Melting Point
I don’t want to be the next in a line of repeated takes, but I’m spare for thought of anything else.
I hate this. I hate watching this fester and feeling like I can’t do anything about it. I hate watching from the southern quarter of the country, where even the air is MAGA– Comply or die, a hum in the breeze. I hate that it’s taken this long for more people to start talking about it with opposition in their throats. And I hate talking about how much I hate it because the sickness only reaches me through light and glass, while people are being tormented with metal and mace. Lives lost, families separated.
ICE repeatedly shot a man to death in Minnesota, the most recent incident in a string of government-enacted barbarity.
DHS claims Alex Pretti was a“domestic terrorist”, armed and hell-bent on the massacre of ICE officers. Just days before, Renee Good earned the same title (along with “Fucking bitch”) after being murdered in her SUV.
The issue with each of these federal accounts is that they contradict released video footage showing the incidents from several different angles.
The administration knows that their supporters will take in every falsity they spew without contest, and that they are willing to ignore their eyes if Jesse Waters or Karoline Leavitt tells them to. It’s a power rivaled only by preachers, the mouths of God on Earth. Allegiance to Orthodox Trumpism grants them untouchable status and immunity from rebuke by practitioners. The relationship between clergy and congregation is an illusory symbiosis– the powerful remain powerful and continue to enrich themselves while their followers are sold the short-end-of-the-stick under the guise of America’s back, baby.
Or rather, a concept of America is back, baby. But for America to be “back”, for it to be made great “again” requires it to have been at one point the standard of absolute excellence– and a subsequent point in time where that excellence was destroyed. Thus, the Trumpist America is an imitation of Eden, once lost and now (or soon to be, depending on the day) regained. The problem is, the regained America isn’t a reality, but rather a projection of it: We’re the hottest country in the world. Yes, Mr. Trump, because we’re in hell.
Donald Trump himself has become a concept as well. Instead of being seen for a mound of leaky, melting skin arched over a podium, he is a holy white beacon. His nonsensical, pollutant ramblings come through the screen in red ink. The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit, who can break open the hellion hand America is trapped in. Any doubt is quickly resolved by acknowledging that Trump works in mysterious ways; if he’s doing it, there must be a reason. He has the God-Power because he is the God-Power.
It's a bulletproof vest. The illusion allows them to dissolve from reality and exist in the safety of their ideology. The news becomes abstracted and thought of as entertainment that they can mock on the couch or flick away with a switch. It’s all in His hands. Hallelujah, Amen.
For those of us who know that two and two make four, it’s disturbing to watch them break their necks (and any moral code they claim to live by) trying to justify atrocity after atrocity. But to acknowledge their dissent would be to willingly lift the veil, leaving them disillusioned and all too aware that they're naked. They say ignorance is bliss, and those of us cursed with vision are to be at the frontlines.
At 32 degrees, ice starts to melt, and as fun as it may be to watch the little cube shrink with sweat and tears, we don’t have time for a gradual decay. The hot anger in your abdomen ought to be enough to match the sun's core. And if it isn’t, get there. Meet your neighbors. Get involved with your community. Raise the temperature. Minnesota is not the end-goal, nor is it the climax.
Strike Out,
Parker Defriese, Writing Director
