This essay made me cry - with relief, oddly enough. Outside of my immediate circle, people look at me like I’m crazy when I say the Biden era depressed and demoralized me far more than Trump did. From the first wave of women’s marches on, the Trump presidency was a pageant of resistance, springing up where least expected - older white ladies radicalized! - and finally seen where it’s nested for centuries. The failure of the “grownups in the room” to protect us only confirmed what we already knew: no one will save us but ourselves.
Then came Biden, who promised to uplift us and our existential need for a functioning democracy. This time around, what got confirmed is what we knew was true but hoped was not: the Democratic gerontocracy “represents” us in only the most cosmetic way, i.e., it will pantomime concern for some of our issues, but reject any policy that might over time alter the racial and economic status quo.
So not only are we on our own, but unlike our foes, we have virtually no representation in government, and the few elected leaders who truly reflect us are subjected to unrelenting ritual abuse, bipartisan at that.
Yes, exactly! This is how I feel too. It is profoundly demoralizing and dangerous too, because the intent is clearly to have Trump reinstalled, but the defiance and determination of those earlier years has been crushed. This is why folks need to stick together and find creative ways to defy them and help each other, because there are no institutions acting in the interest of Americans. Even in the most basic and fundamental interest, like “helping us stay alive”.
It is 4:43 am. I can't sleep. Yes. All of this. ALL OF THIS. Both of you. Individually, all together. Same thoughts been rolling around in my brain. Igniting my central nervous system. The birds are now up and I haven't slept. Fuck. It is so fucking hard to stay hopeful about the future. For my kids, your kids. All kids. The planet. I hate these days. I hate how demoralized I feel by the betrayal of so many. Especially those who held out the promise of "better" . Who held up themselves as "better". I just don't know how to find the peace to sleep somedays
Well put, Katarina. Sometimes I wake up too early, my mind starts to roam, and the horror hits me like a shot in the dark. Maybe we need to copy down Sarah's final two paragraphs and carry them.
tfg's public and slow demise seems to make Biden the 'lesser of two evils' ... but the whole business can be considered elder abuse... which includes, of course, the elders in the u.s. watching and worrying and remembering the beginnings of the fall... november 22,1963 and on through their lives.
i too will tag on to your comment and so many other good comments. reading this fabulous essay reminds me again why i am losing hope. i have things going on personally that i must focus on/deal with including healthy housing - and all i want to do is document all the things because too many are forgetting. friend here is still too much of an institutionist; says many of the protestors in support of Palestinians are going too far when i said i don't like that people are being fired for speaking up (ummm no). i wonder how he will react when the reality hits him.
the paragraph is so powerful: "hope has momentum. the biden years were designed to drain ours slowly. the four years before that - the trump years - were meant to shock shock us into acceptance of the unfathomable. the four years to come are meant to solidify our resignation, our willingness to excuse the inexcusable, and to blame ourselves above all. this is the plan, no matter who wins the election." i will never blame myself.
and you mention let mourning be an act of defiance. we are mourning what we hoped could be. has to happen before we can push forward i guess.
and yes, another who totally forgot about this bombing in nashville - if i ever know. i can't even recall it
Wow. What an incredible piece. So glad I am a subscriber. Thank you for the big effort to put together this sequence of what is in so many of our memories, but still so hard to accept and make sense of.
Perhaps it's just my age. Maybe it's because I've been a history junkie (recreationally & professionally) for over 60 years. In any case, I can't shake the feeling that where we are now is where America was ALWAYS headed. Just as Greg Grandin wrote "The Trail of Tears was always headed to Vietnam," so, too, it seems to me, was America always headed to this tragic (non-) choice in November, 2024. America had two main origins: in Massachusetts and Virginia. The first was settled by religious fanatics. The second by wealthy slavers. Both were murderous ethnic cleansers. And that launched our trajectory. Any progressive advance (eg Civil War, Reconstruction; New Deal) was met with fierce resistance, and then massive roll-back (1876-1950s: 1980s-present). After murdering our way across a continent, we turned our psychopathic violence South and across the Pacific. We have been, virtually constantly, at war. And we have institutionalized, enshrined and celebrated an economic system of unbridled greed, a culture of selfishness, and a centuries-long penchant to demonize "Others." We are like the Greek myth of Erysichthon, whose greed was so great he died in an act of auto-cannibalism. Or as the Indigenous writer Jack D. Forbes put it, we have a system ruled by "Wetikos" (a kind of insatiable cannibal.) Given all this, I am not very surprised by where we are. As Ta-Nihisi Coates wrote, "The story of the United States of America very likely does not end well." I'm too old to see that end--and I hope I am wrong. In any case, as Ms. Kendzior wrote back in 2017 (?), all we can do is "be brave if we can--and it is often not easy to be brave--and be kind, always."
Twenty-nine years ago this week, I sat at my desk in The Los Angeles Times editorial library eating a plate of cafeteria chilaquiles, and drinking a cup of lukewarm coffee while a truck packed with explosives was detonated in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City. Where my teenage son lived with his dad. My son who helped free bodies from the wreckage. Not what any mother wants her son to have to do. And we are still here. How new is this in a country where my Missouri cousin responds “ you’re so funny” when I remind her about the separation of church and state. When those separations are wedges driven between us deeper and deeper as the years go by.
It's not new, just more frequent. I'm so sorry your son had to go through that experience. I was at the Oklahoma City Memorial last year and wrote about it in my upcoming book. It was overwhelming. One thing that struck me was the outpouring of sympathy for Oklahomans from people from all over the US. I am not sure if that would happen now. I think the natural inclination of most Americans would be to express it, but that any tragedy would be relentlessly politicized by officials and media to make us abandon our collective humanity and shared grief.
I know many who have not abandoned their collective humanity and our shared grief. Who have not capitulated to cynicism or false equivalencies. I appreciate the way you keep the questions alive. That’s very very important.
Thank you! I know a lot of good folks too. Most of the people I meet are good. For all my pessimism, that's the truth of it. Good people are from all over but are shouted down by operatives or terrible people with large platforms. But that goodness that I witness wherever I go is what gives me faith in the country, though not in institutions.
I’m a former foster kid. So a combination of social services and good people save me. But recovering from great betrayal is a long process and one I know well. It’s what I write about and what drew me to your writing.
I agree wholeheartedly, Sarah. Part of the reason I keep working iPT is bc I meet a lot of different people and, if partisan politics are kept out of the conversation, almost everyone I meet is reasonable and wants the same thing -- good public schools, affordable housing, living wages etc even in "deep red" SWMO. It restores my faith in humanity in ways that few public or private institutions do.
Sarah’s posts have me checking Substack to see when her next post is showing up relentlessly so I can read it with a mixture of joy and sadness. She is so good at documenting how a lot of us are feeling. I have low-level dread of the rest of the year but she keeps things in the right lens as none of us can predict what is going to occur. All I can say is your writing is a gift.
I wish the problem was the Americans are dumb, and not that power is venal. Many of the laws being passed by states are against the majority will of their residents: nearly half the states are not democracies at all, but institutions of minority rule insulated from their voters via rigged districts. Each of these states has flourishing resistance movements completely ignored by the national Democratic Party. What needs our support is small-d democracy - all the local activists fighting to protect books, abortion, Black history, queer rights etc. The Right seeks to purge everyone from the town square except white men and their proxies - and lots of people (smart people, whether formally educated or not) are fighting back, with little media coverage or national funding.
"Many of the laws being passed by states are against the majority will of their residents: nearly half the states are not democracies at all, but institutions of minority rule insulated from their voters via rigged districts. Each of these states has flourishing resistance movements completely ignored by the national Democratic Party" --> yes, exactly. They are captive states, hostage states -- not "red states". This is the situation in Missouri, where I live, and it's been this way since 2009. We've been abandoned, and that allowed the worst people to take over. Federal changes -- Citizens United in particular -- made the situation much more dangerous. Same situation in so many other states, and such a betrayal of the activists from those states, who carry on their work with a bravery many do not grasp, for they do not understand the real risks involved.
It worked so well in the "red states" that the "blue states" do it now. Here in the "blue trifecta" of Oregon the legislature reverses the progressive measures we pass. Portland's city council just blatantly ignores us, worsening our problems so they will always have something to run on.
Hey Jasmine> LOVE THIS VIDEO! I posted the same one on a FB group I am a member of called: "A World of Free Access". You should check them out. And while here, this is my 1st read of Sarah K. and I intend on reading many more. The Nashville piece is EXCELLENT!
Went for a walk in the woods listening to Downtown on repeat. I like that song because my Mother would also play it on repeat (on a 45). I was a child and it reminds me of when I knew no one with an agenda. In the mid 80's in college I started paying attention to politics and realized all politicians had an agenda that did not include me. In the mid 90's on my 3rd engineering job, I realized all corporations had an agenda that did not include me. The woods I walked in today will be a housing development next year and I realize that society has an agenda and it does not include me. Thankfully nature has no agenda, it's something I can trust without any doubt.
I’m embarrassed to admit the bombing went right by me. Thank you for recounting it. When I was a freshman in college at Truman State in 1972 (many of us still prefer to refer to it as Northeast Mo. State) I had a political science professor who would tell us how, when Lyndon Johnson was president and the war in Vietnam was not going well, he had some advisors telling him that his generals were feeding him s—t with a spoon. I feel that way today with regard to our elected “leaders.”
Thank you again! You always have the human touch in your pieces with the absolute clarity of the truth. I wish the majority of the public would get off the idolatry pot, drop out of the futile outrage machine, and wipe their you know whats with some common sense practicality of why “things are going the way they are”. It's not only hideous, it's outright diabolical in the most horrific sense.
The failure to get rid of Louis DeJoy has been one of the biggest failures of this administration.
Did you know that as of April 13th, third party mail stores are no longer allowed to accept anything but cash or check when using USPS services?
I found this out while attempting to mail a package...the lady who owns the store is justifiably furious about it. I've seen nothing about it from any news organization. He's just going to be allowed to completely destroy the post office, isn't he?
Yes and it’s horrible. My theories of why they’ve let DeJoy stay are so dark I don’t write about them, because they’re just theories. It’s hard for me to even contemplate. But if the ultimate goal is not autocracy but partitioning the country into oligarch fiefdoms…they won’t need the current national post office. In fact, they’d want to get rid of it, because it was a formerly beloved and deeply necessary institution holding Americans together. It’s clear that Biden is as wedded to the destruction of the postal service as Trump was. Every time he has the opportunity to install a USPS Board member, he picks someone who will protect DeJoy at all cost.
For two years, I have seen people on social media ask these questions over and over:
1) Why doesn't Biden fire Garland?
2) Why is DeJoy still postmaster?
3) Why doesn't Biden fire Wray?
Sarah, regarding dark theories on your part about why DeJoy has been allowed to stay-- theories that are hard for you to even contemplate. It's becoming pretty obvious "they" want to privatize the USPS, but the idea of "partitioning the country into oligarch fiefdoms" never occurred to me. I've naïvely been thinking it's only about subverting mail-in ballots. Actually, since I started following you, reading your books, and subscribing to your substack, I've been learning so much that never occurred to me. I am angry and anxious, and I don't know what to do with these feelings. I can't imagine how you deal with them on the level you do.
Although I'm miles away from Nashville the destruction of our society is still evident. Every year, every election and every legislative session seems like an assault on the decent ordinary citizens in this blood red state. Yesterday I was crafting a return volley, a verbal ultimatum in my mind to my congressman but the hope tank was showing empty, again. My cartoon brain keeps me laughing but part of my grey matter is a refugee mind that has made the same observation of society, the trajectory and is taking notes. The undertow of money, obscene sums of it with politicians lined up suckling on the teat of the dark money hog causes those lips to spew illogical nonsense. My experiences in door knocking leaves me blinking as though I'm witnessing an autopsy. People crave, demand a restoration of faith in our system and the desperation of that erupted in 2016, which reminds me that a return to Yellowstone is long overdue. Have safe travels, be happy, be healthy and smile.
One of the more important subplots of GOT is the desire of Death (Night King) to eliminate Memory (3 Eyed Raven). Without memory, Death rules all. I am always moved, haunted and educated by your vision Sarah! Keep a young woman with a knife nearby.
I so appreciate your 2024 vision, Sarah. It makes me feel less insane. Too many voices are telling us to cheer for Team Blue because the alternative is worse, but Team Blue brought us to this point. That whole "Who do you believe, us or your lying eyes?" - I trust my eyes.
Team Blue had a super majority, for a short time, at the start of the Obama years. What did they do? They formed committees, while Ted Kennedy was fighting a brain tumor. They should have moved like lightning, instead they dithered. They got very little accomplished during those months. Then Kennedy died and so did their super majority. They could have banned assault weapons , for example, but were afraid to. I am voting blue, but with fingers crossed, hoping for the best.
Yes, the bait and switch has been constant for years. There's always a reason to not pass laws when they can (Gang of However Many is Just Enough to Prevent Actually Helpful Legislation from Happening) and never any action to undo the egregious stuff passed by the GOP. I thank Thomas Frank for opening my eyes to this scam several years ago and Sarah for so eloquently guiding us through the awful culmination.
Fifteen years ago I founded the Living New Deal (https://livingnewdeal.org/)which has grown into a national team effort to discover the public works legacy of Franklin Roosevelt's successful efforts to extricate the nation from the Great Depression. In the midst of that catastrophe, he and Eleanor gave Americans hope that mature, caring, and ingenious people in DC would steer the ship away from the iceberg rather than straight towards it. I only wish that today's Democrats would remember what that remarkable couple did and how they did it, but we were a very different country then. As Neil Postman's classic book "Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business"proposed in 1985, television changed everything including who we are.
This essay made me cry - with relief, oddly enough. Outside of my immediate circle, people look at me like I’m crazy when I say the Biden era depressed and demoralized me far more than Trump did. From the first wave of women’s marches on, the Trump presidency was a pageant of resistance, springing up where least expected - older white ladies radicalized! - and finally seen where it’s nested for centuries. The failure of the “grownups in the room” to protect us only confirmed what we already knew: no one will save us but ourselves.
Then came Biden, who promised to uplift us and our existential need for a functioning democracy. This time around, what got confirmed is what we knew was true but hoped was not: the Democratic gerontocracy “represents” us in only the most cosmetic way, i.e., it will pantomime concern for some of our issues, but reject any policy that might over time alter the racial and economic status quo.
So not only are we on our own, but unlike our foes, we have virtually no representation in government, and the few elected leaders who truly reflect us are subjected to unrelenting ritual abuse, bipartisan at that.
Yes, exactly! This is how I feel too. It is profoundly demoralizing and dangerous too, because the intent is clearly to have Trump reinstalled, but the defiance and determination of those earlier years has been crushed. This is why folks need to stick together and find creative ways to defy them and help each other, because there are no institutions acting in the interest of Americans. Even in the most basic and fundamental interest, like “helping us stay alive”.
It is 4:43 am. I can't sleep. Yes. All of this. ALL OF THIS. Both of you. Individually, all together. Same thoughts been rolling around in my brain. Igniting my central nervous system. The birds are now up and I haven't slept. Fuck. It is so fucking hard to stay hopeful about the future. For my kids, your kids. All kids. The planet. I hate these days. I hate how demoralized I feel by the betrayal of so many. Especially those who held out the promise of "better" . Who held up themselves as "better". I just don't know how to find the peace to sleep somedays
Well put, Katarina. Sometimes I wake up too early, my mind starts to roam, and the horror hits me like a shot in the dark. Maybe we need to copy down Sarah's final two paragraphs and carry them.
tfg's public and slow demise seems to make Biden the 'lesser of two evils' ... but the whole business can be considered elder abuse... which includes, of course, the elders in the u.s. watching and worrying and remembering the beginnings of the fall... november 22,1963 and on through their lives.
i too will tag on to your comment and so many other good comments. reading this fabulous essay reminds me again why i am losing hope. i have things going on personally that i must focus on/deal with including healthy housing - and all i want to do is document all the things because too many are forgetting. friend here is still too much of an institutionist; says many of the protestors in support of Palestinians are going too far when i said i don't like that people are being fired for speaking up (ummm no). i wonder how he will react when the reality hits him.
the paragraph is so powerful: "hope has momentum. the biden years were designed to drain ours slowly. the four years before that - the trump years - were meant to shock shock us into acceptance of the unfathomable. the four years to come are meant to solidify our resignation, our willingness to excuse the inexcusable, and to blame ourselves above all. this is the plan, no matter who wins the election." i will never blame myself.
and you mention let mourning be an act of defiance. we are mourning what we hoped could be. has to happen before we can push forward i guess.
and yes, another who totally forgot about this bombing in nashville - if i ever know. i can't even recall it
Wow. What an incredible piece. So glad I am a subscriber. Thank you for the big effort to put together this sequence of what is in so many of our memories, but still so hard to accept and make sense of.
Thank you!
Perhaps it's just my age. Maybe it's because I've been a history junkie (recreationally & professionally) for over 60 years. In any case, I can't shake the feeling that where we are now is where America was ALWAYS headed. Just as Greg Grandin wrote "The Trail of Tears was always headed to Vietnam," so, too, it seems to me, was America always headed to this tragic (non-) choice in November, 2024. America had two main origins: in Massachusetts and Virginia. The first was settled by religious fanatics. The second by wealthy slavers. Both were murderous ethnic cleansers. And that launched our trajectory. Any progressive advance (eg Civil War, Reconstruction; New Deal) was met with fierce resistance, and then massive roll-back (1876-1950s: 1980s-present). After murdering our way across a continent, we turned our psychopathic violence South and across the Pacific. We have been, virtually constantly, at war. And we have institutionalized, enshrined and celebrated an economic system of unbridled greed, a culture of selfishness, and a centuries-long penchant to demonize "Others." We are like the Greek myth of Erysichthon, whose greed was so great he died in an act of auto-cannibalism. Or as the Indigenous writer Jack D. Forbes put it, we have a system ruled by "Wetikos" (a kind of insatiable cannibal.) Given all this, I am not very surprised by where we are. As Ta-Nihisi Coates wrote, "The story of the United States of America very likely does not end well." I'm too old to see that end--and I hope I am wrong. In any case, as Ms. Kendzior wrote back in 2017 (?), all we can do is "be brave if we can--and it is often not easy to be brave--and be kind, always."
Twenty-nine years ago this week, I sat at my desk in The Los Angeles Times editorial library eating a plate of cafeteria chilaquiles, and drinking a cup of lukewarm coffee while a truck packed with explosives was detonated in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City. Where my teenage son lived with his dad. My son who helped free bodies from the wreckage. Not what any mother wants her son to have to do. And we are still here. How new is this in a country where my Missouri cousin responds “ you’re so funny” when I remind her about the separation of church and state. When those separations are wedges driven between us deeper and deeper as the years go by.
It's not new, just more frequent. I'm so sorry your son had to go through that experience. I was at the Oklahoma City Memorial last year and wrote about it in my upcoming book. It was overwhelming. One thing that struck me was the outpouring of sympathy for Oklahomans from people from all over the US. I am not sure if that would happen now. I think the natural inclination of most Americans would be to express it, but that any tragedy would be relentlessly politicized by officials and media to make us abandon our collective humanity and shared grief.
I know many who have not abandoned their collective humanity and our shared grief. Who have not capitulated to cynicism or false equivalencies. I appreciate the way you keep the questions alive. That’s very very important.
Thank you! I know a lot of good folks too. Most of the people I meet are good. For all my pessimism, that's the truth of it. Good people are from all over but are shouted down by operatives or terrible people with large platforms. But that goodness that I witness wherever I go is what gives me faith in the country, though not in institutions.
I’m a former foster kid. So a combination of social services and good people save me. But recovering from great betrayal is a long process and one I know well. It’s what I write about and what drew me to your writing.
you are one of the fortunate children ... 'good people' don't get much press in the foster system...
I agree wholeheartedly, Sarah. Part of the reason I keep working iPT is bc I meet a lot of different people and, if partisan politics are kept out of the conversation, almost everyone I meet is reasonable and wants the same thing -- good public schools, affordable housing, living wages etc even in "deep red" SWMO. It restores my faith in humanity in ways that few public or private institutions do.
Missouri: has nearly finished decimating the state's entire public school system.
Sarah’s posts have me checking Substack to see when her next post is showing up relentlessly so I can read it with a mixture of joy and sadness. She is so good at documenting how a lot of us are feeling. I have low-level dread of the rest of the year but she keeps things in the right lens as none of us can predict what is going to occur. All I can say is your writing is a gift.
Thank you very much!
I will reference George Carlin because he nailed it:
https://youtu.be/-54c0IdxZWc?si=sLtM0crt8o6hX7Up
Everyone is welcome to reference George Carlin here!
Joy🥳🤣🤗
I wish the problem was the Americans are dumb, and not that power is venal. Many of the laws being passed by states are against the majority will of their residents: nearly half the states are not democracies at all, but institutions of minority rule insulated from their voters via rigged districts. Each of these states has flourishing resistance movements completely ignored by the national Democratic Party. What needs our support is small-d democracy - all the local activists fighting to protect books, abortion, Black history, queer rights etc. The Right seeks to purge everyone from the town square except white men and their proxies - and lots of people (smart people, whether formally educated or not) are fighting back, with little media coverage or national funding.
"Many of the laws being passed by states are against the majority will of their residents: nearly half the states are not democracies at all, but institutions of minority rule insulated from their voters via rigged districts. Each of these states has flourishing resistance movements completely ignored by the national Democratic Party" --> yes, exactly. They are captive states, hostage states -- not "red states". This is the situation in Missouri, where I live, and it's been this way since 2009. We've been abandoned, and that allowed the worst people to take over. Federal changes -- Citizens United in particular -- made the situation much more dangerous. Same situation in so many other states, and such a betrayal of the activists from those states, who carry on their work with a bravery many do not grasp, for they do not understand the real risks involved.
Texas is another gulag state😕 Abbott and his cronies have to go.
It worked so well in the "red states" that the "blue states" do it now. Here in the "blue trifecta" of Oregon the legislature reverses the progressive measures we pass. Portland's city council just blatantly ignores us, worsening our problems so they will always have something to run on.
Absolutely, he did!
Yep.
Hey Jasmine> LOVE THIS VIDEO! I posted the same one on a FB group I am a member of called: "A World of Free Access". You should check them out. And while here, this is my 1st read of Sarah K. and I intend on reading many more. The Nashville piece is EXCELLENT!
Went for a walk in the woods listening to Downtown on repeat. I like that song because my Mother would also play it on repeat (on a 45). I was a child and it reminds me of when I knew no one with an agenda. In the mid 80's in college I started paying attention to politics and realized all politicians had an agenda that did not include me. In the mid 90's on my 3rd engineering job, I realized all corporations had an agenda that did not include me. The woods I walked in today will be a housing development next year and I realize that society has an agenda and it does not include me. Thankfully nature has no agenda, it's something I can trust without any doubt.
"Downtown" is such a happy, jaunty song. A curious choice to use as a soundtrack to destruction.
I’m embarrassed to admit the bombing went right by me. Thank you for recounting it. When I was a freshman in college at Truman State in 1972 (many of us still prefer to refer to it as Northeast Mo. State) I had a political science professor who would tell us how, when Lyndon Johnson was president and the war in Vietnam was not going well, he had some advisors telling him that his generals were feeding him s—t with a spoon. I feel that way today with regard to our elected “leaders.”
I am very glad to be one of your subscribers.
Thank you and you definitely weren't alone in missing the bombing. It happened during covid and the coup. What a year...
Thank you again! You always have the human touch in your pieces with the absolute clarity of the truth. I wish the majority of the public would get off the idolatry pot, drop out of the futile outrage machine, and wipe their you know whats with some common sense practicality of why “things are going the way they are”. It's not only hideous, it's outright diabolical in the most horrific sense.
The failure to get rid of Louis DeJoy has been one of the biggest failures of this administration.
Did you know that as of April 13th, third party mail stores are no longer allowed to accept anything but cash or check when using USPS services?
I found this out while attempting to mail a package...the lady who owns the store is justifiably furious about it. I've seen nothing about it from any news organization. He's just going to be allowed to completely destroy the post office, isn't he?
Yes and it’s horrible. My theories of why they’ve let DeJoy stay are so dark I don’t write about them, because they’re just theories. It’s hard for me to even contemplate. But if the ultimate goal is not autocracy but partitioning the country into oligarch fiefdoms…they won’t need the current national post office. In fact, they’d want to get rid of it, because it was a formerly beloved and deeply necessary institution holding Americans together. It’s clear that Biden is as wedded to the destruction of the postal service as Trump was. Every time he has the opportunity to install a USPS Board member, he picks someone who will protect DeJoy at all cost.
For two years, I have seen people on social media ask these questions over and over:
1) Why doesn't Biden fire Garland?
2) Why is DeJoy still postmaster?
3) Why doesn't Biden fire Wray?
Sarah, regarding dark theories on your part about why DeJoy has been allowed to stay-- theories that are hard for you to even contemplate. It's becoming pretty obvious "they" want to privatize the USPS, but the idea of "partitioning the country into oligarch fiefdoms" never occurred to me. I've naïvely been thinking it's only about subverting mail-in ballots. Actually, since I started following you, reading your books, and subscribing to your substack, I've been learning so much that never occurred to me. I am angry and anxious, and I don't know what to do with these feelings. I can't imagine how you deal with them on the level you do.
Holy crap, that's crazy!
Although I'm miles away from Nashville the destruction of our society is still evident. Every year, every election and every legislative session seems like an assault on the decent ordinary citizens in this blood red state. Yesterday I was crafting a return volley, a verbal ultimatum in my mind to my congressman but the hope tank was showing empty, again. My cartoon brain keeps me laughing but part of my grey matter is a refugee mind that has made the same observation of society, the trajectory and is taking notes. The undertow of money, obscene sums of it with politicians lined up suckling on the teat of the dark money hog causes those lips to spew illogical nonsense. My experiences in door knocking leaves me blinking as though I'm witnessing an autopsy. People crave, demand a restoration of faith in our system and the desperation of that erupted in 2016, which reminds me that a return to Yellowstone is long overdue. Have safe travels, be happy, be healthy and smile.
Excellent article, again.
Thanks!
One of the more important subplots of GOT is the desire of Death (Night King) to eliminate Memory (3 Eyed Raven). Without memory, Death rules all. I am always moved, haunted and educated by your vision Sarah! Keep a young woman with a knife nearby.
I so appreciate your 2024 vision, Sarah. It makes me feel less insane. Too many voices are telling us to cheer for Team Blue because the alternative is worse, but Team Blue brought us to this point. That whole "Who do you believe, us or your lying eyes?" - I trust my eyes.
Team Blue had a super majority, for a short time, at the start of the Obama years. What did they do? They formed committees, while Ted Kennedy was fighting a brain tumor. They should have moved like lightning, instead they dithered. They got very little accomplished during those months. Then Kennedy died and so did their super majority. They could have banned assault weapons , for example, but were afraid to. I am voting blue, but with fingers crossed, hoping for the best.
Yes, the bait and switch has been constant for years. There's always a reason to not pass laws when they can (Gang of However Many is Just Enough to Prevent Actually Helpful Legislation from Happening) and never any action to undo the egregious stuff passed by the GOP. I thank Thomas Frank for opening my eyes to this scam several years ago and Sarah for so eloquently guiding us through the awful culmination.
It was very rewarding and surprising to see Sarah show up on MSNBC one time. ( quite a while ago ) She deserves a wider audience.
Fifteen years ago I founded the Living New Deal (https://livingnewdeal.org/)which has grown into a national team effort to discover the public works legacy of Franklin Roosevelt's successful efforts to extricate the nation from the Great Depression. In the midst of that catastrophe, he and Eleanor gave Americans hope that mature, caring, and ingenious people in DC would steer the ship away from the iceberg rather than straight towards it. I only wish that today's Democrats would remember what that remarkable couple did and how they did it, but we were a very different country then. As Neil Postman's classic book "Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business"proposed in 1985, television changed everything including who we are.
It’s hard to click “like” when there’s nothing to “like” in the subject matter but - the prose - is just.so.compelling.
Thank you!