Today’s Trump-Deranged Lament (Or Lamott?)

This one is by novelist Anne Lamott. At least it’s well-written. It still is evidence of what the Axis propaganda has done to many previously rational minds, though Lamott is a long-time woke activist (she lives in California, naturally) so she probably is more a purveyor of anti-Trump hysteria than a victim of it.

She contributes to Salon, which is pure leftist propaganda 90% of the time. She called the Tea Party “hateful.” She actually praised Harry Reid, at last report being butt-raped by flaming demon water buffalo on a bed of spikes in Hell.

Her cry of pain is all emotional argle-bargle with very little paranoid progressive fantasy, but some. Nonetheless, treating the electoral defeat of a candidate as irredeemable as Kamala Harris as if it were the death of a lover is evidence of warped priorities and historical naivete, as well as far too little diversity in thought among one’s friends. Aren’t people like her supposed to be champions of diversity and inclusion? I have diversity and inclusion among my friends: that’s why visiting my Facebook feed is like watching a performance of “The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade” usually shortened to Marat/Sade.

Here’s Anne……….

I have some concerns.
A few of you may, too, like possibly 69 million of you. Sigh. If you are anything like me, you can barely remember having ever felt so stunned, and doomed, except when someone very close to you died, or divorced you, or the godawful biopsy results came back.
It’s a little as if the godawful biopsy results came back, and 73 million people cheered and gloated.
So, yes, definitely, this is not ideal. We are in for a dark and scary ride. My response to crisis and the end of the world has always been to figure out whom to blame, how to numb the pain, and how to fix miserable realities.
I have not been having much luck with any of these. Reality seems nauseatingly real. We got skunked, but good.
We can’t even blame it on the electoral college this time. I hate that.
I don’t know. God, do I not know. I majorly megatron do not know. So at first that might seem like the end of the discussion, but if you listen to my personal husband, Neal, that’s actually the beginning.
“I don’t know,” he suggests, is the portal to freedom. I was raised by atheist intellectuals, and my parents’ solution to everything was to know. To figure it out. But when Neal’s clients are being badgered by themselves or family to answer a difficult question or challenge, he teaches them to say, “I don’t know.” It opens up possibilities. This gives us a shot at being curious, rather than certain, which is a dead end.
Paul Tillich wrote that the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. I am a jello mold of uncertainty right now, with horrible shredded carrots in it. I don’t know how things are going to shake down, except that #47 will almost certainly destroy the economy with his tariffs and tax cuts for the very rich and corporations, and then the plates of the earth will shift again. I don’t know what we do next, although I am going to take a walk and a nap at some point today, take care of people who are really suffering, and get everyone a glass of water.
Why aren’t I freaking out more? I don’t know. I just believe in goodness, radical self care, and that grace bats last. So sue me.
Also that more will be revealed. We’ve only been in this new reality for a few days. When Chou En Lai, the first premier of China, was asked his thoughts on the French Revolution, he took drag on his Gauloise (bleu) and answered, “Too soon to tell.”
Wednesday, a pundit whom I respect tweeted that the resistance seemed muted. I loved this: It had been ten hours since we lost.
But when? I don’t know. Beginning with what? I don’t know. How do we keep the faith in goodness? I don’t know. We just do.
What happened Tuesday had been in the works for years but we weren’t paying attention or couldn’t quite believe it. Jung said, “What we don’t bring to consciousness, comes to us as fate. And we need—eventually—to take a look at that. Not today.
Today? We take care of ourselves and those we love. We always, always take care of the poor, with donations, or bags of groceries to local food pantries. We get outside: Wednesday morning, at 7:00, Neal suggested we take a walk. This was the last thing I wanted to do, but I headed out beside him and our spiritual service dog. After ten minutes or so, I said grimly, “This was not a good idea.” Everything was too intense and real. I felt like a burn victim. Then ten minutes later, I began to see beauty all around me, in nature and neighbors, and our good dog. When I noticed how droplets sparkled amid grass stems, it helped me begin to breathe again. Left foot, right foot, left foot, breeeeeathe: this, and kindness, are all we need to know right now; today. I send you my best love and a big hug. You are all so amazing to me.
 

10 thoughts on “Today’s Trump-Deranged Lament (Or Lamott?)

  1. I’m so fucking tired of this “tariffs” talking point these artists and liberal arts majors are merrily tossing around like hand grenades. Hello! If you impose a tariff, the manufacturer/exporter will likely have to fucking lower his price to the importer, so the importer/domestic seller won’t get stuck with a shitload of unsellable, overpriced inventory. In other fucking words, the government-subsidized manufacturers (using effectively slave labor: heard of any labor unions in China lately? Neither have I!) will have to LOWER their cost of good to the importer/domestic reseller. You fucking idiots.

    • OB

      The tariff issue espoused by the progressives showcases the massive ignorance or hypocrisy they subject us to .

      Tariffs by Trump are used as strategic levers and not to raise money. Tariffs in general are the easiest tax to avoid simply by choosing a domestically produced substitutes. Conversely, progressives lament corporate tax cuts or demand increases in corporate tax rates. These taxes ONLY affect domestic producers who may then choose to relocate production and invest in lower tax nations.

      Progressives seem to only think tariffs increase costs to consumers and increases in corporate taxes are absorbed by the shareholders. Well, even if they are that means lower dividends to American households who own the firms or less money is available to grow the business, pay higher wages, or develop new products Because pricing is a function of consumer demand, price elasticity and available substitutes , If there are few substitutes for a domestically produced good and the good is relatively price inelastic then the corporate tax is passed on to the consumer or an import is sought after. This harms us.

      The argument that an increase in our tariffs will cause retaliatory tariffs is rooted in weakness. The US is the largest consumer market anywhere. If a country tries to retaliate their losses will be higher so retaliation is questionable.

      It should be pointed out that a tariff on goods produced in BRIC countries is merely a carbon tax on those products because they have a production cost advantage due to those countries using old dirty technologies allowed by the Paris accords. Incentivizing domestic production is an environmentally sound policy

  2. That “look at me” hairdo on an old white woman seemed like a signal, to me. Nothing she wrote changed that. “…my personal husband, Neal…” ? “I am a jello mold of uncertainty right now, with horrible shredded carrots in it.”?
    None of us should accept drek from a disturbed individual just because she styles herself a writer.

      • Worse than appropriating another culture, she’s using bad metaphors.

        I am a jello mold of uncertainty right now,

        Jello molds are stiff and unyielding. They force the formless to have a mandated form – the certainty she decries.

      • Hah! Do you get those by simply not washing your hair? Yuck. And as Wim points out, what the hell is a personal husband? The opposite of an impersonal husband? She must have a cadre of editors and proofreaders.

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