Kicking the ass of a fool
This is a message for certain Democrats, progressives, fence sitters and independents. This is a message for those of you who have a problem with Joe Biden. This is a message for those of you who have chips on their collective shoulders about Joe Biden.
You know who you are. You’d vote for Biden except for one thing. That thing is something about Biden paying too much attention to Israel, or not enough attention to Gaza, or too much attention to the conflict between Israel and Gaza.
Or maybe you’re an old Bernie partisan and you resent Biden because he doesn’t believe in a single-payer healthcare plan. Or he doesn’t do enough for college loan debt. Or he just isn’t progressive enough for your taste.
Or maybe you’re one of those people, one of those agists, who thinks Biden is too old and should step aside for someone younger. Sure, you say, Biden’s done an adequate job so far and all. But even though he looks good and he kicked Trump’s fat ass when he gave one of the finest speeches in presidential history in Valley Forge last Friday, you still have your … ah, reservations. So you’re going to sit this one out. Or maybe you’ll vote for someone else, someone in the Green Party, for instance.
I get it. You think you’re a woman of taste. You think you’re a man of discernment. You’re an individual, and you don’t let anyone tell you how to vote or for whom to vote.
Fine, at least we understand one another. But I have just one question for you. Are you out of your goddamn mind?
What kind of a moron would run the risk of letting Donald Trump or some other festering turd of a Republican once again take up the levers of American power? What kind of idiot are you, that you would let a group of people who have promised to destroy democracy and replace it with a theocratic Handmaid’s Tale nightmare take power?
I’ll tell you what kind of person you are. You’re the kind of precious idiot who, even though you’re dying of thirst in the desert, you’d turn down an offer of water because it isn’t Evian. Your sacred little cause, your pet peeve, your hypersensitive little feelings, whatever it is, it’s just not getting enough attention. So you would destroy the world in the name of it. You sir, you madam, are a goddamn fool.
You’re what psychologists mean when they refer to the narcissism of small differences. What is that, you wonder? It’s when the idea that the more a relationship or community shares commonalities, the more likely that some of the people in it will start interpersonal feuds. We have endured Trump and the MAGA Republicans, you and I, for going on nine years now, and they’ve become so commonplace that you’ve turned your petty little myopic derogations inward. You have started attacking the wrong people.
Well I’ve got news for you. You may think my purpose is to change your mind. Get over yourself. I don’t think there’s any chance of that. Your mind is hermetically sealed. I don’t think anyone can get to you with common sense. You’re not just a lost cause, you’re no cause at all.
I think you’re a parasite, a self-righteous little whiner, a Nazi collaborator. You’re like one of those obnoxious little flies that gather round rotten bananas. You buzz and pester and make everything filthy. You are, in short, the worst kind of asshole. You see the peril we’re in and you chose to do nothing about it. You choose to let it happen. You disgust me.
But like I say, I didn’t come here to change your mind. You’re too arrogant, too wrapped up in the narcissism of your small differences to be reachable. I’m just laying all this on you because it feels good. I’ve had to endure the awfulness of a Trump presidency and its aftermath and I need a compensatory rant. Sometimes in these troubled times you just have to kick the ass of a fool. So consider it kicked.
There are eight million stories in the naked city of Nazi collaborators, yours is another one. And, as for everyone else, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.