Splitsville A-OK WITH AOC

The Impressively Spry Newsletter for Subscribers to THE SPLIT

As you know we know you know, we think the U.S. is like totally “Splitsville,” man—meaning, one geo-political entity harboring two separate nations. Does it have to be only two? It all depends on the coarseness or fineness of the lens through which you view and taxonomize the whole. In the crudest possible way—because we are the crudest possible individuals—we often do see it as consisting of two: Blue versus Red; Democrat versus Republican; Philadelphia Eagles versus Kansas City Chiefs. And so on.

Sometimes, however, even we are able to discern more than two constituencies occupying and contending for dominance in the United Snakes—as when, for example, we identified three “nations” having participated in last year’s Presidential election: Democrats, Republicans, and the vast army of cynics and low-information/low-brain-wattage both-sidesers and—all right, we’ll come right out and say it—nudniks who stayed home and participated by not participating.

Well, Donald Trump—a man who goes by many names, one of our favorites being, as coined by the indispensable Jeff Tiedrich, “King Fuckface the First”—has been in office just over two weeks, and, amid the resulting flurry of unhinged tweets, evil executive orders, lunatic fantasies, outright lies, delusional foreign policy announcements, self-serving international real estate-deal fantasies, own-goal acts of stupidity, destructive or wasteful edicts, and nonsensical declarations, we are once again able to discern a three-way version of Splitsville. Unlike our previous parsing of the electorate, they are not at all even roughly equivalent in size.

The first cohort consists of the fascists (and their enablers) attempting to destroy the U.S. government so as to make rich people even richer. This group includes both the foaming zealots and the quivering cowards holding political office in the Republican Party, as well as the coterie of millionaires, billionaires, and bajillionaires (a word spell-check doesn’t seem to mind!) funding, defending, and promoting them. Note that it doesn’t necessarily include the rank-and-file Republican voters outside D.C., many of whom belong to the third group.

The second is larger than the first, and includes Democratic office-holders at the Federal, state, and local level, as well as a sizeable proportion of voters. That means folks like you—yes, you!—who look askance at this piratical attempted takeover of democracy itself, and seek ways to obstruct, end, and reverse it.

The third, and we bet the largest of all, consists of everybody else—some Dems, and probably many, many more Repubs, who “don’t follow politics,” or are brainwashed by right wing media into obliviousness of what’s going on with Dementia J. Trump (h/t Keith Olbermann), moody teenage Bond villain Elon Musk, undead Jewish Nazi Stephen Miller, and all the henchmen and henchwomen taking part in the merry trashing of the Constitution, and of American society, in the service of promoting racism to advance the cause of endless greed.

We don’t know what to tell this third group. Or, no, wait. Actually, we do. It would be something along the lines of “Wake up or go fuck yourselves.” Too subtle? We get that a lot. Maybe we’ll work on broadening the message. Until then, though, it’s dollars to doughnuts (whatever that means) that the MAGA orc army that voted for Trump did so under the hilarious/moronic belief that he would, once in office, magically lower the price of eggs. They weren’t, and still aren’t, aware of how his policies will redound to their disadvantage, by which we mean, “kick them in the balls.” Even the women, who will get kicked in their lady-balls.

Happily, we do know what to say to the second group—to Democrats, honorable Republicans (there may be several), and Independents who are aware of and quite rightly horrified by what Tubby (so named by Roy Edroso), Musk, et al are doing.

The first thing is to advise them to watch a new (posted on February 3) video by our political heartthrob, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Although probably we should start by informing them, and you, that it’s 90 minutes long. You don’t really need to watch the whole thing, although the whole thing is smart, funny, true, impassioned, clear, and inspiring. AOC spends a lot of time emphasizing several key issues, including:

a. Don’t be overwhelmed by what’s going on. Take a breath.

b. Do not comply in advance.

c. Do not give “them” (our mortal enemies) your fear, paralysis, or cynicism.

d. Do whatever you can, however small, to advance the cause. “The more we can slow them down, the less they can break.”

e. There are way more of us than them.

She correctly explains why they’re doing all this, viz., to cut four trillion dollars from the Federal budget in order to fund an extension and expansion of the (obscene) Trump tax cuts for the wealthy, passed in 2017 and due to “sunset” this year. She offers a concise presentation on the rights of immigrants, whether American citizens or not, when confronted by ICE. She has amusing things to say about the teeny-tiny, eggshell-fragile ego and notable stupidity of Elon Musk, much of whose fortune is the result of government contracts. She explains why he was instrumental in firing the head of the Federal Aviation Administration (because the FAA was looking into prosecuting and fining Space-X for illegalities and abuses. Here may be the place to report a great nickname for Musk that we read late last year: “Sissy Space-X.”) She reports, in an item new to us, that the letter that went out to Federal workers last week, offering a “buyout” in return for their resignations, also went out to air traffic controllers, who don’t have enough to worry about.

She also answers the question many have been asking for three weeks, i.e., “Where are the Democrats?” Answer: In recess, back home in their districts. Or so they were up until February 4. Now the boys (and the girls) are back in town, to the extent that Washington, D.C. is a town, and the Dem response to these traitors and criminals will be (indeed, already is) more robust.

We were particularly heartened to hear this. You will recall that last week’s Splitsville was pretty darn vehement in its excoriation of House Minority Leader Hakim Jeffries for a (lame, wan) tweet (about God) he sent out. We don’t retract any of that, but we do acknowledge that early this week he issued a ten-point memorandum about upcoming Democratic actions, which we willingly applaud with both, or, rather, all four, hands.

We urge the Dems to release more of such videos, although they shouldn’t be 90 minutes long. Twenty minutes would do, two or three times a week. They should reveal the latest crimes and monstrosities committed by the administration, explain why they’re illegal, immoral, or dangerous, and summarize what ordinary citizens can do to oppose them. They don’t have to be (and probably can’t be) hosted by actually serving Congresspeople or Senators. Find an appealing, smart person comfortable on camera—there are thousands out there; the last two generations have grown up making vids for YouTube, TikTok, and Insta. These videos can be funny, but their purpose should not be entertainment. Their purpose should be to convey information and stoke outrage. They’re not “Weekend Update.” They’re emergency bulletins.

And Democrats: Don’t sit on this. Don’t study or focus-group test it. Trump is getting more deranged by the day. (At his recent meeting with the vile Netanyahu, he repeatedly proposed the U.S. commit a war crime.) Musk is drunk with power. (All that wealth, and it’s not enough.) Don’t depend on press conferences or the increasingly useless mainstream media. When they go low, we go on the air.

READER ADVISORY: We will soon be offering a handsome—a ravishing—fully-bound book-like book edition of THE SPLIT. Printed in the English language, its pages will be sequential and numbered. It will make a perfect National Meatball Day (March 9) gift for everyone on your list. Watch this space.