Hello, dear readers, and welcome back.
It has been a while since my most recent post. A friend of mine recently shared a crude but all too accurate aphorism that seems to explain why, in the months following the birth of my daughter, despite the fact that she sleeps often and well, I have found myself nearly incapable of writing: the brain comes out with the placenta.
It feels true.
During that lapse, political tensions accelerated from low boil to stovetop hurricane. In fact, I’ve never seen things quite this bad. On the day that I write this, tens of thousands of national guardsmen occupy the capitol for the inauguration of ANOTHER geriatric baby boomer as POTUS. Some things never change. Like the neocons, for instance. Media and political purveyors of the War on Terror now openly call for Iraq-style “counterinsurgency” against any guilty of “complicity” with regard to the previous administration, because we need, uh, “healing,” “decency,” and “unity.”
These are cute little phrases designed to simplify moral preening on social media, papering over the frankly fascistic motives that linger just one layer deep. If there’s a single thing that stands out about what political discourse has become over the past few years, it’s the stunningly ignorant narcissistic vindictiveness online. This is middle school girl stuff. Watching people with whom I used to voluntarily spend time turn to the Internet to proclaim their undying devotion to “Black Trans Lives” *in the abstract* while also expressing murderous hatred toward Trump voters *that they know personally* has been one of the strangest outcomes of the past year. All this, while knowing nothing real of policy.
Oh, and the whole “selfies with vaccines” thing. Roll up your sleeve for the love jab, they smile. Woke-technocratic mommy-state knows best: so Tocqueville predicted.
Strange times. Maybe the transition of power means that affluent, white, female liberals (AWFLs), and the men that act like AWFLs can take a break from the melodramatic monologuing, finally. Cynically, my guess is that they will actually spend the next however many years putting enemies of the revolution through struggle sessions until there isn’t a Trump staffer left to lynch. CNN-brain is rarely something you can unlearn. Times will get stranger.
I’m grateful for the little lobotomy of childbearing that kept me from attempting to parse reality as the multiple competing narratives unfolded over the past few months. So many people I see are stressed, dejected, and demoralized, having spent all their energy trying to make sense of things.
This is not the way! We must instead relish joy and mirth where it is available to us. If you can’t beat them, make fun of them. The uniparty clown regime deserves it and always has. And in the meantime, there are even more important things to be done.
That said, I’m delighted and honored to announce that The American Mind has taken me on as contributing editor. My work will be published regularly through TAM, on the fun and the important and everything in between. I hope that y’all will subscribe to TAM’s Substack, American Mindset to access that content and much more. Access my latest piece here.
The best is yet to come.
Helen
