The reelection of Donald John Trump to the highest office
in the land - following two impeachments,
leadership in an insurrection and all sorts of
criminal indictments and convictions - is not
an American crisis, but rather a symptom of a
crisis that is called the United States of
America. America’s problem is that it is an
unserious nation. But for its violence - and
we should remember that Dr.
Martin Luther King called America “the greatest purveyor of violence in
the world today” - we should take everything
this country does with a grain of salt, a
grain of sand, Uncle Ben’s long-grain rice,
whatever.
This is the most unserious country in the whole wide
world, with the TikTok ban as Exhibit A. Trump
wanted to ban the social media app in his
first administration, but the initiative
failed for a lack of interest. Then, when
Biden took over, Democrats and Republicans
united to get very little done except to fund
weapons for Ukraine, bankroll the genocide in
Gaza, and ban TikTok. Lawmakers who would take
no action to address climate change,
homelessness, or myriad other problems dropped
everything they were doing and clamped down on
free speech in the name of “Communist” China.
Supporters of the TikTok ban proclaimed it was necessary
as a national security move to protect America
from Chinese influence. But this move had
nothing to do with China, which is a
hyper-capitalist country with government
controls that is eating the United States for
lunch - and every single day. What the
politicians did not say is that techbro
billionaires Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg
wanted the ban to kill their competition, and
AIPAC and the ADL wanted to neutralize a
leading venue for young progressive Americans
to organize for Palestinian rights. Now Trump
can return to power, reverse the TikTok ban
and save the day.
Meanwhile, millions of Americans flocked to Xiaohongshu, also known as RedNote, the Chinese social media platform
that has become the most downloaded app in the
U.S. On RedNote, TikTok refugees have learned
that China is not nearly as bad a place as
their political leaders made them believe, and
is plausibly a nation offering a better life
than America - with sparkling new cities and
dazzling architecture, highspeed railroads,
superior electric cars and affordable prices.
China is not a democracy, but then again,
neither is America.
The Trump-Vance duo “running” the government Washington is
in fact owned by Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and a
handful of unhinged, unstable, toxic,
evil-scientist-looking billionaires who are
masquerading as villains from the Marvel
Universe. Republicans and Democrats alike are
wholly-owned subsidiaries of these oligarchs,
and America itself is an oligarchy. Oligarchy
means the privatization of all the things, the
gutting of democracy, and selling off the
country for spare parts. Voters have the right
to an opinion and little else, as their votes
do not affect the laws, policies and
politicians, who in any case were already paid
for by oligarchs, complete with receipts. Three
billionaires now own more wealth than the bottom half of the U.S.
population. Billionaires own the legacy
corporate media, social media, and now the
government. Musk has enough money to travel to
the moon. Jeff Bezos can’t afford to give his
employees raises, but has enough money to
travel to space and buy a yacht so large that
it has a smaller yacht inside of it. And
America - the “land of the free” - is
the most unequal nation on Earth, and the only
developed country with a declining
life expectancy.
How can we take seriously a country that invented medical
debt and pre-existing conditions, where
insurance companies kill people by denying
patients healthcare for profit, and the dying
start GoFundMe pages in an attempt to save
their lives? America, the only nation without
universal healthcare, could save 68,000 people
per year and trillions of dollars by changing
course, but lacks the will because it is captured
by corporations and wealthy elites. Lawmakers will band together to ban an app, raise their
salaries or bomb Brown babies in a foreign
country, but they will not lift a pen to end
hunger, stop mass shootings or make college
free. They are thoroughly corrupt and
unserious, and even Supreme Court justices are
on the take with lavish gifts to keep them
compliant.
America is unserious, and Trump and his minions are
unserious. The crowd that rails against DEI
and cries for meritocracy fills the cabinet
with unqualified and mediocre White men and
Fox News talking heads. Only in America - and
Weimar
Germany - can someone attempt to overthrow the government and
return to run the whole thing. Other places
would have forced Trump to flee to Russia in
exile. But America, the most unserious place,
criminalizes Black, Brown and poor people and
immigrants, and normalizes criminality when
wealthy White men are committing major crime.
Thanks, Merrick Garland.
And here we are, in the final days of the American empire,
just like a scene from Gladiator II, complete with dudes in the coliseum fighting lions
and apes and everything. All of this is highly
unserious.
