Ghoulish Fascination

 

"Ghoulish fascination"--that phrase popped into my mind tonight. I think it explains one strategy I am going to apply in order to preserve my sanity over the next four years of Trumpian anti-government. I say "anti-gov." because it seems to me that the mission of the Trump regime will be to dismantle the American government in as many ways as possible to make American society as dysfunctional, angry and cruel as possible, so that our billionaire overlords of the tech, finance and oil companies can create a new version of medieval feudal society where the great lords rule in splendor while the lowly serfs that form the bulk of the population suffer and squabble and the climate and environment turn more and more unstable and toxic. I see no effective resistance to Trump any time soon. He has control of the Congress and the courts, the media and universities are trembling with fear, and the tech tycoons are lining up to lick his anus. This horrible monster has won America, for now at least. I am finding it hard to watch the news. I watch some, and read some, every day, but I find I have to turn it off and put it away after just a few minutes or pages. This is where the "ghoulish fascination" comes in. I am trying to reset my mind to think of all of this as a movie that I am watching: "America--The Disintegration," or maybe "The American Story: from Shining City on the Hill to Shadowy Circus of the Damned." Free guns for everyone! I know there is little I can do to prevent this tragedy from unfolding, so I will watch, observe, and amuse myself with grim little jokes, when I can. 

 

I take inspiration from those in Eastern Europe who had to spend decades under the cruel absurdities of Soviet rule, who had to develop a kind of dual identity, one, an outer self that would play the part required by an absurd and violent government, and the other, their inner self which could rarely be expressed openly but had to be kept out of sight and shared only with those that they could trust. Jokes became a secret language of hope, like "They pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work." Someday the absurdity will run its course. Someday the Berlin--I mean Trumpian--wall will fall. Someday the madness will end, but what will be left of America? I am not sure. It does make me angry to know that Americans voted for this monster to be our monarch, even after they had been through his misrule once already, even after they had witnessed so many proofs of his unfitness, cruelty, ignorance, and absurdity. Well, as it is said in a famous book, "Forgive them, Lord, for they know what they do." But they did it. They embraced Fascism. "The land of the free?" Now THAT is a good joke! I will watch this shit show with ghoulish fascination, and try to laugh when I can.