We Should All Be Embarrassed

... and afraid

Many years ago I visited a mental institution, presumably long since closed, and remember a poor woman who seemed to be in her 50s talking, presumably to herself, alternatively laughing and crying and chuckling.

Some of what she said appeared to make sense; most of it didn’t. I suddenly realized I’d been staring at her and was embarrassed, but then I discovered she was apparently oblivious to my presence; she was talking to someone only she could see.

I remembered her suddenly while driving and running some errands Monday afternoon when I tuned into a press conference Donald Trump was having about the tariffs. What struck me was not his usual lies, but his cheerful, callous ignorance and stupidity, claiming, for example, that the EU (European Union) was formed to sabotage the United States’ economy.

What really got to me, however, was his insane claim that because of tariffs the United States was immensely rich from 1870 to 1913, so much so that, he said, they were perpetually having “conferences to try to figure out how to give all the extra money away.” I was tempted to yell, “tell that to the underpaid poor workers who died in the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire,” but, of course, I knew that he couldn’t care less whether something he says is true, and by this point, nobody else does either.

We’ve become totally desensitized to the lies of this baboon in a red tie, and since no one reacts, even the press barely calls him on them any more. Now I realize that his distortions of history are less important than his firing the superbly competent team that ran the National Security Agency, because the appalling Laura Loomer told him to. (Olivia of Troye has an excellent column on this today.)

But it’s all part of the same thing, and every single one of us should be embarrassed that our country is led and symbolized by this repulsive ignoramus, even apart from the fact that he is allowing a far more efficient team of fascists to destroy decency and democracy and distracting us from paying attention. Too many of us, even those who voted against him, have been complicit in allowing this to happen.

And so what do we do now? To misquote Camus and the Myth of Sisyphus, the stone really is at the bottom of the hill, wedged firmly in merde. Hopefully, those of us who want to save our nation and ourselves aren’t alone.