So About That Book…

Don’t worry, handful of people that actually care about the book I’m writing. I’m not ending things (yet). I should hopefully get back to writing it sometime in the next couple of days, but I guess that all kind of depends on my mood.

Honestly, I wish this was an update on the book, another 1,000 words about some bullshit that will probably never see the light of day in book form. But the world is too sad for me right now. I can’t find a place where I can make a fictionalized version of the world that isn’t influenced by all the nonsense and garbage that is currently happening in this country.

The plan was, eventually, to set the book in around 2007 or so, or at least most of the story, so that I could try and avoid the real world for a minute. Maybe the third sequel will cover the election of Trump and our descent into fascism, but by then, I might not be able to write anything that even resembles a critique of our current president.

I’m sad. I’m sad for the country. I never thought it would be this bad. I thought we had norms in this country that have helped it function somewhat decently over the past 240+ years. That the influence of garbage people like Steve Bannon and Steven Miller would remain marginalized on the fringes where they belong. But for some reason, they are the mainstream now.

The media is complicit, afraid to even say that the president is lying because “they don’t know his state of mind” at the time he states complete and utter horseshit about everything. Blaming everything on these children. Democrats. People fleeing violence in countries that WE destabilized a generation ago, if only to assert our power in the hemisphere.

I count myself lucky every day that I am a white, cisgender male that was born in America. I truly won the genetic lottery. In another universe, I am some poor migrant from Guatemala or Honduras, fleeing to America across the Mexican border, only to have my child ripped from my arms even though I have technically broke no laws. My child taken from me without any way of knowing when or if I will see them again.

Lincoln is barely three, and the joy he has for me when I come home from work is getting harder and harder to enjoy. I don’t want to live in a country that treats non-American people immediately as criminals. I get it. Some people broke the law to come to America, but that doesn’t instantly make everyone else that does the same a lawbreaker. Why we care to vilify undocumented people in this country, people that get NO resources from our government, and are only trying to make a better life for themselves and their families, boggles my mind.

Four generations ago, we said the same thing about Irish Protestants, Chinese immigrants, and others. We denied Jews a safe haven in the midst of the Holocaust, and we interred our OWN CITIZENS during World War II, all because they were different. But this was after centuries of genocide against our Native Peoples, people that gladly helped our ancestors survived, only to be exterminated or moved to less desirable locations. And we have the audacity to tell other people they aren’t welcomed here because of where they come from? What god they pray to? What they look like?

I honestly thought America was better than this. It used to be, back when it was great. Back when you could disagree politically with someone and not immediately think they were evil just because. We are more polarized now politically than we have ever been, and it will only get worse. One party decided to hold a Supreme Court seat hostage while knowing that a foreign power was corrupting our elections.They seek to enrich and ensure that the billionaire donor class in this country continues to get rich on the backs of the lower classes, even though they can’t take their money with them. They allow people to corrupt our government in a way that hasn’t been seen since the days of Teapot Dome Scandals, again serving the people that pay their way, or get them tickets to a football game, or stay in their hotels.

The other party can’t seem to move on from a pretty decisive victory by the first woman nominated for president from a major party. “Bernie would’ve won” has persisted nearly two years after he was decimated in a primary process he shouldn’t have even been allowed to participate in. Instead of fighting against massive voter disenfranchisement and the continuing assault on our democracy, they decide to re-litigate a race that ended over two years ago, only caring about who is “more Progressive” than who can actually win. Come November, they are going to cry fowl and blame gerrymandering (which is also a problem) for their losses, when they could have spent the past two years forming an actual coalition against the ruling party.

If the GOP is unwilling to keep the president in check, we need to have others that will. It’s not going to be the Supreme Court anymore, with the conservative side of the ledger controlling four seats, including one that was stolen because of politics. Congress is feckless, using big words on Twitter denouncing policies that they have the power to stop. It’s never been worse, and it’s not going to get better without a check on the presidency. Mueller isn’t going to magically solve this. Impeachment probably isn’t an option either.

So I’ll probably get back to writing my stupid pointless book in the next few days. But I’ll have to turn of Twitter and Facebook and everything else so that I can ignore all the nonsense that is happening in the country right now.

Until next time…