“You can’t ignore politics, no matter how much you’d like to.” – Molly Ivins
In the quest toward a wiser and more just society, my wife is on the front lines.
Meaning she’s the first to read the words my fingers formulate here.
Last week when, as usual, I asked her to read my weekly piece, she responded, “Is it going to depress me?”
Translation: “More about the criminal who conned his way back to the most powerful position on Earth? I can’t take it.”
I almost yanked my offering from my bride’s gentle hands. I pondered writing an “All is lost. Farewell, dear readers” valedictory.
Then I thought of one of America’s greatest commentators – one who did justice to injustice with a wink and a drawl. One who didn’t suffer fools gladly, but who assailed foolishness gleefully.
She and I were kindred in many ways, the most important being tone. Let’s get there:
“The thing about democracy, beloveds, is that it is not neat, orderly or quiet. It requires a certain relish for confusion.” – Molly Ivins.
Confusion? Oh, yeah: The players in the next presidential administration are already acting out a “Wild Kingdom” segment. Cue Marlin Perkins:
“Watch now as frantic vulture hatchlings get their first taste of flesh.”
A power-drunk brawl has erupted over HB1 visas for skilled labor. Elon Musk wants more of them to benefit him and his tech bros. No way, says the MAGA bigot brigade. “On hundred percent moratorium on all immigration,” screeches Steve Bannon, telling Musk and pals, “We’re going to rip your face off” on this. Musk’s counter-suggestion: “F@$&k yourselves in your face.” Unelected, un-empowered, and already a-gurgle in sewer water. What fun!
“Ignorance is the root of all evil.” – Molly Ivins
Based on last year’s election, strategists must re-cut the three-way “Democrat, Republican, Independent” electorate pie to four slices instead: “Democrat, Republican, Independent, Oblivious.”
Right-wing responses to the New Year’s morning truck attack in New Orleans showed how the pumps of stupidity can be primed. Credit talkers on Fox Spews who inspired their Golden Idol to blame the New Orleans truck-ramming tragedy on illegal immigrants. As anyone who can count “one, two, three” would find out shortly, the killer was a U.S. citizen, Houston resident and Army veteran.
Not one to wait that long: On Truth Social, he who wears ignorance like a crown screamed, “This is what happens when you have OPEN BORDERS.”
You mean people leaking out of Texas?
Shades of “They’re eating pets,” the high-political-mileage campaign canard so vigorously denied by Ohio officials. Anyone who would listen to self-possessed rumor-mongers over the findings of responsible local officials is, to be clear, a dolt.
“What stuns me most is not even that the system has been so badly corrupted by money. It is that so few people get the connection between their lives and what the bozos do.” – Molly Ivins.
Who elected Elon Musk? No one. He just bought his way into an apparent decision-making role in a government with which he does billions of dollars in “bidness.” That’s Molly-speak.
Having purchased the candidate of his choice, it appears Musk will be in position to bully his way to the cutting of billions of dollars in programs that help non-billionaires: Medicaid, food stamps, aid to low-income schools.
This to finance tax cuts for people who don’t need them, like him. We should not endure this silently.
“He’s further evidence that the Great Scriptwriter in the sky has an overdeveloped sense of irony.” – Molly Ivins.
Molly wrote that about her favorite foil, George W. Bush. We can only imagine what she would have to say about the melon felon whom Musk’s billions helped elect.
Speaking of Musk: When a suicide bomber blew up a rented Tesla Cybertruck outside a Trump property in Las Vegas, Elon threatened to sue headline writers over any connotation that such a vehicle, which even before detonation looks like space debris on wheels, is somehow unsafe.
There’s rich irony: He who helped bankroll the return of the Great Liar, and whose media platform X is harbor for bogus claims and conspiracy theories, tells us to get our facts straight.
Well, folks, this is where we are. All one can say is: Don’t stop paying attention.
John F. Kennedy assembled what scholars came to call the “best and brightest.” We are just now getting a preview of the “worst and gooniest.”
I refuse to be depressed, however. I choose to be in defense mode – defense of humanity’s good name, and the nation so many great and brave people built.
“Politics is not a picture on a wall or a television sitcom that you can decide you don’t much care for.” – Molly Ivins.
John Young is a longtime Texas newspaperman who now lives in Fort Collins, Colo. Email jyoungcolumn@gmail.com. See johnyoungcolumn.com.
From The Progressive Populist, February 1, 2025
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