Dispatches from the Empire


Flip The F*cking Table Over And Scream

Heading into the weekend, I kept thinking about metaphors to make some type of big statement about how important I think Tuesday’s election is for our nation. No matter how many ways I tried to word it, all I could think about as an analogy to a potential Trump victory was my friend, sitting inside a casino he’s probably lost a zillion dollars in, finally scoring a big win against the house—the machine that always has the odds in its favor—flipping that table, with the chips, drinks and cards on it, and then getting kicked out carrying a massive Publisher’s Clearing House-style novelty check.

I don’t like that this is how I think of the government, the Democratic party and the media, conjoined as one unbeatable, dystopian chimera with the odds always in its favor—but I can’t help it. What else could you possibly call a ruling party of elites, using one hand to rig their primary process while using the other to write diatribes about the importance of democracy? What else could you call the party that blankets its deeply flawed policy prescriptions under the cloak of the moral high ground? What do you call the party that used to preach freedom of choice, speech and liberty that now takes its cues from giant pharmaceutical corporations and the military industrial complex? How about the party that outright lied in 2020 to the public about the president’s involvement in a Chinese influence-peddling scam days before the last election?

Whatever happens on Tuesday, I'm feeling sick about what comes after.