“Maybe next time we have a week, they can try not to pack it completely to the fucking brim with explosions, mutilations, death, manhunts, lies, weeping, and the utter uselessness of our political system,” said basically every person in America who isn’t comatose or a complete sociopath. “You know, maybe try to spread some of that total misery across the other 51 weeks in the year. Just a thought.”
“Gotta hand it to this week, though,” added the entire American populace, laughing and crying at the same time. “It’s a motherfucker.”
Members of the press, what the fuck:
“What do you think? You know the shit he’s been saying,” O’Rourke said.“He’s been calling Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals. I don’t know, like, members of the press, what the fuck? Hold on a second. You know, I — it’s these questions that you know the answers to. I mean, connect the dots about what he’s doing in this country. He’s not tolerating racism; he’s promoting racism. He’s not tolerating violence; he’s inciting racism and violence in this country. So, you know, I just — I don’t know what kind of question that is.”
This is the only reasonable reaction to things right now. It really is. To say to them, why are you asking questions you know the answers to? Why are you asking me to lie? For that matter, why are you asking me to tell the truth? You know the truth. If you won’t speak it, if you won’t use your voice and hands, your microphone, your words, to tell the truth in this moment, how on EARTH is that my job?
That’s the core of the frustration right now, among those of us who aren’t in the Trump cult or so horny for complacency we refuse to talk about anything at all. We see the truth in front of us and we see the people who’ve told us for decades that they’re the ones who proclaim it —righteous leaders, the sacred Fourth Estate, all our protectors of truth and democracy — pretending to a helplessness that would humiliate an infant.
You know the truth and you won’t say it and WHY, why on earth, do you know how many people dream of having the power you have? My yelling on Twitter is still a fraction of the reach of any city TV station, why are you standing there? You could push a button and save the world and you sit here asking if someone should push the button. YOU PUSH THE FUCKING BUTTON. Don’t ask me to tell you it’s okay, don’t ask me to give you cover, don’t make this my problem.
Is the president a racist, what the fuck indeed.
You know the truth. And when you know the truth a lie should be intolerable. If you’ve never carried an intolerable lie inside you I hope to God you never have to but how can you not, in the world we walk in? Do you know how much I WISH I could be a person at a party who says things like “yes, we need to return to civility in politics” instead of yelling NO IT’S ABOUT TIME WE WERE UNCIVIL ABOUT BEING KILLED, do you know how easy it is to go along to get along? The only time anyone raises their voice is when they can’t stand it anymore. Whole swaths of us can’t stand it anymore, whole swaths of us never could and never should have had to, and if you get hot for the Civil Rights movement in the history books but can’t stand it in your cul-de-sac don’t you dare ask me to make that okay for you.
And I’m sorry, scene-bros for whom things aren’t revolution-y enough to get you to put the Xbox away. I saw this stupid shit going around again earlier this week and coupled with the “why don’t Americans in Tulsa protest like they do in Puerto Rico” it made me want to put my fist through the whole internet. Sure, nothing’s ever gonna change. Good God, but have you been paying attention?
Moms Demand and Everytown are out here shouting louder than the NRA, than the NRfuckingA, did you think 10 years ago this was even a pipe dream? Ten years ago everybody was still stuck under their desks shaking in fear that the NRA would target them and now a bunch of pissed off women have them on their backs.
Republican congressman who can resign are resigning because they see the fire coming and they don’t want to burn. Old men who’ve had their jobs forever are packing up their shit and running for the door.
And the pedophiles are burning, too. I’m glad Jeffrey Epstein is dead and I hope every person named in his sordid messy indictment dies off, too, and that we as a species come together around the entirely uncontroversial notion that child rape is bad and if girls are not saying yes to you then they’re saying no. I’m glad all the disgusting #MeToo dudes are out of jobs and I don’t care one whit about any of them, we’ve managed to carry on without Charlie Rose and Al Franken. If any of my faves go down in this I feel confident in the ability of young women to handle their jobs and then some.
The world is busy being born and armchair chaossexuals are like, mad it’s not happening fast enough and I don’t know what to tell you people, I really don’t. What the fuck, maybe. History looks like it happened in a hurry because that’s how we have to remember it to move faster next time. To motivate a few more people to get off their asses and name the things in front of them for what they are. To stop waiting for somebody else to fix things and fix them already. Maybe this is what it looks like inside the tornado, maybe it’s slower in here.
I don’t know. What the fuck. This fucking week.
A.