2025 and All That

The best way to understand how I and my fellow Trump-haters feel about the current condition of These States is to compare where we are now to where we could have been now.  Not that where we could have been would have necessarily been all that much better.  But it would undoubtedly have been better just the same.

To make that comparison, I can't go back to a year ago this time, because this time last year, Trump was already President-elect.  I have to go back to fourteen months ago this time, which, by pure coincidence, was Halloween.  On October 31, 2024, five days before what will likely be the last American presidential election with more than one candidate, Kamala Harris had at least a 50 percent chance of winning the Presidency.  In the event that Harris won, I expected nothing more from a Harris administration than what President Biden had delivered, which was okay enough.  Not exactly a ringing endorsement, but knowing everything Trump was going to do if he won - because he told us - I was happy to vote for Harris.  I did.  I voted early.  And I knew what her victory would have meant.  It would have meant the election of the first woman - not just the first black woman, the first woman, period - to be elected President of the United States, which have been an even greater and more gigantic leap for America than Barack Obama's election to the Presidency in 2008.  It would have been proof that, despite its shortcomings, America really was for everyone.  While President Biden nudged the United States into a more progressive direction, it was still just a nudge, and I was under no illusion that a Harris administration wouldn't accelerate the move toward a more progressive future, I knew that she was preferable to Trump.  And she would shatter multiple glass ceilings - for women, for women of color, for interracial couples, for interfaith couples.  We were on the cusp of embracing true diversity, equity, and inclusion.

All of that hope for at least such a step forward - and, as far as I'm concerned, the soul of America - died the day Trump won and Harris was forced into early retirement from public life.  Instead of an era of diversity, equity and inclusion, we've entered a period where all three have been eliminated from the body politic.  Instead of nice things like sustainable energy, bullet trains for Amtrak, paid maternity leave, or support for unions - all things the Biden administration was at least taking baby steps toward - we've gotten more tax breaks for the wealthy and programs and amenities slashed to the point where anyone affected is out of luck.   Instead of prosperous, healthy citizens, we've become serfs living on borrowed time and borrowed money who should consider ourselves fortunate if we can afford medical bills or get a vaccine without paying out of pocket - and even vaccines not covered by insurance may be unavailable soon.  

Granted, the four years under President Biden weren't exactly a new Era of Good Feelings (and even the original Era of Good Feelings under President James Monroe two hundred years and change ago had a recession caused by a bank panic).  But even a Harris administration providing minimal improvements would have been preferable to a time in which good things go bad and bad things get worse.

And then there is that new birth of freedom we let slip between our fingers.

This is the cover of the New Yorker that was planned for the November 18, 2024 edition of the magazine in the event of a Harris victory in the presidential election.  Created by Kadir Nelson, it shows Harris dressed in a coat showing images of all of the people throughout history involved in the advancement of civil rights in the U.S. that led step by step to the ultimate culmination of the fruits of their labors - a black woman as the leader of the nation.  Needless to say, a different cover ran - one showing Trump as an ominous storm cloud.  Although the November 18, 2024 edition of the New Yorker came out ahead of the actual date, it was the perfect coincidence that that was the date that Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski revealed on the air their supplicant visit to Mar-a-Lago.  So much for freedom of the press.  

The United States, because of voters who discounted the danger Trump posed to the nation and the world because they either didn't want a black woman running the show or thought that Trump could really bring back prosperity (not that he would have if he could have), has slipped into darkness and despair faster than at any time in its history.  Even Germany took more time in 1933 to move from a democratic republic to a National Socialist state.  One week before the election of 2024, Harris represented a renewal of possibility for the United States.  Seven weeks into this administration, I decided that America was finished as a country.  

And that is when I became a secessionist.  That is when I began my efforts to promote the breakup of the United States into separate countries.  

The surprise was that it took that long.  

The United States has been on the wrong track for forty-five years.  There were times when I saw a modicum of hope for a better and happier future - the first Clinton budget and the push for health care reform after the fall of the Soviet Union, the way Americans came together after 9/11, the election of Barack Obama to the Presidency, the start of the Biden Presidency . . ..  No more.  I no longer have any hope in any positive trend that only turns out to be fleeting.  I've had it with with getting my hopes up only to see America go back to being America.  I no longer live for an era of national renewal.  And on November 5, 2024, the United States didn't go back to its previous incantation as a nation of belligerent ignoramuses.  It flat-out died.  For my home state or any other state where decency and intelligence are still showing pulses to remain in the Union is anathema to me.  I believe one of these states should withdraw from the Union and hopefully start the process of arranging a peaceful separation.

I want out.  I want a divorce.

I'm not going to wish anyone a happy new year.  No one in the fifty states that make up the Union is going to be happy until the United States of America ceases to exist once and for all.  And not only will we former Americans be happy, so will the rest of the world. 

This, That, and a Whole Lot Less

The worst thing about 2025 coming to an end is the knowledge that 2026 will be worse.  But not as bad as 2027.

As 2025 lurches to a close, I ought to tend to some unfinished business . . ..

First, the inevitable update on two folks named James - a woman named by her father and a man named by his mother.  Letitia James and James Comey were both indicted by the Injustice Department as part of Donald Trump's retribution campaign, but both cases were dismissed in court.  The details of their indictments are moot, so I won't bother with them here.   John Bolton, Trump's former national security adviser, is still under indictment on eighteen counts related to the mishandling of classified documents, and as much as liberals would love to see Bolton go to the slammer (liberals are against the chair), he's clearly being indicted for all the wrong reasons. 

Meanwhile, Jennifer Welch (above), co-host of IHIP, the I've Had It Podcast, seems to have had a change of heart about Roman Catholics.  She recently told fellow podcaster Tara Palmeri that she actually admires Catholics for their devotion to their faith and their constant study of their faith and the Gospels, adding that if she were believer of God, which she is not, she could never be a Catholic not because of a patriarchal priesthood but because of all of the constant study involved.  She also says that Catholics are nice people who, unlike evangelicals in her home state of Oklahoma, don't try to convert anyone so aggressively.  So, I guess that means I ought to go back to listening to her and Angie Sullivan's podcast.

I write this blog post, meanwhile, with the knowledge that Brigitte Bardot just died at the age of 91.  Social media has gotten to the point that you don't even need to check news sites online or television news programs to find out that someone has died.  When Facebook friends who don't know each other from Adam and Eve simultaneously post pictures of a French actress and sex symbol who hasn't been culturally relevant since Renault stopped making the Dauphine, you can put two and two together.  No, those were not pictures of Claudia Schiffer.  The death of the woman her fans famously called B.B. fellows the death of another European movie star and glamour icon known as C.C., Italian actress Claudia Cardinale.  (Note: For those who have started following my blog just recently, no, my girl cat Claudia is not named for either Claudia Cardinale or Claudia Schiffer.)  I hope both of them are remembered for their earlier films, and hopefully not the spaghetti western they did together in the early seventies.  (I saw about five minutes of that movie; that was all I could take.  Both actresses were celebrated as icons, but you'd never have known it from this particular movie.)  

I was never incredibly enamored with Bardot or Cardinale, but their respective passings this year is still a bitter reminder that the era of European cinema and culture that they represented died long before they did.  And going into 2026, it makes me fear for the health and well-being of France's Catherine Deneuve, 82, and Italy's Sophia Loren, 91.  The European Union ought to seriously consider some protective measures for both actresses - put fences around them, maybe, declare them Continental treasures, perhaps get UNESCO to grant them World Heritage status - just so we can at least keep them around a little longer. 

Thanksgiving 2025

 

New Jersey: On To November

Well, the suspense is long since over.  Rebecca Michelle "Mikie" Sherrill won the New Jersey Democratic gubernatorial nomination after breaking through among Democratic voters in the final days of the primary campaign.  And, as expected, Giachino "Jack" Ciattarelli won the Republican gubernatorial election going away.

One thing is for certain: New Jersey's 57th governor will be known primarily by a nickname.

But who will it be?  Many people assume that Sherrill should have an easy time in the general election campaign because of Trump and Ciattarelli's association with him.  But Jack's got a shot.  As I noted before, he's a lifelong New Jersey resident and an Italian-American, while Sherrill is neither.  Also, many people are tired of Democratic machine politics and the high cost of living, which would give any Republican gubernatorial candidate an advantage.  Sherrill can present herself as a Trenton outsider who can bring some fresh thinking to state government, which was the angle of the campaign of former Democratic gubernatorial candidate Josh Gottheimer - like Sherrill, a U.S. House member - but the irony is that she's a Virginia native who has likely never eaten a calzone in her life, which means she's enough of a cultural outsider to turn off many a New Jersey voter.

Trump, of course, remains an albatross around Ciattarelli's neck, and Sherrill, one of those middle-aged Democratic women in the U.S. House known as the Bad-Asses, has the chops to make sure it stays there.  But first she has to make sure her Democratic base is united.  Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop came in second and third, respectively, and they as progressives got more votes combined than Sherrill did as a moderate.  However, if Gottheimer and former state senator Steve Sweeney, both moderates, hadn't been in the primary campaign, Sherrill would likely have won those votes and outpolled both progressives.

To be fair, being a Jersey boy in the truest sense of the term might not be enough for Ciattarelli to pull out a win.  Part of the reason he's the Republican nominee for governor of New Jersey yet again is because of how close he came to defeating Governor Phil Murphy.  Mikie Sherrill is a politician of a less genial and more vicious nature than Murphy is.  She knows how Ciattarelli is weak on many issues by having stands on them that are unpopular with New Jersey voters.  All of this means one thing - this election can go either way.

Easter Greetings 2025

St. Patrick's Day 2025

 

2024 and All That

For a couple of brief, shining moments, it looked as if Kamala Harris would make history by being elected the first female President of the United States.  It turns out that the woman who ends up achieving that distinction hasn't been born yet.  Neither have her parents.

On the other hand, Mexico elected its first female president, and Claudia Sheinbaum is also Jewish and a climate scientist.  But north of the Rio Grande, being a woman, a Jew, or a climate scientist - not two or all of the above, just one of the above - is a liability for one's presidential ambitions, and for climate scientists that goes double.

Meanwhile, Jimmy Carter just died, and even though he was a hundred years old, I'm still bummed over it.  Not only was he a good and decent man, he voted for Harris hoping to see history be made and came up short.  I mean, he literally lived to be a hundred, and even he didn't see a woman get elected President!

He didn't see high-speed rail in America, either.

Back in 2022, I said I was giving up on causes or social involvement, as well as personal fulfillment.  Going forward, I am giving up on America completely.  I don't even want to acknowledge my neighbors.  As I said, I don't have to leave America; America left me.  True, I appear to finally be closing in on one long-frustrated goal - traveling abroad - but I won't believe it until my plane touches down on foreign soil.  And given how things look with the new old administration coming in, I wouldn't be surprised if the executive branch does issue a crackdown on Republikflucht.

Bearing all that in mind . . . I am not wishing anyone a happy new year.  Not now, not next year, not until New Year's Ever 2028 - and maybe not even then, if Peter Thiel's puppet gets elected to succeed POTUS #47.  There will be no happiness in These States or just about anywhere else in the world for the next four years.  I can't wish anyone a happy new year; I have no heart to be deceitful.  

And going into these next four years, don't expect to see me at Independence Day parades or cookouts or any other patriotic leisure activities, because not only am I timing my trip to Europe this coming summer to ensure that I'll be out of the country on July 4, I'm going to plan three more foreign trips at the same time of the year for the rest of this coming presidential term.

I'm not even celebrating New Year's Eve tonight.  No watching the ball drop, no countdown, no chips and carbonated cider . . . nothing.  I'm just going to do a few things around the house tonight, read for awhile, maybe listen to a CD, and go to bed.  That's it.  That's all.  Besides, I saw the Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown (which was excellent) earlier today, so I've had my fun.

Good luck in 2025, people.  You're going to need it.

Waiting For the Worms - Again

And Steve Bannon is the slimiest worm of all.

Bannon, a longtime adviser to Donald Trump, laid out his game plan for the Republicans in 2022 and 2024.  He plans to help the party win back both houses of Congress by large margins in 2022, then have Trump appointed as Speaker of the House (the Speaker does not have to be the leader of the majority caucus) and have President Biden impeached for illegitimately rigging the election to win.  Then in 2024, the Republicans will win the White House and keep Congress.  The new Republican President - Trump? - will be sworn in on January 20, 2025.  Then, on January 21, "shock troops" will immediately deconstruct the workings of the federal government and establish a right-wing dictatorship. 

"If you're going to take over the administrative state and deconstruct it then you have to have shock troops prepared to take it over immediately," Bannon explained.

Even Adolf Hitler didn't consolidate power on a timetable that fast.

Bannon may have been subpoenaed by the January 6 House select committee, but he incredibly hasn't been charged with sedition by the Justice Department.  He can evade a subpoena with savvy lawyer. (Fines for not complying? Fines, shmines!)  An indictment? Not so much.  In any case, you'd best be afraid, because when Bannon says he's going to do something he usually means it.  

And if his plan comes to fruition, don't count on escape to Canada once the worms take over. The first thing tyrants do when they assume power in a country is to make sure that no one escapes.