American Shithole #19 — 500 Days of Bummer
By Eric Wilson
I don’t want this summer to be a bummer. Last year was the Summer of Puppy where Stella stepped in to fill the void of a loss so terrible, I still can’t write about her — my sweet Layla. That summer though, followed 365 days less Trump. That is decidedly less Trump.
Those days are hell and gone.
Is anyone else feeling a little out of gas after 500 days of Trump? I sure am. This is all so spectacularly gross; and taxing. Turd sandwich after turd sandwich makes my tummy ache. Another day? Another turd sandwich. Check the midday news? Turd Sandwich. Did you choke down that turd sandwich too fast? Well never you mind, here’s the evening news with a shit milkshake to wash it down.
Mm, tastes like Giuliani.
But alas, we must carry on; forward we push, on to the pressing questions of the week!
Now that I have been proven horribly wrong in my prediction that Scott Pruitt would lose his job long ago, I figure it’s time to get back to my seer's roots. Back to a source that has never let me down. Back to the Oracle, baby. Let’s consult the Magic 8-Ball for (answers) to this week’s big questions. Here we go:
There's an App for this? Of course there is.
1. Did the dick dictator dictate? (It is decidedly so.)
2. Will Mueller’s investigation gather any high-hanging fruit before our collective will to live is extinguished? (Ask again later.)
3. Did this administration — via inaction and gross negligence — effectively murder thousands of Americans in Puerto Rico? (You may rely on it.)
4. Will there be another school shooting between now and five minutes from now? (Outlook not so good.)
5. Did Jefferson Sessions commandeer a former Walmart with blacked-out windows to house the hundreds of children he has separated from their mothers and fathers, and was a U.S. Senator from Oregon barred from entering that detention center for migrant children, with the officials on site going so far as to call the local police on the Senator? (Signs point to yes.)
What the fuck, Jeffery?
6. And finally, when adrift at sea — a sea of lying liars — is there an island I can float away to, somewhere I can play the fucking ukulele all day long, and spend my nights looking up at the stars? Preferably an island that isn’t on fire as it is mercilessly ravaged by rivers of molten lava? (My sources say no, loser!)
Hey, wait a minute. I’m pretty sure that last one’s not an official Magic 8-Ball answer…
(Whatever, loser!)
Whatever, 8-Ball. It’s a geyser of bullshit in Washington, America. I’ve watched enough CNN in 500 days to drown myself in it. I can say with confidence, if it weren’t for the deplorables, we would have flushed this guy already.
“Surely his base must tire?” I have asked a thousand times.
“Surely their reality must be tethered to some distant lamppost in their conspiracy-addled minds that can still illuminate the truth?” I’ve cried.
“Surely enough of these mono-browed, knuckle-dragging troglodytes will cease spelunking their own assholes for five fucking minutes; just long enough to catch wind of the geyser of fucking bullshit erupting from the White House?”
For far too many, it seems not. These modern day zombies may prove to be the end of us.
And with the lying from everyone involved within this administration being so effectively pervasive, so ubiquitous and insidiously destructive, I can’t even bring myself to watch Giuliani or Sanders spin the president’s words and actions this week. It’s too much. It’s just too damn much.
Uncle.
Oh, and can someone please find Bill Clinton’s handler and fire that worthless sack of shit for not keeping Bill the fuck off television? Jesus fucking Christ, can someone please keep the fucking Clintons off the goddamn television? Hey Bill, hey Hillary, shut the fuck up!
He is literally like the grandfather that comes to Thanksgiving and — during the huge family row — takes his fucking pants off. We have important family issues Pepaw; put your fucking pants back on and shut the fuck up!
Jesus fucking Christ. You’re on a book tour, because you wrote a book — a work of fiction I might add — with your buddy James Patterson, that no one wants to read while the country is ON FIRE, and you answer questions about Lewinski, sounding tone-deaf as shit about apologies, you stupid, insensate, doddering old lecher!
Could someone please fucking show the Clinton’s the EXIT sign.
Someone needs to give them a Hicksian reverse maître d’ — “Thanks for coming, street’s outside.”
Fucking hell, Bill. STFU.
(Sigh)
(Author's Note: President Clinton appeared on Late Night with Stephen Colbert after the writing of this column, with an admirable, even commendable performance. I love you Bill, but please shut the fuck up until this fucking monster is out of office.)
I am having one of those days, one of those “poor me” days. I was so frustrated and angry this morning — mostly due to chronic pain (for which I do my very best to keep a positive attitude, about 99 percent of the time) — and my temper flared, and I scared the dogs. So I have been feeling like shit about that all afternoon.
I woke up to my foot in puppy poop because someone had too many human dinner treats last night. It went downhill from there.
Here’s the thing about stepping in poop — it’s much worse with just a sock. The sock/poop combo really brings home the experience.
It’s just been one of those days.
It’s been one of those days where every outcome was somehow annoying — everyday tasks proved unnaturally difficult — and the walls felt like they were leaning in on me, trying to trip me, or throw me off balance, every time I’d round a corner. It’s been a day of obstacles and irritants. Every outside stimuli one would normally dismiss, was a buzzing bee, or a blaring siren.
Today was a buzz hassle. Today was a bummer.
As my friend Awyn put it in a private group this morning where I expressed dismay regarding my bummer predicament:
“This seems like a pretty common occurrence for the average American. Most of us have no money and tons of debt and we either do shitty jobs that kill us a little more every minute, or we starve and die more quickly. Government doesn't care which, so long as we are quiet about it.”
America's new slogan: Get Busy Dying. “We took the one from Shawshank and shortened it.”
All I know is, being able to see a doctor when you're sick shouldn’t be the pot of gold at the end of the American rainbow. I just want to be able to see the right doctor — like many, many Americans. That’s it. I can handle the rest.
Yet apparently we ask too much of our country’s billionaires — who have fought universal healthcare tooth and nail with hundreds of millions, perhaps billions of their filthy dollars over decades.
Healthier people are unfortunately happier people; and happy people don’t fear the bogeyman. For obscene wealth inequality to work, billionaires need lots of bogeymen — and of course, lots of terrified poor people.
Wasn’t it Christopher Hitchens who marveled that there are groups of Americans whom actually believe we aren’t awful enough to each other?
My medical adventure hasn’t yet reached a satisfactory or unsatisfactory conclusion — I am in Limbo — worried about insurance and coverage and pain and death and surgeries and recovery like so, so very many Americans. I won’t be pulling the trigger on American Shithole’s take on healthcare just yet; but I long to tell that story. I hope it ends well. Before it ends.
My experience so far is that every institution I have come in contact with involved in healthcare — from the pharmaceutical companies, to the insurance companies, to the hospital boards, as well as many of the doctors and the nurses — everyone involved is gaming the system.
None of them have your best interests, first.
Coming to this pitiful realization has siphoned my reservoir of hope more than Trump ever will. The disregard for the Hippocratic Oath in America — particularly regarding the opioid crisis — is at its heart, a betrayal by the scientific community. Greed apparently knows no boundaries. That’s what saddling healthcare with capitalism brings. Capitalism unleashes greed on our most desperate hour.
Our cruelty and indifference to our sick, our disabled, our dying, is appalling.
Anyway, back to the giant orange idiot, and how much he clearly does not give a fuck. I am starting to sense that Komàndant Bonespurs has pivoted from his “zero fucks given” default position at the outset of his presidency, to a somewhat more revved-up, 500+ days “negative fucks” attitude.
What’s the biggest story of the week — did daddy tell junior what to say about the Ruskies?
What was his response? He’s got Guiliani on television saying he can shoot the former head of the fucking FBI. Yep, put that one in the history books. He doesn’t give a fuck what anyone thinks or says at this point.
Are you numb yet?
Sure, legally it matters if he dictated the lies about the Trump Tower meeting that involved his son, but I’m not confident it matters in any sense involving the opinions of his base. With all the chum his legal team and the White House staff are heaving into the waters, the deplorables can feast for years without any need to belabor the facts — while the rest of us slowly drown in an ocean of deceit.
They are pirates on the high seas of American democracy, these filthy swashbucklers, riding the ugliest wave of populism since the 1930s. I look out on to the ocean that is America, and I dream of a blue tsunami — and yet all I see is Lady Liberty walking the plank.
What's on the horizon for America, you ask? Undiscovered country.
Will anyone bring these privateers to justice before it’s too late? Let’s ask the Magic 8-Ball one last time. (Don't count on it.)
B.S. Report
Hope springs eternal.
"Beginning June 15th at the Peace March in Chicago, the tour — dubbed March for Our Lives: Road to Change — will make 50 stops around the country over the course of 60 days. A separate tour led by March for Our Lives activists will make stops in all 27 of Florida’s congressional districts. Both tours will focus on registering young people to vote and educating the community about where their candidates stand on gun reform, and which of them have ties to the NRA."
— Rolling Stone
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