Last Chance, USA

Biden, Trump, and the cope that kills.

I am in Last Chance, Colorado, looking at a faded billboard of a hand-painted American flag. Under the flag is a ragged rectangle whitewashing what once was written. You fill in the blanks yourself in a town like Last Chance.

Last Chance is a ghost town. Beyond the flag are empty homes with holes for windows. Next to the flag is an abandoned diner called Dairy King. Dairy King still has a few windowpanes intact. They reflect the golden fields stretching across eastern Colorado, their defiant beauty shimmering in the sun. There is a farmhouse deep in the fields, and it doesn’t have doors or windows either.

We are driving to where the road hits the horizon. There is not a soul to be seen. A mile back, we passed a sign saying Last Chance Community Church. The sign looked fresh, the building seemed intact, but the parking lot was empty that Sunday morning.

Maybe the church was an aspiration. Maybe it was another ghost. Maybe in 2024, those are the same things.

Last Chance was so named because in the first half of the 20^th century, it was the final opportunity for travelers on Highway 36 to get provisions before entering or leaving Kansas, the border of which is close by rural Colorado standards — only ninety miles away.

The creation of the interstate hurt Last Chance. Suddenly, there were many chances, on another road, for other people. Then came the tornadoes in 1993, and the wildfires in 2012, and suddenly there were no more chances at all.

There is no sign saying when you enter or exit Last Chance. There are only signs pointing to other places in other directions.

No one tells you when you’re leaving your last chance behind. You know it later, when it’s too late, and others are pretending it’s not. They act like nothing’s changed, like you’re still in a bustling town in its prime, and not a place as vacant as the look in an American president’s eye.

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I didn’t watch the debate. I was in rural New Mexico with only enough internet to access Twitter. Judging by the comments, I assumed there was either a sports game or a nuclear war. When I realized what was going on, I turned my phone off.

I still haven’t watched it, because watching Biden and Trump is like staring straight at the sun. Or in Biden’s case, an eclipse: a retina-destroying entity that doesn’t burn you outright but kills your ability to see. “Dark Brandon” was an eclipse all along.

What emerged on the debate stage was not Dark Brandon, but Ghost Biden, one of two candidates in Last Chance, USA. Ghost Biden may still be your preferred pick. This is because the other candidate is a pathological liar who spent his life in organized crime before committing sedition, and then getting immunity when no one — not Congress, not the January 6 committee, not the DOJ, not the very president he tried to overthrow — used the legal means granted to them to contain him in time.

For four years, Trump played his favorite, most predictable game — running out the clock — as officials let our freedom tick away. What does the constitution mean to these politicians, anyway? Just a paper, just a joke. Just “justice”, a concept at which they sneer behind the scenes while striking a pose of solemnity when they beg for your money on camera.

It was unusual for Trump to win a debate. He prefers the thrill of stealing to winning fair and square. What a novel month he had: a felony conviction, a legitimate victory.

Because Trump is widely loathed, beating him should have been easy — in the debate, and in the 2024 election. All Biden had to do was remain marginally coherent and not do something unforgivably sadistic, like abet a genocide of children, but no.

It is telling that bombing the debate instead of bombing the children of Gaza was the dealbreaker for Biden’s backers.

Biden’s cult is so loyal that they had long given up on him fulfilling his 2020 campaign pledges, including enforcing accountability for Trump’s many crimes. Instead, they spent years reciting a long list of why those promises were always impossible, and stressed the importance of voting for Biden again, so he can let down America with less surprise next time.

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Forty miles past Last Chance, we arrived in a town called Cope.

“Welcome to Cope!” the wooden sign said. Cope was founded in 1888 and has a population of 53. There is a Cope Community Church with a sign that says, “Don’t judge someone because they sin differently than you,” which should replace “E pluribus unum” on the dollar bill.

There is a Cope Garage, a worn metal structure where they lock away America’s cope between election seasons. The garage sits next to a placard saying HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY. 

Cope that expired is buried in Cope Memorial Park, which has an archway greeting you like a frown, reminding you to turn yours upside down, and reignite your cope.

“COPE” the signs in front of the silos said as we sped past. ‘COPE. COPE. COPE!”

They say that Democrats fall in love and Republicans fall in line. But that’s not true. Most people these days just fall. Instead of being lent a helping hand, they are told to crawl on their knees to kiss the feet of the people who kick them when they are down.

They are told to lie to themselves, and like it, and then repeat the lie to others. This ritual is called Cope.

Cope is the prescribed solution regardless of party. We are approaching “the most important election of our lives,” which is why we are not supposed to have any input in it. That’s what democracy is, operatives explain. Democracy is following orders while being bullied and afraid. You must obey, they proclaim, or else you’ll get fascism.

That doesn’t make sense, you think, but there’s no time for questions in Cope! There is no room for critical inquiry either. But there is plenty of space in the Blame Room, and they usher you there, pushing you through a door that says, “NO CANDIDATES OR DONORS ALLOWED” on the outside.

The Blame Room is mirrored and infinite. Blame the media, blame the lighting, but above all, blame yourself — blame yourself, voter, you did not vote hard enough! Blame yourself for having expectations! Blame yourself for being betrayed.

But never, ever blame the officials who tore up America’s last chance like it was a losing lottery ticket and laughed as the pieces scattered in the wind.

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Things have gotten worse since the day I visited Cope. Biden now sounds more like Trump. Under pressure to leave both the presidency and the race, he has proclaimed that he is the only one who can fix things, that his tenure is determined by God, that the polls are lying, and that he is the target of an elite plot. His skin is now dyed a deep unnatural tan.

Biden is no longer a pale imitation of Trump, but an orange imitation of Trump.

Back in November, I called Biden “The Placeholder President”, installed to fill the gap between two terms of Trump, and make Trump’s vicious policies palatable to liberals.

Letting covid spread, building Trump’s wall, demonizing immigrants, backing Cop Cities, countenancing sedition, abetting genocide: these are Trumpian moves. But Democrats defended them when they were enacted or supported by Biden.

This does not feel like an election, I wrote. It feels like a reinstallation.

Despite his recent moves, Biden and Trump are not the same. It is essential for their mutual backers, and those backers’ plans, that they are different. Trump is the abuser, and Biden is the enabler. This is more effective than overt tyranny.

Abusers are challenged far less when parties are prioritized over people. When the abused ask for help, they are reprimanded by abuser and enabler alike.

It has been heartbreaking to see a widespread loss of compassion over the past four years, along with abandonment of policies and people who were championed in 2020. The acceptance of mass death through covid during Biden’s term, greeted with horror during Trump’s term, was followed by the acceptance of mass murder abroad.

I have begged Americans not to give into cruelty. The surrender of the soul is the most dangerous act a person can commit — to others and to themselves. It is also the surest route to authoritarianism, regardless of who wins an election.

Biden’s behavior and the questions it prompts about his status in the race has brought us to a terrifying new inflection point. It is agonizing for people who love this country. Every outcome is bad, and some are catastrophic.

I do not know the full story of Biden’s health. His handlers do not tell the truth any more than Trump’s handlers do. But I do not think Biden will last four more years in office. I do not know if Biden should resign and let Harris take over, and if so, whether he should do that now or in his next term, assuming he still can win.

These are not provocative pundit questions. These are everyday American survival questions, which is why it is disturbing that they are brushed aside with cope and lies.

I don’t know if Trump would last four years in office either, for what it’s worth, but I worry America would expire before he does.

“I'll feel as long as I gave it my all and I did the goodest job as I know I can do, that's what this is about,” says Biden. From his vantage point, it doesn’t matter what happens to America, but only to him.

But our futures matter, whether Biden believes it or not.

America is a throwaway thing to people like Biden and Trump. They won’t live long enough to see the damage caused by their presidencies. They are ghost town victors, indifferent to mass death, content to rule over the ruins so long as they get to rule.

The rest of us just want our country back.

*          *          *

We knew when we were out of Cope. The signs stopped, the red lights disappeared, and the highway stretched ahead, open and aimless and free.

We crossed the Colorado border and spent the rest of the day driving through Kansas. We drove through small towns with funny names — Bird City, with a Bird City Hall; and funny places, like the “It’ll Do Motel” (“Not a Hilton, but…” it says above the sign, with an angry screed against politicians below.)

We saw the actual home and range from the song “Home on the Range” on private land off a country road, and it was smaller and sweeter than I imagined.

We ended the day at the World’s Largest Ball of Twine in Cawker City, population 457. The circumference of the twine ball, a sign notes proudly, is forty-six feet. The gigantic twine ball is protected by a pavilion lined with benches for visitors to gaze upon it with proper reverence. In the distance, the water tower of Cawker City looms, decorated to look like a twine ball in the sky.

The World’s Largest Ball of Twine was created by Kansas farmer Frank Stoeber on Christmas Day 1953. He had too much twine and it was hard to clean up. So instead, he made a ball. His neighbors had the same problem, and they brought Stoeber their twine, which he added to the behemoth in his barn. Word spread, and other farmers got in on the action. By 1957, it weighed 5000 pounds.

Eight years after its creation, the ball was so big, it was worthy of being rolled through town in the 1961 Cawker City Centennial Parade. The townspeople, in awe, decided to put it on permanent display.

I have seen imposter World’s Largest Twine Balls — one is in the Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museum in Branson with a dubious “certificate” — but the Cawker City Twine Ball beats them all.

Their Twine Ball is a communal affair. If a city representative is around, they will give you a strand of twine, and you can add it to the ball. When I touched the Twine Ball, I thought of all the people who added to it over the decades, who laughed at it, who loved it, who made it what it was.

I took photos of my shadow on the Twine Ball at golden hour. I was no longer a target of a vengeful government or its insistent operatives, but a regular American, blending into the silliness of American life. I miss feeling like that.

You may say it’s a small thing, but it felt like a big thing. The world’s largest thing, thank you very much.

We take what we can get here in Last Chance, USA.

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Last Chance, Colorado

Welcome to Cope, suckers!

The home and the range from “Home on the Range”, with lyrics printed on the side.

Highway 36 in Colorado near the Kansas border.

The TRUE World’s Largest Ball of Twine! You don’t need that sisal disclaimer, we know you’re the real deal, Cawker City.

Praise the Twine Ball!

A shadow of myself

I took fifty photos of this thing, I need to stop posting them now!