Detox

 “If the enemy has no scruples, then the side with scruples is doomed to defeat.” Javier Marias, Berta Isla

After a long overdue decision to quit the daily barrage of political social media that has been my staple diet for several years, I signed out of Twitter, Instagram, Linkedin, Medium and Facebook. That was three days ago and it already seems quieter inside my head. It’s not a total break from national politics because I read enough periodicals to stay abreast, rather a retreat from the daily torrent of prognostications and analysis of Trump’s latest past-midnight all caps post, the most recent polls showing Trump leading Biden, or the odds that the GOP will deliberately torpedo the economy with its debt-ceiling blackmail.  

Getting off Twitter paid immediate dividends as the platform is simply an outrage machine that never fails to set my blood boiling. 

More than a year ago, after a late summer trip to Oregon to visit my brother, I vowed to reduce and self-regulate my exposure to political news, but I couldn’t do it for more than a few days, and, like a dope fiend, I was back in the deep end of the pool, being reminded every five minutes that my country is in deep shit. I know it is, and an insufficient number of people seem to give a damn. If American voters can’t see by now how dangerous Donald Trump is they must agree with him, don’t care one way or another, or believe the danger of a second Trump term is overstated, which it most certainly isn’t. Trump is far more unhinged in 2023 than he was in 2015, with a firm grip on the GOP, which is even more radical than it was during his disastrous first term. Madness and cruelty reign. Twenty-five years ago any public figure who pulled a smidgeon of the shit Trump has would have been sunk. 

Unfortunately, shame is no longer a moderating influence in politics (just ask George Santos), and I honestly believe that if Trump roofied Ivanka and fucked her in a hottub at Mar-A-Lago while Jared Kushner and a dozen guests sat nearby watching, GOP bigwigs and the corporate media would normalize the transgression. 

Kevin McCarthy: “But what about Democrats who mix cocktails with the blood of aborted babies!”

Lindsey Graham: “Do we know for sure there was penetration? Because if there’s no penetration there’s no incest. Unless you can prove penetration, I don’t see a problem.”

Marjorie Taylor Greene: “Nancy Pelosi roofied her husband all the time and twice when the moon was full.”

And so on and so on and so on until public horror fades and is forgotten. 

I don’t need to be teased several times a day about how close Special Counsel Jack Smith is to completing his investigations into January 6 and Trump’s theft of classified material and other public documents, or the latest from Fani Willis in Georgia. Smith and his team of prosecutors hauled the dim-witted Christian eunuch, Mike “Ever Pious” Pence before a grand jury, but strangely, not Mark Meadows though he was at the center of the effort to monkey-wrench the 2020 election. Even the cadre of pundits on MSNBC are silent about Meadows. I find this very strange and wonder why Meadows has been given a pass. Until Meadows faces a grand jury I’m not getting my hopes up for a DOJ indictment of Trump and his many co-conspirators. 

My hunch is that Trump will be pardoned long before he’s ever convicted. For the good of the Republic, of course. 

Night of the Caudillo

 “I’ve watched the days pass with the slow downhill feeling we all experience sooner or later.” Javier Marias, All Souls

The would-be American Caudillo is angry. Seething in the Florida night. Indicted. Criminally indicted. This is new, uncomfortable, and can’t be part of the script. It’s preposterous because he did nothing wrong, he never does anything wrong; evil and jealous people want to take him down. He’s a victim. They persecute him because he is strong and beats them all the time. Don’t they know he never loses, at anything! Indestructible. Infallible. Immense. His likeness must be carved into monuments, cast in bronze, captured in marble and placed for eternity in the Great Hall of the Patriots. He poses before a full-length mirror, tilts his chin up, glares with contempt. He likes the look. Tough. Manly. Virile. He sucks in his stomach. Still got it. 

His loyalists in the legislative branch rush to his defense, attack the prosecutor’s race and integrity. The nerve of the man! All politically motivated they say, all designed to derail the Caudillo’s candidacy for a triumphant second term. It doesn’t matter that the alleged crimes were being investigated long before the Caudillo announced his intent to run again, it’s still a political hit job. The loyalists line up to speak to the scribes and cameras, and in chorus link the prosecutor with a cabal led by a wealthy Jew, one of history’s most reliable and durable villains. In service of the Caudillo, evidence is unnecessary and logic the obsession of impotent intellectuals. What matters is the narrative. Create it, repeat it, add to it as needed, alter it on the fly. Keep it simple so the faithful understand. Us against them. Our kind against those others. 

Everyone is out to get him. 

The Florida night feels inhospitable and the shadows beyond the windows bend like the bars of a cage. In another room, behind a dead-bolted and electronically alarmed door, his wife sleeps alone. No comfort there. The gilded ballroom is empty. He doesn’t tolerate the quiet of these hours well because thoughts creep in, memories, sensations, and he struggles to hold them at bay. He reminds himself that there has never been a more perfect human specimen than him. He’s the one without defects or flaws or blemishes. Mental and physical perfection. The ultimate winner. His father drummed into him that peace is for the faint of heart, the weak. Be a killer, son. Win, whatever the cost. Hasn’t he always?

He learned to keep his own hands clean by getting others to do the heavy lifting, the unpleasant work. He also learned the importance of having someone or something to blame when things don’t fall his way. Accuse the accusers. Turn the tables. Twist the truth. Push the boundaries. Stoop low.

The night reminds him of the military boarding school his father sent him to, a place he hated from the moment he arrived. The older cadets lorded over the younger cadets, treating them with meanness and cruelty. They stole sheets from beds and urinated in boots and jerked off into socks. Bastards! How he hated them. In the communal showers they pointed at his cock and compared it to a Vienna sausage. They nicknamed him “Stubby.” Only Thomas understood because he was also harassed and ridiculed. Thomas lived down the corridor, the last room on the left. He spent hours in that room after Thomas’s roommate returned home for medical reasons. Sitting side by side on Thomas’s single bed, shoulders touching, the room dimly lit by the lamp on the desk. Talking quietly about this and that, but mostly about their hatred of the older cadets. Plotting revenge. Totally simpatico.

He remembers how the warmth of their young bodies mingled. Even now he can feel Thomas’s arm around his shoulders. Forbidden thoughts became forbidden deeds committed under the coarse sheet and heavy wool blanket of Thomas’s bed. It was breathless and furtive, a first for both. Clumsy and uncertain and shrouded by the risk of discovery. When he placed his lips on Thomas’s neck he felt the boy’s racing heartbeat. 

Where, he wonders, is Thomas now? Aside from his father, Thomas is the only other person he never betrayed.