Murica

I remember my grandparents hundreds of books, they took up one wall of the living room. Three of them were John Dos Passos USA trilogy. This is where I point out that I never read those books and know nothing about Dos Passos but I knew my grandfather: Charlie was a socialist, very much on the pulse of the shady things big corporations and big governments do. In my head, the books Dos Passos are most known for—written during the Depression of the 1930s—are about someone looking at the United States from the outside. Dos Passos was from the U.S., but you can still be from here and feel like an outsider—I certainly feel that way, maybe you do, as well.

I was walking through the campground yesterday and there was a banner reading “Make America Number One.”

I’ve seen loads of banners like that the past few years: Make America number one—make America great again. There was a guy near the banner and I almost asked him which America? North, Central, or South? Was there something wrong with Costa Rica or Argentina I wasn’t aware of? The U.S.A. is no longer the U.S.A., we are, apparently, the only country out of nearly two dozen on the American land mass that matters. The truth is, the U.S.A. is dead and in it’s place there is Murica. Where there used to be sensible Republicans in suits siding with big business but still being generally fair there are MAGA people in patriotic t-shirts and cargo pants. I saw someone running for governor in some state and the dude was wearing cargo pants which disturbed me—we need grown-ups in grown-up clothes running this country. I don’t give a fuck if Joe Biden falls off bicycles, at least he wears a suit. Of course, people in this country underdress in general but that is an entirely different digression.

People fall for cargo pants. They fall for people who speak off the cuff no matter how mean spirited and ignorant the words falling off that cuff may be. All of us—Red and Blue folks—understand that something is terribly wrong with the way the alledged grown ups are running this country, that working people living check to check tend to get the dirty end of the stick. The only representatives we see on our news feeds belong to parties with names beginning with a “D” or an “R,” no other parties have the money to compete nor are they taken seriously enough to be part of the debates during elections. We end up electing (mostly) multi-millionaires who went to the same schools and are in the same social circles as the CEOs of financial institutions and oil companies and the lot. This is our political system here in Murica, the relationship between government and business is very complex and there are no simple answers to how to fix it; there is no magic man in cargo pants who can wave a magic wand—(or an M16)—and create a fair and just system for all 340 million of us.

Murica has always been a big noise, even when it was still the United States. We made a big noise, we were an oversized child stomping around, but at least we still had some compassion; Nixon wanted a basic income for poor families, for fuck’s sake. Nixon. People read books, people were open to new ideas, didn’t matter if you were a Democrat or a Republican. Maybe it was mobile phones that fucked us, suddenly we didn’t need other people to get directions from or any number of things mobile phones provide for us, we didn’t need to interact with other human beings, our Android or iPhone makes dealing with people largely unnecessary. Go to a movie theatre? Why when you can stream that movie on your Murica-sized television. Movie theatres used to be the archetypical social interaction: A bunch of people from all walks of life spending a couple of hours in a dark room together following agreed upon rules: Don’t talk during the movie. Don’t block people’s view and so on. It was so common we didn’t think about it and now it’s gone.

I remember my last visits with Charlie. He died in the last year of the 20th century at the age of 86, three years after my grandmother died. They had this round, white table in the kitchen and we’d sit at it, my grandfather and I, talking about the state of the world. Charlie lamented the Clinton years, he’d sit there and shake his bald head and occasionally run his right palm over his pate unconsciously. I’m so glad he didn’t have to see the shitshow of the last twenty years. Charlie, I’m guessing, cast his first vote for FDR when he was eligable to vote in 1936. He probably lamented the election of Nixon. Can’t get worse than Tricky Dick, eh? No? Well, here comes Reagan which was sort of the beginning of normal, working people getting fucked over and the start of the rebranding of the United States into Murica. Charlie would have been blown away by the cretinism of Dubya and the disrespectful snake oil salesman I call Illiterate Mussolini. Like me, Charlie loved to read history and he understood how the combination of a populist leader in nationalistic country with economic woes can lead to all sorts of shit. Pointing out the Nazis is a cliche but it is also an archetypical situation: After World War One Germany was fucked. There was hyper-inflation, life was all sorts of trying for the Germans—

And along came to Brownshirts:

My friends, I see you strugglng. You are good people, you work hard and are barely surviving. But, the solution is quite simple, the source of your problems is quite easy to see: The Jew. The Jews run this world, they control the money…they are why things are the way they are.

It could be the Jew, it could be the Latinos coming over the border. In your country it could be the people who are on food stamps—

The scapegoat.

The thing is, most Germans were not bad, but desperate situations lead good people to go along with bad ideas, not just go along with them but embrace them. Charlie understood that, we talked about that a lot.

It is the Summer of 2022. We are suffering from inflation and the economy is, once again, teetering. Gas stations have ceased to have signs announcing prices in dollars and cents and have replaced them with placards reading “Bend over and grab your ankles.” Muricans complain about the cost of fuel even though it is still cheaper than in Europe and we insist in driving our enormous Costco Cowboy/Cowgirl pickups. I work in a campground, ninety-five percent of our guests drive big trucks that cost $20000 more than a top of the line Prius or $10000 more than a long range Tesla. Choices: If you elect to have your Costco Cowboy/girl rig you have no right to bitch about gas prices. Inflation sucks, no doubt, I’m paying $100 during my weekly shopping trips, but I am not calling for Biden’s neck like loads of Muricans. The causes of the inflation we are suffering are complex, you can’t just blame Biden or Trump for that matter. But blaming one man—Biden—is easy. It scares me because it opens the door for Illiterate Mussolini or one of his disciples in cargo pants to win the White House in two years. People don’t give a fuck about the peril of letting some MAGA person in the White House, the events of January 6, 2021 didn’t make it clear the dangers of a cult of personality like Illiterate Mussolini. It’s all about money in Murica, nothing else matters.

And that deeply concerns me because all indications are that we are headed towards a Costco sized recession.

Biden could be another Hoover but instead of a great man like FDR stepping in to fill the vaccum it will be some MAGA head in cargo pants:

It is not your fault gas is six dollars a gallon, it is the fault of the Mexican and the people who read books and question things on social media. It is the what the Libtards force down our throats like the fags, and mud people and—

(CUE: Stream of vomit)

I am struggling with being in this country. I was already struggling, but it has reached a point that I can’t imagine spending the rest of my life here---I can’t imagine it but I also don’t want to leave my aging parents to the wolves and the wolves are looking to take over Murica. Not cool howling at the moon wolves, capricious, soulless wolves in cargo pants who post selfies brandishing assault rifles on social media. I have no answers, all I can say is that if you are also struggling with this place we call Murica, that we reluctantly call home, that you are not alone.