'Tears of Rage'

S E E D E D   C O N T E N T

If you're like me, I'm sure your timeline was filled with a lot of sorrow and rage this week. The fires that Trump and his far right allies have stoked are now consuming their own.

It's an obvious point but we have never been so ill-served by our federal government and GOP politicians at the state level. A horrific crime was immediately turned into an opportunity to divide us further. Blame was assigned before facts were known.

Trump breaks things: that is what he does best. It is why the Russians have backed him and helped him cheat in all three of his elections. It worked twice. Now we are paying the price and Vladimir Putin is reaping the rewards.

We are foundering.

Cultural fires have been stoked by Russian troll farms and billionaire-backed far right online pundits, many of whom now sit in on White House press briefings. They are achieving the goals they were hired to accomplish- sowing discord and rancor in our civic life.

Exploiting systemic racism and bigotry that has become a lifestyle brand for far too many Americans. I saw soccer moms calling for civil war this week and reacting to the trauma we all witnessed by blaming the left before even a modicum of evidence was available. Blaming the same folks they have been taught to view as 'the other' and the enemy.

The usual MAGA suspects were stoking these false premises online and on Fox News - and once again blaming the trans community, labeling them domestic terrorists.

In reality, anyone with a mild understanding of what's happening could quickly surmise that the shooter would in fact turn out to be a young, white, Christian male raised in a toxic gun culture by Republican parents. The demographic most responsible for mass shootings.

If you're taking pics of your kids smiling while holding guns, especially military grade weapons, the odds are you are a terrible parent. Sadly this country is full of them right now.

Children being raised in homes that voted for Trump in 2024 - when he had already launched a violent attempted coup against democracy itself, after a free and fair election he lost in 2020 - are being taught to ignore reality in favor of lies.

If you are exposing them to Fox News and right-wing media in all it's spurious forms, you are not doing this world any favors - and may in fact be adding in its destruction.

The denial of climate change alone is exceedingly dangerous and an existential threat to us all. To imagine a generation of citizens that dosen't believe it exists is a horror in and of itself.

Add to that maelstrom a red state majority believing that Trump is saving their country from invaders and terrorists - when the truth is MAGA has unleashed chaos and calamity in this country for the last decade - and we realize it won't end until those voters wake up and come to understand they are being conned.

Trump was prompted on two seperate occasions to express his grief over the loss of his friend this week and spoke instead about the construction of his new White House ballroom. President Biden would have had listeners in tears with words of empathy and condolence, as would have Obama.

You cannot indulge in shared humanity when you have none. Trump has never truly cared about another human being other than himself. He views all of his relationships as transactional, only in terms of what another can do for him.

Empathy matters, even when remembering men who saw it as a weakness; exploiting base instincts for money and power. Preaching division and exclusion, using a weaponized theology as a cudgel rather than a balm or a blessing.

Even they deserve the respect Trump was unable to muster.

Charlie Kirk was a bigot and a racist who amassed a small fortune from his anonymous benefactors traveling to college campuses and indoctrinating kids into a cult. He did not deserve to die for it by any means, I find his death abhorrent and gut-wrenchingly awful.

Anyone celebrating his murder has lost sight of their own humanity.

That is not to say the lionization of him and hagiographies that skip over the content of the man's character, not to mention his words, are not offensive.

We are in extremely divisive times - it is quite clear Trump will exploit Kirk's death and subsequent martyrdom on the right, as a way to not only deflect from his decades of involvement with Jeffrey Epstein, but also to further punish those who stand in opposition to the 'America First' agenda.

A Fox News host on Saturday, Brain Kilmeade, called for 'involuntary lethal injection or something, just kill them' on air, when discussing unhoused, mentally ill people. The conversation was sparked by the horrific murder of a young woman in North Carolina that Trump also used this week to deflect from his own troubles, assigning the Black assailant as belonging to a group he calls 'monsters'.

In fact, it was one deranged individual responsible for the crime but the attempts to label all similar people as deserving of some sort of 'final solution' type remedy is as deliberate as it is disgusting.

That sort of poison is being pumped into the hearts and minds of millions of Americans on a daily basis.

MAGA has reacted to the killing of Charlie Kirk this week with overwhelming grief and I will allow them that, but it is a grief that was entirely absent when Minnesota State Representative Melissa Hortman was assassinated alongside her husband Mark and their family dog, Gilbert.

In their home in the middle of the night, the Hortmans were assassinated by an extremist Trump supporter who had spent a lifetime in far right Christian circles.

There were no eulogies from Trump on that awful occasion, no order of American flags to be flown at half mast. No calls to State Senator John Hoffman while he recovered from his gunshot wounds from the same assailant who had a list of Democratic politicians he was targeting.

MAGA was not allowed to grieve for these horrors because they were committed in pursuit of their goals. That's how wars work: you don't cry over the enemy.

Trump has his followers believing they are at war with their fellow citizens.

POTUS never once publicly mentioned the Black police officer, David Rose, who was killed while defending the C.D.C. from a mass shooter who was a part of the MAGA anti-vax lunacy that Trump's own H.H.S. Secretary, RFK Jr., fomented and purveyed on this country. Bobby was given a cabinet position precisely because of his popularity in that once fringe movement; the damage it will do to public health will last for decades - and people will die because of it.

Officer Rose was thirty-three years old, a former Marine with a wife and two children -the very same attributes the GOP would be celebrating posthumously had he been a white MAGA adherent.

It's not just a double standard, it's a blatantly racist attempt to proclaim only certain lives worthy of their emotions - and those that are not aligned with Trump are not to be remembered or mourned. It's an age-old play for dictators, resulting in a staggering loss of life in centuries past. It's shocking to see it so nakedly at play in the U.S.A.

The same dynamic was invoked after January 6th; Trump's recent order to grant a full military honors funeral to Ashli Babbitt, another of their recent martyrs, is abhorrent. Babbitt died attacking our Constitutional process, not protecting it.

I barely recognize my country these days. I hope we can use this moment to walk back from the precipice those that wish us harm keep pushing us towards.

MAGA exists to bring out the worst in its followers by telling them that unevolved, repugnant behavior is in fact patriotism.

It is not. It is the antithesis of the democratic ideals, freedoms and liberty that our better angels have always pointed us towards. We need to reclaim our identity because we are losing it fast. Some would say it is already gone, and it may be hard in this moment to say that they are wrong, but what choice do we really have but to pick up the pieces and keep moving forward.

We have to bring light into the darkness, to take opposite actions from the rage and rancor of our age. We must meet anger and viciousness with compassion - not with the false preaching of the plastic prophets on the right, the cynical men and women exploiting ignorance and fleecing their flocks in service of an authoritarian despot.

A man whose own sexual predation was so prolific and unseemly it has followed him into his eight decade on this earth. Anyone who doesn't believe Trump is guilty has to disavow the claims of literally hundreds of women and his own words.

That is not a man who is a 'Christian savior' or a brave protector of the homeland.

He is a repugnant criminal who has gotten away with his crimes because of his wealth, connections and ability to manipulate and cajole others into NOT believing their own eyes and ears. To look past their own better judgment in service of his needs alone.

An abuser to his core.

It must stop.

If we are to truly become a great nation - and sadly that ship may have sailed or at least be in need of a serious overhaul in dry dock - we need to wake up to reality and help others to do the same. Post haste.

Despite all the chaos and uncertainty around us, peace and presence are still available to each and everyone of us in any given moment.

We can chose mindfulness, love and compassion. When we grant that gift to ourselves, when we cultivate our awareness, it has a way of influencing our actions and those around us. Kindness is contagious. So is hope and generosity of spirit.

We must react non-violently to the aggressions of so many and chose a path that will ultimately transcend and heal this nation.

Here's to a better way and a brighter day.

I still believe in that pursuit and I still believe in you, America.