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Let's face it: our world is, to put it mildly, a distinct mess. It doesn't matter whether you're checking out the never-ending, devastating war in Ukraine; the ever more embattled Middle East; North Korea, which has more than 11,000 troops fighting and dying in" yes!" Ukraine; or South Korea, which is now in a state of near political collapse. And, of course, that's just to start down a list of global horrors on a planet that, in case you hadn't noticed, is now heating up at a startling pace. And all of that was true even before" gulp, Donald Trump, a living, breathing sign of this country's potential future devastation (disintegration? collapse?) returns to the White House and prepares an all-American hell on earth for the rest of us.
Yes, Rebecca Gordon, who starts a potentially devastating 2025 with her 90th piece for TomDispatch, couldn't be more on target when she describes herself as feeling a little "punch-drunk." Under the circumstances, I feel no less punch-drunk, imagining what it will be like to live my 80th through 84th years with -- can you believe it? -- Donald Trump and his deeply disturbed and disturbing crew back running (running down? running away with?) this country on an increasingly punch-drunk planet.
I mean, imagine a great power headed by a billionaire who has already appointed 13 other billionaires to serve in his government (with a combined wealth of at least $383 billion), including the richest man on Planet Earth and the possible future first trillionaire, Elon Musk. Without a doubt, his will be the wealthiest administration in American history. The all-American demagogue who, the first time around, untaxed the rich in a stunning fashion, is back in charge of an all-American world of staggering and still growing inequality, and there can be little doubt that worse is to come. With that in mind, let Gordon consider how to live with (rather than without) the man of the hour -- all too sadly not our hour, but his. Tom
Finding Hope
In the Negative Spaces of the Trump Era
The expression "punch-drunk," Google informs me, means "stupefied by or as if by a series of heavy blows to the head." Google's Oxford Language entry then offers a not-terribly-illuminating example of the term's use: "I feel a little punch-drunk today." Right now, a better one might be something like: "After November 5, 2024, a lot of people have been feeling more than a little punch-drunk."
Learning on the night of November 5th that Donald Trump had probably been reelected president certainly left me feeling stupefied, with a sense that I'd somehow sustained a number of heavy blows to the head. The experience was undoubtedly amplified by the fact that I'd spent the previous three months in Reno, Nevada, as part of a seven-day-a-week political effort to prevent just such an outcome, along with a crew of valiant UNITE-HERE union members and more than 1,000 volunteer canvassers organized by Seed the Vote.
Still, I hoped that battered feeling would wear off after our campaign office was dismantled, the rental car returned, and the extended-stay hotel room vacated. Surely, once reunited with my beloved partner (and a pair of disgruntled cats), I'd find the disorienting pain of repeated shocks beginning to dissipate.
And the Hits Just Keep on Coming
In fact, it's only gotten worse, as Trump has rolled out his picks and plans for the new administration. As old radio DJs used to shout: the hits just keep on coming! Unfortunately, these hits aren't rock-n-roll records; they're blows to the collective consciousness of those of us who worked to prevent Trump's reelection, and perhaps even to a few of those who voted for him.
Ethics-deficient Matt Gaetz for attorney general? Bam! Kristi Noem, the puppy-killer, to run the Department of Homeland Security? Pow! Wait, Matt Gaetz is out! Now, it's Pam Bondi, the woman who accepted an illegal $25,000 campaign contribution from the now-defunct Trump Foundation for attorney general. Bam! Anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., to run health and human services? Bang! Convicted (and Trump-pardoned) felon Charles Kushner (Jared's dad) for ambassador to France? Take that, Emmanuel Macron! Wham! And then there's a double-whammy for those of us who spent a couple of decades opposing this country's Global War on Terror, as we watch the liberal media (even the British Guardian) lionize old neocon war criminals like John Bolton and Dick Cheney for their opposition to Trump this time around. Whack! No wonder our ears are ringing!
As one uppercut after another left us reeling, a whole flurry of stiff jabs followed in the form of Trump's announcements of new territorial ambitions for this country. He wants the Panama Canal back. And Greenland, which was never ours to begin with. As he wrote on his social media platform Truth Social, "For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity." L'e'tat, c'est Donald Trump, apparently.
O Canada! Yes, he wants that, too! "It was a pleasure to have dinner the other night with Governor Justin Trudeau of the Great State of Canada," he wrote on Truth Social. Governor Trudeau, really? Bernie Sanders jokingly probed the possible benefits of a U.S.-Canada assimilation, asking on X, "Does that mean that we can adopt the Canadian health care system and guarantee health care to all, lower the cost of prescription drugs, and spend 50% less per capita on healthcare?"
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