No Kings 2

I had to wrestle down my social anxiety to do it, but we (my husband and I) went to the No Kings rally this weekend.

I’m so glad we did it. It wasn’t a protest as much as a hangout. People gathering with costumes and signs to say, “We’re not okay with this. And we’re not afraid of you.”

You know New Orleanians are going to be creative.

CNBC was correct to name it a street party vibe. It certainly was in New Orleans. Drums, music, crazy costumes. Kind of a festival vibe, but a serious festival. Deep play. Play for now, but it will turn serious if needed.

My favorite inflated animal costume: the Axolotl!

Almost seven million people turned out to say “No kings in America.” Ordinary people like me, you. Us. There were no serious incidents nationwide. In New York City and Washington, DC, there were no injuries or arrests arising from the protest. There were no gun incidents.

Old farts can rant about the “radical violent leftists” of their youth. Half a century ago. Things have changed.

Progressives, leftists, Democrats are not the violent ones in this moment. Not the gun nuts. Not the ones who spawn shooter after mass shooter.

Now, it’s the Christian Nationalists, the militant white supremacists. Ultra-right and ultra dangerous.

I rant. The march made me — us — feel good. Feel hopeful. We’re not alone in seeing how crazy this all is.

Let’s hang onto that feeling and let it fuel our resistance until the next big action. The next will be even bigger.

See you at the barricades. 😏

October 21, 2025 0

MAGA Never Walks It Back

When I was a kid my dad taught me about Zeno’s Paradox. It’s a physics thought experiment from classical Greece, about time and movement. If every step you take toward your goal halves the distance, and every step halves the remaining difference – then how do you ever reach your goal?

MAGA’s behavior is like an Inverse Zeno’s Paradox – instead of halving, every step doubles down, and the end is not nowhere, but Armageddon.

For the last 48 hours we have been treated to a constant stream of red-faced MAGAs on social media scream-crying about how they’re “going to kill all us motherfuckers” for Charlie Kirk’s death. Ranting, choking, calling for civil war. Just unhinged. Jesse Waters on FOX said “they are at war with us now,” meaning the left, before the shooter was even identified. FOTUS went on Fox and raged, the President of the United States, raged about killing “leftists.” Red America unanimously decided, absent all evidence, that Democrats were to blame and they would be punished.

But the call was coming from inside the house.  Kirk’s killer was a Groyper – a white supremacist, Jew-hating Nick Fuentes fan.  Not trans.  Not left.  Not a Democrat.  A white, Mormon, ultra-MAGA gun nut.   Imagine that.

But there will be no gut-check for MAGA.  No come-to-Jesus moment.  They will not stop to reflect on their behavior. They refuse self-examination.  Since the truth is not to their liking, they will pretend this never happened, and next time it happens (because it will) they will double down, becoming even more hysterical.  More violent.  Acting it out.

It’s the tactic they take from Dear Leader: never admit error, never retract, never reflect — always double down. Increase the noise, the outrage, the wild accusations.  That’s how narcissists work.  Self-reflection feels like annihilation to them because their self-concept is so brittle, a gilded shell over a howling emptiness.

Lot of narcissists in MAGA.  Authoritarian parenting creates them.

But this isn’t a thought experiment. This is real life. Escalating conflict every time you’re challenged does not lead to good order. It leads to chaos and violence. Reverse Zeno’s Paradox.

If you “double down” every time with political action, eventually you get to detonating nuclear bombs.

Most of MAGA are Christian nationalists slavering for Judgment Day anyway. Nuclear holocaust is not a bug to them, it’s a feature.

I’m angry that MAGA as a whole, from the President on down, can conduct this anti-social, un-American behavior and receive no correction, either from within or without.  No think pieces about de-escalating the rhetoric.  No humble TikToks.  Jesse Waters isn’t going to get fired like Matthew Dowd.  No, indeed.

So I’m doing it.  MAGA, you need to check yourself.  Your hysteria, your racism, your violence.  You all claim to be such chest-thumping patriots, but your revanchist anger is what’s destroying this country.

For the rest of us – they won’t of course.  If anything, this episode has shown what genuinely terrible people hard-core MAGA are.  So we have to step up and do it, hold the line against extremism.  Remember what I said yesterday. Refuse the spectacle. It’s eating us alive.

September 13, 2025 0

Addicted to Spectacle, Blind to Reality

I’m troubled by the narrative that is forming around the murder of Charlie Kirk, and what it says about the country. (Just to be clear, I condemn his murder. This violence is never justified. Terrible thing.) The right is absolutely losing their shit, baying for blood. Calling for civil war. Some tankies and other disruptors are celebrating his death in ugly ways, with memes and spite. (This also I condemn.)

The press and social media are already dubbing Kirk a “hero” and a “martyr” – although the shooter remains at large and the motive unknown. Calling this a “political assassination.” None of this is true or factual. Just assumptions, goosing the narrative of “America on the brink” and FOTUS needing to impose martial law.

Contrast this with the recent terror attacks on Minnesota state legislators in June. State Speaker of the House Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark were gunned down in their home. State Senator John Hoffman and his wife Yvette were similarly attacked but survived. Their young daughter witnessed the attack. They both were Democrats. Their attacker had a “hit list” of 50 Democratic and left-leaning names.

No one named them heroes or martyrs. No one threatened violent retribution in their names. It fell out of the news in 48 hours. Sitting legislators. Assassinated. FOTUS never said a word. He lowered the flags for Kirk. Refused to for the Hortmans.

Charlie Kirk was an uneducated loudmouth provocateur. Melissa Hortman was a Speaker of the Minnesota House, a senior Democratic leader. Why is Charlie Kirk’s death a tragedy, but the Minnesota legislator’s, not?

Because it fits the narrative.

The hagiography is disgusting. Charlie Kirk was a “champion of free speech.” No. Turning Point USA doxxed people regularly. That is not championing free speech; it’s the opposite.

Charlie Kirk died as he lived, fomenting extremism. The last word out of his mouth was “violence.”

I don’t like what this says about the country, about we as a people. Numb to the assassination of a sitting legislator, enraged (or titillated) by the death of a social media influencer. The American people are addicted to spectacle, to scandal, and it is making us increasingly blind to the grim reality that surrounds us.

The shockingly violent death and the gory video fit the Internet and media’s appetite (our appetite) for bloodshed and drama, further stoking the “culture war.” It fits the media’s “outrage cycle” perfectly. The sky is falling for a couple days, and then we move on to the next spectacle. A man who stirred constant trouble and unrest is lionized, and serving legislators go unmourned. Our values are degraded.

These massaged narratives are making us numb to the real institutional decay all around us, the corruption and state violence. Our energies are expended on meaningless “breaking news” while our rights and way of life are being eroded. Media elevates those who create conflict and scandal while ignoring people who actually do the work of making this country run.

It’s manipulative, keeping people oscillating between outrage and overwhelm. Authoritarians do that deliberately; inculcate a sense of learned helplessness in their subjects so they lose the will to fight back. It’s all part of the messaging. And it has warped our priorities. A podcaster’s death is casus belli, while an assassinated legislator barely makes the news. Blood and screaming elevated over the real-time erosion of our democracy. We don’t have our eye on the ball.

The real danger isn’t any single shooting or any one death. It’s the erosion of civil liberties, of the very idea of civil society itself. You cannot have a republic if anyone can be gunned down anywhere at any time, while the rule of law becomes a joke. That’s what Charlie Kirk advocated, what FOTUS threatens, and what creeps forward every day. Addiction to scandal blinds us to the slow-motion coup all around us.

America doesn’t need any more martyrs. We need clarity, vision, and the strength to look at the terrible reality behind the veil of spectacle.

September 12, 2025 0