Happy Thanksgiving

There is plenty for me to be thankful for on this Thanksgiving Day.  I'll soon be 50, and I have a daughter in college who is wonderful in every way, the rest of my family, gainful employment, a home that is cozy and warm and tucked in among trees in a small town in the state where my family has always lived and where the electors are sensible people.  I am grateful for The Atlantic and Mother Jones and all those brave people who dare to engage in public discourse about the nature of our democracy that seems not to be rolling over and playing dead for a narcissistic, sociopathic, D-student demagogue who believes everything can and will be bought.

I am also grateful for the neo-Nazis who dare to speak the truth about our president-elect and to spray these truths onto playgrounds and inside empty buildings where they cannot be held accountable.  These are the poster children of our president-elect, who has taught us that accountability is an issue only if you are naive enough to believe in democracy.  Through their acts of vandalism these neo-Nazis, the Klan, the alt-right, the mindless Republican voter--call them what you will--speak the truth of Trump in a way this disingenuous, lying grease ball will not and perhaps cannot.  Denouncing them on the paper of record means nothing when the person doing the denouncing has no respect for that record.  Turn back the clock and denounce them on Twitter, Mr. Trump.  Tell them you don't want their votes because you cannot represent their values.  Give them as much negative attention on Twitter as you gave the cast of Hamilton.

I am also grateful for the fake newsers who have come out of their darkened lairs to laugh in our faces for falling for their fake news.  Thank you for reminding us we live in our self-affirming bubbles, and thank you for showing us that Mark Zuckerberg is just another Donald Trump, happy all the way to the bank while he exploits our foolishness--claiming he doesn't know how to solve the problem even as a handful of college kids at a coding convention created an algorithm to solve the problem--in an afternoon.  (Keeping that Facebook account?  Then you're part of the problem.  I'm not grateful for you.)

I am grateful for New Balance's openly stating its support for Trump and to Nike for affirming the reality of climate change in an open letter to the president-elect.  This simplifies my shopping quite a lot.  And I am grateful to Amazon for getting those Nikes to me asap.

I still heave at the thought of the charlatan and his porn star wife occupying the White House.  For that, though, we have bleach--and I'm grateful.