The Unbearable Heaviness of Being … Trapped Under Trump
Saturday was delicious. Literally and figuratively. Biden and Harris were declared winners and I had some seriously great frozen custard to celebrate. My son and I danced in celebration, as did so many across this country, this planet. And we rounded it out with a slice of cake we made together, complete with the perfect icing message: THANK GOD.
After four long years of waiting for election day, and four long days of waiting for any news network to stone up and call what was obvious, you could feel the weight lift. What we all were feeling was almost alien, having been so long since it permeated our beings. Joy, elation, a lift of our spirits, our souls momentarily set free.
The unbearable lightness of being. And it was delicious.
When Mila Kundera wrote the book of that title, it was a work in which the characters ponder existentialism of sorts. How best to move through this life. How seriously to take it all. How much weight to give the serious stuff, how much lightness to give the beauty.
It is no stretch to say we have all been missing the lightness for four long years. What we would have paid to be able to experience joy as “unbearable.” Instead what we have endured is the unbearable heaviness, the unbearable darkness, of being trapped under the Trump pRESIDENCY. Kundera wrote of the darkness:
If that does not sum of the inner workings of Donald Trump — thoughtless, visionless, without end, without borders — I do not know what does. We all have dark thoughts, we’re human, but creatures like Trump? They are all darkness, all avarice, all intent-to-harm skulking around in everything they do, touch.
That heaviness, that darkness is not to abate any time soon. They are intent on that.
We are still mired deeply in a pandemic that is blazing through this country like so many wildfires of this past summer. Current stats:
10,437,779 cases to date
244,654 citizens dead
738 out of every million Americans GONE
1,272,662 deaths globally, meaning we account for 20% — I stress again, we have only 4% of the world’s population.
That last one is a shameful statistic. Owning 1/5 of all deaths from COVID owes completely to the incompetence, negligence, and murderous intent of the Trump administration. Peopled with cosplayers trying to pretend to be experts in virology, pandemic response, distribution — we are now adding over 100,000 cases daily — the past 24 hours we added 135,395. And we lost another 1,000 people.
In El Paso, they now have 10 portable morgue trucks. Last week they had four. (Acela Trucking switched over to making refrigerated morgue trucks in April — they usually make fire and rescue trucks). That is how fast people are dying. I think of this often. My heart would break to know a loved one was wrapped up like a side of beef and sitting in some semi truck in a parking lot.) This is the result of the herd immunity strategy put forth by the latest Trump lackey in charge — RADIOLOGIST Scott Atlas.
For months we have been warned what herd immunity would translate as — hundreds of thousands into the millions of people dead. We are well on our way.
This heaviness, this darkness of being has been with us since March. At least it has been with those of us who have paid attention to the science, the warnings, the pleas to mask up, distance, isolate. But because of the millions of people who prop up this banana Republican mess, caution has been laughed at, masks are for pussies, locking down was akin to slavery, and we are on track to lose another 17,000 people before we carve a turkey.
It is impossible to not feel weighed down, to flounder trying to find any lightness. There are far too many Trump cultists, literal diehards, who are intent on dragging this pandemic out as long as possible to as many as possible. Think not? Here are some more stats:
US States with the highest % of COVID positive results in the past 7 days:
South Dakota — 54%
Iowa — 48.3%
Kansas — 41.3%
Idaho — 38.6%
Wyoming — 34.5%
Missouri — 21%
Alabama — 19.8%
Montana — 18.1%
Utah — 18%
North Dakota — 16.1%
Notice anything? Those are solidly red states. Now try these stats:
New Jersey — 5%
Maryland — 4.2%
California — 4.1%
Rhode Island — 3.9%
New Hampshire — 3.5%
Hawaii — 2.4%
Massachusetts — 2.2%
New York — 2.1%
Maine — 2%
Vermont — .6%
See anything? Liberal leaning states — where science, education, critical thinking mean something — have taken this far more seriously, and it shows.
But it matters not because we are all trapped under the weight of this virus. Try as we might to be as careful as possible, always mask up, use wipes on the grocery carts, stay at a distance, only go out when necessary — we are surrounded by people who simply don’t give a damn. They are not intellectually equipped to understand the science and make no attempt to try. They are not emotionally equipped to think about anyone beyond themselves and their own immediate gratification of cheering “Lock her up!” at a rally. Rallies he insists he is still going to continue holding.
And so they go forth and infect and kill innocent people everywhere.
Add into this ongoing weight the fact that this playpen of shitting toddlers are intent on trying to upset the results of a free and fair election, and Saturday’s lightness seems worlds away. We are right back in the thick of dark, oppressive fear, unending stress and anxiety, and the unbearable uncertainty of will they succeed?
Watching them have court case after court case thrown out has been heartening. They simply have no merit or evidence for a judge to even consider. But that is not stopping them from trying. And now Elton John’s evil twin, Bill Barr, has shoved his flaccid jowls into the fray. It matters not that even Republican election officials in various states are on the record as verifying zero fraud or suspicious activity. When you have primed an entire section of people to only believe what the prophet says, they are willing to follow him into hell — evidence or no, be damned.
Joe Biden won. While votes are still being counted, he is ahead by well over 4 million in the popular vote. In states in the spotlight, his lead continues as votes are tallied. Pennsylvania — ahead by nearly 50,000 as of yesterday. Michigan — ahead by almost 150,000. Georgia — ahead by 13,000. Arizona — ahead by nearly 15,000. Nevada — ahead by nearly 35,000 votes.
When Trump declared victory in 2016, he won by less than 80,000 in key states, like those above. Biden has far surpassed him. >80,000 votes and Hillary conceded the following day. No shitfits. No demands for recounts. No legal tantrumps. In Pennsylvania alone where Trump only won by 44,292 votes, he trails Biden by more than 47,000 votes as ballots continue to be tabulated. (As for those 77,719 who voted for Jo Jorgenson in PA? Fuck all the way off. You simply do not care anything but yourself and your self righteous posturing.)
HE LOST. The popular (again) and the electoral. Think of him now as a lame duck a l’orange.
Yet here we are watching his supplicants refuse to begin the transition process with Biden. He refuses to accept the facts, instead feeding his base a continual diet of bullshit, conspiracy, and lies. And they are lapping it up. Like pigs at the trough, their heads are buried, the sounds of their insatiable appetite for graft, power, and pain to others all that matters.
Just this morning, the White House budget office notified federal agencies to continue preparations for Trump’s budget proposal in February. And today, Secretary Pompeo said at a briefing, “There will be a smooth transition to a second Trump administration.”
That is so untethered from reality, it is hard to know where to begin. As a layperson, I can sit here and call bullshit all day long. But what needs to happen is the media, on all levels, need to begin calling it bullshit. Playing into it for ratings is simply allowing them to get further and further down the road of this dangerous game they are playing. Biden needs to step to the mic today and call this out as well.
I fully appreciate his team’s head down, all business, move-forward-towards-January-20th posture, I do. They have real plans in place. They have real experts and scientists ready to take on COVID immediately. They are putting together the pieces to begin repairing so much of what has been damaged and destroyed. But to allow the bullshit fraud narrative to be all the people hear means more delusions take hold, more machinations have time to work their way into the system. We may laugh at their Four Seasons Landscaping, VEEP level incompetence, but the subterfuge is happening now.
I am paying attention to the legal experts, the Constitutional scholars, the ones who completely understand the workings between election and inauguration. They are vocal about the coup being attempted, but also urge us to keep moving forward, as this bullshit will not win in the end.
I so hope they are right. We need to get back to some lightness, some hope, some joy, some dancing. I don’t know how much longer we can hope in the darkness; how long we can endure the unbearable heaviness of being … trapped under Donald J. Trump. (Even Stormy Daniels had her limits.)
