Apocalypse June 2020
Tulsa
A new year, start of a new decade. This is going to be my year. And now the world is resigned, 2020 is trashed. Right now feels like the vital and inevitable pivot, as what has built and boiled over recent years unravels. I thought of starting this near exactly a year ago; then I would have captured the COVID timeline in full. But better late than never. After last night I am more hopeful.
The Presidential rally in Tulsa looked like an unravelling, like a sharp downturn in the apparent logic of this authoritarian brand, lacking an apparent why. The world was watching the same feed broadcast live, sans liberal bias. Trump kept pointing down the camera calling it fake as it was happening. Everything is fake news. Pence promised that with our help and with our prayers, we will Make America Great Again, Again! The faithful, the warriors, the crowd looked desperate or oftener underwhelmed.
The same people kept appearing, away from the podium where the floor quickly thinned. I thought about what had brought them there. I felt sorry for the man with his young daughter, out for the show, entertaining her while he waited, looked around, for the big something. Lone men dancing around in the space. Was it really a festival mood? At least some of the attendees will have wondered if this is how winning would really look.
Of course I hated him. I could never even see his face or hear his voice. Now I could watch and feel glee and thrill at the slapstick of fascism failing. Trump is still an impressive performer, cognisant, though by now so warped with paranoia, ideologies so scrambled that the sum is monstrous. Non cognos mentis: of unsound mind. He plays this monster against relatable Don. He strolls around the stage in self-deprecating mimes, drifting into lengthy anecdotes, moaning about all the mundane duties of presidential office. A sweaty glean on his face that made me think again he must get COVID soon. Often he made admissions of his own vulnerability and ineptitude. He had good days and bad days. Like so far, tonight, I’m average.
The comedy bit, the through line, is that this guy is the greatest President of all time. Thanks to this guy, the best employment and stock market numbers in the history of the world. And you should show gratitude. You don’t have the guts to vote against Trump. The joke is that he’s going to win. We’ll be two-for-two and our country will never be stronger. So if 2020 is the pivot, an apocalypse or a rebirth? An ending or a beginning?
Omar! (Booo!) A big hombre… (Booo!) And Nancy Pelosi said, these are people, these aren’t animals! (Booo!) Brainwashed are the warriors, and this time Trump doesn’t have anything positive to sell or promise voters. Evidently he doesn’t believe in COVID or in federal action to curb it. His world is kings and queens and dictators. He doesn’t even see BLM. I fear he will bring guns to the culture war. I fear he will march in troops to the autonomous zone in Seattle and the world will watch another pointless bloody massacre on the thin blue line. Between now and November we will watch Trump’s genocide make the news. And we are going to keep on winning, winning, winning.
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