhelmed and buried beneath an executive order slush pile, filled with so many frighteningly damning things that we can’t believe this is even real life right now.
I heard someone say recently that “the presidency is no place for petty people,” and that even if you didn’t vote for the winner in question that those people are still, like it or not, counting on him. I suppose that is sadly true; we don’t have any other options. But to this we say: Do better this time. This sentiment was shared by the aforementioned person I quoted above, Dave Chappelle, but after Day One it’s clear that things will be far worse than before.
After doing my fair share of doom scrolling this week, I caught glimpses of people who have completely lost touch with their humanity, who said terrible things about innocent people just because they voted differently than them. These people openly mock and threaten those who are uncertain and very much afraid for what’s to come, and those that are sane enough to be scared have every right to be afraid.
I absolutely despise hate and riches that weren’t earned honestly or justly, and I fear the oligarchy just as much as the next rational person. I’m so lost and confused when I try to understand what’s happening that I can’t justify the swirl of emotions surging through me that are desperately trying to find some logic or a shred of good in all this.
Unfortunately, I still haven’t found even a grain of sand’s worth of good in the current state of the world. Most people have the luxury and privilege to be unaffected by what’s going on, and they probably don’t care about anyone else in the slightest. Well then good for you; that’s just what this world needs right now: More self-important hate-mongers.
If you could stand to take a moment to imagine how it might feel, even for a second, if any of the following scenarios applied to YOU, maybe you’d be on the right path to becoming a rational, empathetic, and evolved human being:
Being told you’re a citizen of no nation even though you were literally born here
Being told that you’re not valued as a human being by law because you identify outside the bounds of the sexes and genders you were assigned at birth
Being wiped out by an even worse pandemic because vaccines have been foolishly considered the cause of certain mental illnesses that humans are literally born with, and therefore something you can’t possibly get from the red dust on Doritos chips
Being told that, after waiting a whole year to enter legally to seek asylum, that your appointment just “got cancelled” with no means or intentions of being rescheduled
Being told that all the established efforts to keep the sun from exploding, to keep California from burning down AGAIN, and to keep Florida from having blizzards have been or will be withdrawn from
In other words, we’re all screwed, and you should definitely care. The future seems a little bleak at the moment, especially when I realized we’re being ruled by all the tech gods of the world who steal and sell all our personal data while we mindlessly post everything about ourselves, scroll, waste away and laugh at a “harmless” but quite literal back to back set of Nazi salutes.
Sorry everyone, I can’t drink this Kool-Aid, and I reserve the right to say so. It’s a lot more mild than some of the awful things I’ve seen people say to complete strangers behind the cowardice of a keyboard on social media. Those people who say “Let them cry about it, I’ll laugh and enjoy every second of it,” wouldn’t be saying that to anyone’s face or if they happened to be the sore loser instead. And those who make fun of all the ones who have every legal right to be here and make jokes about them being thrown into the Gulf of Mexico - sorry, I’m not getting behind “Gulf of America” either - well, shame on you most of all. Even people on your side are appalled at how ruthlessly unkind you are. I don’t know how these people sleep at night, and I really don’t see the light at the end of this scary-hate-ignorance tunnel.