Who’s Sorry Now?

Back in 2024, even if you weren’t repulsed at the GOP’s horrifying plan for rounding up dark-skinned individuals (and you should have been), taking just two minutes of serious thought would have informed you that deporting millions of people en masse would require a fascistic approach to civil liberties. 

And yet some people are still surprised. 

For example, a septuagenarian Trump voter in Texas is loudly proclaiming to media outlets that Trump is “destroying families,” which again, is not news to anyone who has been paying even a micron of attention. This white conservative now says he regrets his vote because ICE had the temerity, the gall, and the chutzpah to arrest his fiancé, a Latina who no criminal record.

She has lots of company in ICE detention centers, which are chockablock with innocent people who got nabbed by armed masked men with insecurity issues. But until his girlfriend was handcuffed, this guy was all for stuffing people into vans and shooting unarmed citizens.

The shocker isn’t that people like this exist. The ICE armada is so massive that many shortsighted, easily duped supporters of this policy were bound to get caught up in its jackbooted thuggery. Eventually, authoritarianism comes for everybody.

No, the mystifying aspect is that these buffoons are willing, even eager, to go on camera to simultaneously reveal their selfishness, disdain for humanity, and obliviousness that borders on the delusional or idiotic. Hey, if I had fucked up this badly, I would keep it to myself.

There is also the disturbing truth that thousands of Latino activists have been pointing out the cruelty of ICE’s gestapo tactics, with limited media coverage. But one old white guy shouts, “I got something to say about this,” and everybody listens up.

But speaking of people who should have known better, please note that one-quarter of Latino voters who supported Trump in 2024 now say “they would not vote for him again.”

This is a high percentage of regret, although still far short of the 100% who should apologize on a daily basis for their groveling before white supremacy. 

For those three-quarters of Latino GOP voters who are still MAGA supporters, they might want to listen to the conclusion of political experts who say, “Trump has now passed from being a stubborn narcissist to a cocooned authoritarian.” This phrase refers to “leaders who have become so trapped by their own self-regard, so isolated from the outside world, so imprisoned within their own sense of infallibility that they refuse to consider any arguments or information that conflicts with their beliefs.”

This means that “Trump’s irrationality could create other, even more perilous situations” because “like other authoritarians before him, the president has retreated, irrevocably, behind the walls of his own Forbidden City of the mind—a place where he is the emperor, his judgment is always right, and his commands must always be obeyed.”

So if that regretful Trump voter in Texas is waiting for our cocooned authoritarian of a president to apologize, he will be waiting until approximately the end of time. 

Until then, it’s only going to get worse.

Fault Lines

In the off chance that you are a MAGA supporter reading this, let me assure you of this:

None of the chaos engulfing America is your fault.

Just because you voted for a felonious rapist who is dragging the country toward autocracy while enriching himself and unleashing misery on the entire world, well, you are not to be held responsible for your choice to return a demented old racist to the White House.

How do I know this?

Well, as far back as Trump’s first election, commentors were falling over themselves insisting that liberals created this mess. The general argument was because progressives dislike racist jokes, all the salt-of-the-earth Americans had no option but to embrace fascism. It really was that simple.

This assumption — that millions of decent Americans were pushed into supporting right-wing insanity because of the woke mob— is still a popular viewpoint.

And it’s not just conservatives who are saying that.

Our old friends the moderate Democrats are insisting that Trump never would have won except for that meddling Bernie Sanders. If only the crazy old man had shut up about wealth inequality and oligarchs crushing us, everything would be great.

Just great. Yup.

The latest form of blaming the left for all things Trumpian presupposes that liberals are wrong to protest or advocate for progressive causes because we come across as too self-righteous or shrill. But we are also wrong to appease or normalizeMAGA demands, because that just encourages them to become more extreme.

OK, got it.

What about using humor to point out the absurdity of this disastrous authoritarian regime? No, we shouldn’t joke either, because that undermines how serious the situation is. But don’t be so serious either because of that first point about coming across as self-righteous.

So don’t say anything. But also reach out to MAGA types to educate them because they deserve our total respect no matter how much they would love to punch us in the face. How we reach out without saying anything is unclear to me.

In any case, the important principle is that progressives are always wrong. Whether we’re using facts to support our case, pointing out the consequences of the GOP agenda, or just asking for police to not shoot unarmed citizens, it’s our fault.

MAGA supporters are not responsible for their own actions, or for the often-sadistic behaviors they gleefully embrace.

It’s those darn leftists who keep pushing conservatives to be more extreme.

Of course, it’s strange that this argument doesn’t work the other way. The many excess of Trump (far more egregious and harmful than anything a liberal politician has proposed) are not carted out as an excuse for progressives moving farther left. Apparently, those liberals who are dabbling with democratic socialism are just whiny babies, and by the way, they are making millionaires feel unloved.

Now, it’s true that no other demographic of adults are ever given this sort of free pass on bad behavior. It’s similar to how struggling white men are never told to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps and instead are reassured constantly that the nation will do whatever it can for them (while at the same time telling everybody else to fuck off).

But MAGA is special. Because no matter how much they cheer for the destruction of democracy and the establishment of a fascistic theocracy, it’s an understandable reaction to those real villains: college-educated people who advocate for universal healthcare.

Trump supporters simply have no choice.

Cold Hard Cash

I recently discussed the Republican Party’s obsession with calling anything they dislike “communism.” To the GOP, this antiquated insult applies to affordable childcare, cheaper groceries, and healthcare that actually heals people instead of making insurance executives richer.

However, just because I dismiss the GOP’s absurd insistence that democratic socialism is a front for Stalinists doesn’t mean that I hate capitalism. OK, that economic system has a lot of flaws (like, a lot). And the brand of capitalism that the US is currently practicing is more akin to corporatism or full-fledged oligarchy than the free-market concept they taught you in PoliSci 101.

But capitalism has its advantages (in theory at least), and the marketer Seth Godin, whom I’ve quoted before, recently made a good point about how capitalism can enrich society.

Godin points out that the “upside of free-market capitalism … is that every product and every campaign is an argument to win over customers, to solve problems in a new and better way.”

It would indeed be grand if companies tried to solve problems instead of fuck people over to raise their stock price a penny. But again, we don’t live in a free-market society that rewards problem-solving. We live a cutthroat-capitalist nation where billionaires think hording wealth is a virtue.

In any case, Godin goes on to point out why monopolies are so horrific for society, and it is simply because “they don’t have to argue.” When a monopoly takes over, “the customer has no choice,” and the “monopoly stops listening, innovating and working for improvement, because they don’t need to.”

OK, that makes sense. It’s one reason we have anti-monopoly laws. Of course, the Trump administration is flicking those laws away like they are pesky mosquitoes, meaning that this is a great time to be a money-grubbing robber baron.

But there is a political angle to why monopolies are so vile. You see, according to Godin, “the same is true for democracy vs autocracy,” in that the “despot has no need to make an argument, so they don’t.”

Keep in mind that our humble president is not even trying to make the argument that his policies have been good for America. He is focused on terrifying people into supporting him and suppressing the vote so he doesn’t face another impeachment.

This aspiring despot has no coherent or rational argument. And he no longer cares, if he ever did, about improving America. He figures he has a monopoly, so why not indulge in acts of corruption so brazen that his allies don’t even attempt a defense. 

But let’s return to the concept of capitalism. Can it be modified to fulfill its promise to society? Or have we jumped the shark economically and culturally, where the best we can hope for is that plutocrats take mercy on us and employ the masses to be their indentured servants?

Well, I have an answer to that question. But it will cost you a dollar to hear it.

Come on, I’m not going to just give it away for free. This is America.

How to Be Unconvincing

No doubt, you’ve heard a lot lately about democratic socialism. That’s when you’re not hearing about communism, which hasn’t been a threat to America since 1989. But don’t tell paranoid old men who perpetually live in the past about that.

In any case, conservatives are playing the linguistic game, which consists of harping on the “socialism” part of that two-word term and insisting this approach to government, which is the system used in the most peaceful, prosperous, and happiest nations on Earth, is synonymous with the crushing tyranny of the USSR and China.

Right-wingers do this all the time. They yell that “Nazi” is short for National Socialist German Workers' Party, implying that Hitler’s minions were leftists. They point out that the Ku Klux Klan was originally affiliated with the Democratic Party, insinuating that the KKK was a bunch of woke dudes.

This is the equivalent of the grade-school teacher snidely asking, “Can you go to the bathroom? Don’t you mean ‘May I go to the bathroom?’”

And just like that annoying teacher (who clearly hates children), this linguistic pedantry is embarrassing to even acknowledge. I would ask conservatives if their superficial, trite arguments — based on nitpicky grammar, deliberate ignorance, and a delusional view of history — have ever convinced anyone to vote Republican.

I picture a fledgling progressive slapping his forehead in disbelief and shrieking, “I had no idea Goebbels was in a political movement whose German translation includes the word ‘socialism.’ Now I must support ICE shooting people in the street.”

To the conservative mind, it’s just that convincing.

However, this belabored tactic of guilt by association doesn’t seem to be working. Recent surveys show that voters don’t find the term “democratic socialist” nearly as repugnant as the word “MAGA.”

And they are correct to think that.

So here’s some friendly advice for my conservative friends: Stop trying to demonize a phrase that younger people increasingly find appealing, while proving that you have nothing to offer other than fear, anger, and a flop-sweat twisting of words that fools nobody.

Every time you insist “democratic socialism” is synonymous with Mao, it just seems like you also don’t understand the difference between steak and hamburger, or the ocean and a lake, or the Brewers and the Rockies.

The rest of us comprehend reality. Join us here. 

I promise it’s not a communist plot.

The Olds

Perhaps it’s fitting that America is coming to the end of its lifespan.

Because our leaders are certainly coming to the end of theirs.

Back to back, we’ve had the two oldest presidents in US history. The US Congress now has two dozen  octogenarians and at least one nonagenarian. 

More than half of those lawmakers are running for re-election, because hey, why retire and let someone younger make decisions that will affect future generations when you can shuffle around the corridors of power and never endure the long-term consequences of your actions?

By the way, the gap between “the average age of an American and the average of a member of Congress has been growing, especially over the last 15 years.”

Political scientists have a term for this: gerontocracy (aka rule by older generations).

I’ve written before about the Scourge… I mean Baby Boomers. This is a generation that preached peace and love in its youth but then shrieked, “Give me more and kill them all” in its old age.

It’s bad enough that Boomers hoarded everything for themselves while lecturing younger people about being selfish, which doesn’t even get into how this most pampered of generations has the cojones to insist that everyone under 60 is weak because we don’t appreciate the decimated society and world they left us.

No, the lasting political legacy of this far from greatest generation is their refusal to cede power.

My generation (Gen X) will likely never have a president, as the country will probably leap from Baby Boomer domination to Millennial stewardship. That’s ok. We’re used to being ignored.

But what’s not ok is that this shift to younger leadership is not happening anytime soon.

We have enfeebled senators blubbering their way through their terms but still insisting on running for reelection. That’s when they’re not dropping dead of old age or disappearing because of age-related calamities. 

And it goes beyond politics. We are enduring “a quiet slide into generational inequality, in which older, disproportionately wealthy voters and homeowners shape the economy — and America's democracy — to their advantage while insisting they're really the ones who are under siege.”

Boomers now hold more than half of American wealth despite making up just 20% of the population. Economists say that “the old rich have pulled away from everyone else," meaning that the US is not just an oligarchy, but is also an "oldigarchy."

And as far as social or cultural progress, keep in mind that “an aging society is more set on preservation than on renovation.” Boomers don’t much care for things that didn’t exist in their day, like trans people and female CEOs. Hell, they don’t much care for things that they actually did have in their day, like affordable college and scientific breakthroughs, because those concepts no longer affect them personally.

No, older Americans just want to live out their remaining years in peace and quiet. And that means holding on to as much power and money as they can while exhibiting pathological indifference to their children and grandchildren.

That’s far from ok, Boomer.