Poetic License

In just a couple of weeks, Trump and Musk have tried to destroy America and remake it as some Nazi ideal, filled with only those of the Aryan race. They seek to transform us into a straight cis white male-dominated country filled with those who believe conspiracy theories, fancy themselves militants, and money grab only for themselves. This is the scariest time I have personally ever lived through. I have felt despair, fear, sadness, and anger. I have said some things–like “I need to buy a gun”–that would normally never cross my lips. In other words, I’m appalled that I’m taking on the characteristics of the people who brought about this coup.

And don’t kid yourself; a coup d’etat is happening.

Suddenly the people who were so mad about the price of eggs have either shut up about it or have started to see paying a higher price for eggs as some patriotic act. Some have started to say that Biden started the bird flu epidemic, because in their insane, blathering way, they are one trick ponies. They only know how to place blame, not how to accept accountability. Their feeble minds could not possibly conceive of gasp! climate change causing changes to the migratory patterns of wild birds, which introduces foreign pathogens into novel environments. It’s like the coronavirus pandemic visited upon wildlife. Millions of farmed birds have had to be destroyed to try to stop the spread, but right now that is kind of like killing kittens because you don’t want to get the mama cat spayed. It’s a little too late.

These–let’s just say it–Republican morons have been led like lambs to the slaughter by online right-wing groups, “TruthSocial”, Fox News, and their very own churches. Unfortunately, they took us all with them. They voted for the Orange Turd who brought with him the South African terrorist Musk. Trump keeps the smokescreen going (“We’re going into Gaza with our military to take over the strip and turn it into the Middle Eastern Riviera”, “We’re going to call it the Gulf of America”, “I’m going to place tariffs on goods from Canada, Mexico, and China”) while Musk is hacking into the Treasury with a band of teenagers, one of whom calls himself “Big Balls.”

Musk, under the guise of a made-up entity called the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), is shuttering some of the most useful and precious parts of our democracy. The employees of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) have been locked out of their building, with Musk saying he has shut down the agency because it was a criminal enterprise and a waste of taxpayer money. He’s trying to do the same thing to other agencies. While I’m not a fan of some of their tactics, I respect the place in society which the CIA and FBI cover. Without them, we are doomed and that’s not hyperbole. We dragged them through inquisitions and public inspection after 9/11. I’m here to tell you that without them, we will have no hope for our country.

I’m not sure anyone expected a South African immigrant to sneak in as a shadow president behind the Orange Turd, but he’s there now. The havoc he wants to wreak is beyond mind-boggling. He’s all over Twitter spewing his vile pronouncements, such as, “Defund NPR. It should survive on its own.” (NPR gets about 1% of its support from the federal government; Musk’s companies get 35%.)

You might think, especially if you’re in another country, that we’re doing nothing, but you’d be wrong. All around the country, protests have been happening. Judges are stepping in and ordering stoppages to some things where they can. People are blocking freeways and putting up signs and defacing Tesla lots and buildings. We are calling our congressmen, flooding the phone lines, demanding that Musk be deported. If anyone should be deported, it’s him and his Nazi salutes and his “Swastikars” as we are calling Teslas now. He’s doing the same thing as when he took over Twitter. Walking in, pissing all over everything, firing people left and right, and bragging about it all. We have to stop him, and by way of stopping him, we need to immediately impeach the Orange Turd.

This has been systematic, and they have played the long game. The Republican Party started their meshing of religion and politics a long time ago with Jerry Falwell. Reagan came into office and was a disaster that lasted eight years. Many people died under his watch during the AIDS crisis, which he made jokes about. The two Bushes took us into wars that I believe resulted in 9/11 and then in the horrors at Guantanamo Bay. All the while, they were waging war against their own people with shady deals, shaky memories (when it suited them), and a gradual pollution of the national consciousness through the use of churches. This spawned things such as politics in sermons, telling you whom to vote for, and bombing Planned Parenthood clinics.

Between the politicians and the clergy (most of them, not all of them), people became radicalized. That’s right. Radicalized. What you are seeing play out in America is no different than what we’ve seen play out in the Middle East, where rich men take over the government, oppress women, kill minorities through ethnic cleansing, kill those who are different in any way from their version of normal (LGBTIA+), and destroy their own countries in the process. The press has been vilified (unless they are talking the party line) and taken over. The opposition (Democrats) has been vilified and libeled as “The Radical Left” when in fact the radicalized are the Republicans. Just look at what they’ve done. Don’t take my word for it. The proof is in the pudding.

On January 6, 2021, we watched the television in horror as the Orange Turd incited a riot of his most militant supporters, who learned about the directive via their underground Facebook groups and other internet sites and converged on our nation’s capital to attack the Capitol building. They broke in through doors and windows. They climbed the walls. They went inside looking for VP Pence (for whom they had already constructed a gallows), Nancy Pelosi, and other Democrats. They tore the building apart. They shat on desks, They destroyed official papers. They attempted to kill police who stood in their way. Some policemen later took their own lives because they couldn’t get past the horror of that day. PTSD is real.

Our country survived that coup attempt and pursued the perpetrators vigorously. Trump himself went into his second term as a 34-time felon, but because our forefathers never envisioned the constituency electing such a horrible waste of human life, there was no Constitutional amendment to stop him from being elected! I was shocked to learn that detail. One of his first actions once he was sworn in on–I’m sad to say–Martin Luther King Day was to pardon all 1600 people who committed a crime during the certification of the 2020 election. Some of those who were pardoned have already gone on to commit another crime.

He wants everyone to believe the immigrants are committing the crimes. It is actually his followers who are the evildoers.

Those evildoers even had a playbook for what they are doing now. It’s called Project 2025. It was published and available before the election, but the Radical Right saw it as a ploy by the Democrats because the Orange Turd claimed he had never heard of it. You see, they always believe him. He’s been on television and he’s rich, so they believe him. They like that he “tells it like it is,” but they don’t question the hate and unmerciful lies that spew from his mouth. Instead they question us, the opposition, and claim that we’re not patriots, that we’re not Christians, that we are deluded.

The inmate is running the asylum, and all of the other inmates think he is Jesus Christ. I kid you not. It’s like living in a circus, but it’s real. It’s like being in a psych ward where everyone has gone around the final bend of sanity, and I can’t get out. He sold gold shoes to these people at an inflated price. He sold Bibles! All the while, Musk was becoming his best buddy. He and his minions hacked the election. He all but admitted that on his “TruthSocial” platform. They are feeding the Beast that slouched out of Bethlehem to be born. My former mother-in-law, who believed at one time that the government was going to implant chips in our arms as the mark of the beast. has no problem with the actual mark of the beast–a red MAGA hat.

Lest I start to sound too radical myself, by drifting into religious territory, let me end this tale by telling you what gives me hope.

1. The people in the protests
2. All those people flooding the phone lines to Congressmen and Congresswomen
3. The radical position my own company took but continuing our DEI programs, even though we work on federal contracts
4. The immigrants who shut down the freeway in LA over the deportations
5. The pushback from our representatives, such as AOC (Alexandria Ocacio-Cortez)
6. Letitia James, the Attorney General of New York, who is pursuing Trump on all legal fronts, and the 19 other state attorneys general who are joining her suit to expel DOGE from the Treasury Department
7. My friends and my sister, who are on my side and on the side of what’s right

I wish I had a crystal ball that would tell me our nation will come out of this dark time unscathed. But you know? I hope we are a little “scathed.” I hope this wakes people up. I heard about some people who are regretting that they voted for him, now that his administration’s policies are hitting them in the wallets due to reduced and eliminated benefits. These people who need to feel financial pain in order to react make me so sad. They’re the same people who railed against Bishop Budde when she asked the Orange Turd to show mercy to the people who are afraid, such as lesbians, gay, and transgender people. When did we become a society that finds mercy to be a “Liberal” word? When did “Christians,” which I put in quotations marks because they do not follow the actual teachings of Christ, become so cruel?

Maybe we can trace it back to Falwell. Maybe we can trace it to Trump. But maybe we just need to look in the mirror.

Peace, for God’s sake, peace.

Jude