Americans Have Blood On Their Hands

Emergency vehicles surround the wreckage of Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8243 near Aktau Airport in Kazakhstan.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last few days, you’ve likely heard that an airliner crashed in Central Asia on Christmas morning. The flight, numbered as J28243, was scheduled to travel from Baku, Azerbaijan (GYD) to Grozny, Russia (GRV), a short, routine trip across borders. However, it diverted to Aktau, Kazakhstan (SCO) and crashed there, killing more than half the occupants.

Following the crash, two competing narratives have emerged from the Russian authorities. One is that due to fog at Grozny, it wasn’t safe to land there, so they had to divert. That, of course, raises the question of why they would risk flying all the way across the Caspian Sea to an entirely different country. The other narrative is that it was a bird strike, but even a relatively small plane like this one wouldn’t crash just because it hit a few birds. In other words, this is highly suspicious, particularly due to the holes on the plane consistent with artillery fire.

My condolences go out to the families of all those on this flight. According to Wikipedia, slightly more than half the passengers were of Azeri nationality , with others from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia. Azerbaijan has declared a day of mourning, and I don’t blame them. However, this is eerily similar to something that happened ten years ago.

The image above is of a highway in the Netherlands, which was otherwise closed to traffic when the 298 victims of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 were being driven to their final resting place. It’s probably different in Europe, particularly in the Netherlands, but I feel like Americans forgot about this tragedy pretty quickly. 

In case you forgot what happened, Russian-backed separatists (read: Russia) in eastern Ukraine shot the civilian airliner down with a Buk surface-to-air missile. I can’t imagine what it must have been like in those final moments on that plane as…you know what, I don’t want to imagine it. But sometimes I feel a moral obligation to.

Now, since the MH17 tragedy, civil aviation authorities have learned some things. For instance, you shouldn’t be flying a civilian airliner over an active war zone. However, it seems the American public have not learned their lesson.

On July 17, 2024, to mark the tenth anniversary of the shootdown, I posted the above image on the Pics subreddit. One of the top comments was reminding U.S. redditors to remember that Trump supports Putin, and by extension “this drama”, and to “vote wisely.” At the time, like probably much of Reddit, I was a bit annoyed by how every other post seemed to be linked back to American politics, even if it’s warranted. But in hindsight, I feel like this message wasn’t emphasized enough.

Now, I voted for Harris. If we could run the election again, I would vote for her as many times as it took for her to win. But the fact remains that half the electorate voted for Trump, and he won. And now Vice President Trump (because let’s be honest, Elon Musk is effectively President) is likely to stop aiding Ukraine, and might even aid Russia. Given that Trump has threatened to invade some of our allies already, I think it’s at least conceivable he drafts Americans to fight for Russia in Ukraine.

An image Donald Trump posted on social media threatening to invade Canada.

Let’s get back to the crash that occurred yesterday as of the time of writing. Evidence suggests it was not an accident at all, but rather that Russia knew it was a civilian airliner and deliberately shot it down. It’s a wonder that any passengers survived, and the pilots of Azerbaijan Airlines are heroes for saving as many lives as possible. But I can’t help but feel that this wouldn’t have happened at all had Harris won the election.

Think about it. If Kamala Harris had emerged victorious, that would have sent a signal to Vladimir Putin that NATO would not stop aiding Ukraine any time soon. Therefore, Putin would have less incentive to order attacks on civilian aviation. To be clear (and I can’t believe I have to say this), even if he did have “incentive”, it would still be a despicable act of violence that has no place in a modern world.

But Trump voters enabled this. They have the blood of 38 deceased victims on their hands, and many of the survivors have severe injuries that will require a long, arduous recovery process. They were willing to hand Putin not only Ukraine, but civilian aviation, on a silver platter, and they were willing to do it just because they thought eggs might be cheaper. There is no bottom for Republican politicians, and there’s also no bottom for the voters who enable these politicians to keep selling our allies out.

If there is ever an accounting for what will happen over the next four years, more heads than Trump’s must swing (not literally, of course - I’m vehemently against the death penalty). Half the U.S. population are traitors of the highest order, and they need to pay for what they’ve done to global stability. The only problem is that I don’t know how to make them pay.

In the meantime, as the mainstream media sucks up to Trump (along with most of the Dumbocrats in Congress), I am a dissident. I will not obey. And my goal is to make the lives of Trump voters a living hell over the next four years. 

So join me. Please.

What’s In A Center Of Population?

In the realm of demographics, the term “center of population” refers to the position on a map in which the average person within a country or region lives. I find this concept quite fascinating because it deals with factors that drive both population growth and human migration within a country. 

Technically, there are three different definitions of the center of population. This is according to Wikipedia. You’ve got the mean center, or “centroid”, which asks you to imagine a flat map of the region in which you place an equal weight for each person on the map. In this case, where does the map balance? This is the definition most commonly used, so it’s the one I’ll go with here.

Aerial view of Hartville, Missouri, United States - image taken from the NOAA government website.

The above image is of a relatively unassuming small town in southwestern Missouri. From the sky, it looks like just another Ozarks community. However, what is special about Hartville is that according to the 2020 United States census, it is the closest town to the average location of the United States population. What is more relevant to the study of population trends in the country, however, is the direction this centroid has moved over time.

From this Wikipedia page , we can see that the center of population was in Texas County, Missouri as of the 2010 census, roughly 12 miles from the 2020 centroid. On average, this centroid has traveled west by southwest at a rate of roughly 2 or 3 miles a year for the last thirty years. This isn’t all that much in the grand scheme of things, but it paints a fairly clear picture as to where Americans are moving. 

It should be noted that this is not a new trend; the centroid has generally shifted west and south throughout the country’s history, ever since the first census in 1790. The first question we should ask is this: Why are so many Americans moving away from the East Coast?

Here’s an anecdote for you all. I’m from an East Coast state, Massachusetts, where young professionals are leaving at a rapid rate - a WGBH survey earlier this year found that about a quarter of such people did not intend to remain in Greater Boston for the long term. In fact, according to Wikipedia, Massachusetts lost a net of about 160,000 people to other states between 2020 and 2024, a higher raw number than all but four other states and a higher relative rate than all but six states. 

So why is that? Well, here’s a visual of the biggest reason:

Anecdotally, there’s a lot of construction of single-family homes going on in suburban Massachusetts. During my undergraduate studies, every time I visited my childhood home, it seemed as though another dozen lots had been sold, torn down, and were to be replaced by homes that were grander than what stood there previously. In other words, it’s about housing costs - they’ve simply become too prohibitive for many of the people who might like to live here.

Now let’s talk about states that have benefited from this domestic migration. Florida and Texas top the list. It can probably be presumed that some people are moving there for the nice weather. Now, I don’t consider heat and humidity to be “nice weather”, and I actually think Boston has the best climate of any major U.S. city. But that’s just me.

And then there’s Arizona. Arizona, specifically the Greater Phoenix area or the “Valley of the Sun”, has grown at an impressive rate considering its location. Perhaps it is indeed the quintessential American city given how little the developers cared about urbanism. Despite the impending lack of water, and despite constant warnings from climate scientists that the city may be uninhabitable by century’s end, people and businesses still flock there. And the cost of living isn’t even that low anymore!

Thumbnail for Yellowstone, Season 2 taken from Rotten Tomatoes.

Another beneficiary of this domestic migration is Montana. On a per capita basis, it has the third-highest rate of net domestic migration, and as with Florida, a common political narrative is that tens of thousands of people moved there the last few years because they were fed up with COVID restrictions.

These new residents have been seen as a factor making the state’s politics redder, as the GOP completed their conquest of the state with Senator Jon Tester’s 7-point loss to Republican challenger Tim Sheehy. Fun fact: MT-SEN 2024 was the most expensive congressional election in US history relative to the number of votes cast - nearly $500 was spent for every vote.

Montana is still thinly populated. Despite its extensive land area, it only has about 1.14 million people, less than 8 per square mile. Nonetheless, this number is rapidly growing as more people are inspired by shows like Yellowstone to move to Montana and live out their cowboy fantasies. It’s a bit ironic, too, because from what I understand, Yellowstone is an allegory for how out-of-staters shouldn’t be moving to Montana and ruining it for the natives. And yet it’s contributed to the real-life gentrification of the state!

It is worth noting, of course, that the United States is not the only country with a center of population. I’m not going to engage in unnecessary “USDefaultism” here, so let’s look at this map from the CIA World Factbook:

As you can see, the point on Earth closest to the average person is in what appears to be northern Pakistan - it’s an average of about 3,000 miles to everyone else. Given how populated South Asia, and Asia in general, is, this isn’t much of a surprise. By contrast, the farthest point from each person is just off the western coast of Chile. That’s where you’d end up if you dug a hole all the way through.

So what are the takeaways from the center of population concept? Well, I think it’s a reminder that there are very real pressures driving people to move to certain parts of the world and not others. My own state’s center of population isn’t that far west of Boston (it’s in the town of Natick). This is of course not uniform - there are people who’d rather live in rural areas. They may not be a majority, but they exist. Still, over time, we should expect the urban percentage of the population to increase. 

Thank you for reading.

Why The Alps Are (Probably) More Popular Than The Rockies

There are many mountain ranges in this world, many of which offer stunning views and the potential for outdoor activities. Some of these have more tourism infrastructure than others. Two of the most famous ranges in this regard are the Alps, running across the spine of Europe from France to Slovenia, and the Rocky Mountains, which stretch from Northern Alberta all the way to New Mexico. 

Now, precise numbers about how many tourists visit the Alps as opposed to the Rockies are very difficult to come by. I do mostly cursory research for my articles, so I couldn’t be bothered to sift through endless academic journals to find exact statistics. The easiest stats to find are at the country level , meaning that it’s apples and oranges. 

However, most of what I’ve seen appears to suggest that the Alps are more popular with international tourists than the Rockies. In this post, I’ll examine a few reasons why that may be the case.

A photograph I took from Copper Mountain, Colorado in March 2024.

First of all, considerably more people live in Europe than North America - more than 740 million for the former as opposed to 590 million in the latter. The Alps are simply closer to more people than the Rocky Mountains. However, this is admittedly a crude way of looking at the question, so let’s look at it in terms of cities.

The largest city close to the Alps would be Munich, Germany, which has a population of almost six million in its metro area. There are also several decently-sized cities in Switzerland, Austria, Italy, and France that can qualify as being “in the Alps.” What I’m trying to illustrate here is that the Alps are located near multiple population centers that have airports and train stations. From Boston Logan, I can fly directly to Munich or Zurich and be there in about 7 hours, and then easily take the train to the Alpine town of my choosing.

By contrast, the Rockies are not as easily accessible to someone visiting from Europe. While one can fly to Denver from Frankfurt, Munich, Paris, or London, Denver is the only major U.S. airport close to the Rockies, and even then it’s a decent drive. And because Amtrak is a national shame, you will have to drive there yourself.

There are also the Canadian Rockies, in which case one can fly from any of the aforementioned four European cities to Calgary, Alberta. Some people, like Not Just Bikes, say that Via Rail, the main Canadian rail system, is even worse than Amtrak. There’s also the Rocky Mountaineer train, but that’s strictly for sightseeing, not for anyone who wants to get to their destination in any reasonable amount of time.

Even in the summer, driving in a country you don’t live in can be stressful, but the high mountain roads of the Rockies can become downright treacherous in the winter months. And that’s something you just don’t have to deal with in the Alps, because Europe has actually invested in its rail service.

Conditions are frequently like this on I-70 in Colorado in the winter.

Now let’s get to another factor, which is the culture of each region. The Alps are split between several countries; excluding the microstate of Liechtenstein, you’ve got Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Slovenia, and Switzerland. As such, a trip to the Alps allows one to visit multiple countries in one go, and every country brings its unique culture to the table.

Meanwhile, the Rockies are only split between two countries, Canada and the United States. Now, many Canadians on Reddit will gladly tell you everything that makes their country culturally different from the United States, and they might well be correct where sanity is concerned. But the fact remains that a trip to the Rockies may not be as culturally enriching as the European alternative.

For instance, one important difference between the Alps and the Rockies is that in general, Alpine ski resorts were built around existing towns long before downhill skiing was a thing. These towns include, but are not limited to, Val d’Isere and Chamonix in France, Sankt Anton am Arlberg in Austria, and any number of locations in Switzerland. Because of this, there’s a lot more traditional Alpine architecture in Europe.

By contrast, most of the “villages” surrounding ski resorts in the United States and Canada were purpose-built just to serve the resort. One example is Vail, which was clearly built to evoke the capital-A Alpine charm, but just ends up looking so artificial. That’s because it is. And I don’t fault anyone who decides they’d rather visit a town that appears authentically European because it’s actually in Europe.

Vail Village in Colorado, United States. Image taken from East West Hospitality.

Val d’Isere, France. Image taken from the Alpinium Ski Resort Guide.

Now let’s talk about the elephant in the room, which is the political situation in the United States. Obviously this doesn’t apply as much to potential visitors to the Canadian Rockies, but the American Rockies might see a decrease in tourism in light of the reelection of Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency. I think that, in the context of how alpine tourism will be impacted by climate change, some people will boycott the United States due to their electing a climate denier to the highest office in the land.

Even if Trump hadn’t won, though, gun violence would remain a concern. The United States has a much higher crime rate than almost anywhere in Europe, certainly in terms of violent crime. Quite a few countries have issued travel warnings against us, and for good reason. But to be clear, our reputation is in the toilet, and we deserve it. 

Now, how many people who otherwise wanted to visit the United States will boycott it just because Trump won? I truly don’t know. It was reported in 2018 that $4.6B in tourist revenue was lost under his first presidency. That is a relatively small fraction of the total, of course, and it’s not like a gradual decline in international tourism is going to tank the American economy on its own. But I think it’s a notable barometer of where sentiment is at.

The U.S. Embassy in London after Just Stop Oil protestors vandalized it with orange paint.

In conclusion, those are a few reasons why tourism to the Rockies is generally less than that to the Alps. They are both stunning mountain ranges, but one is more accessible than the other, one is more culturally rich than the other, and one has a more favorable political situation than the other. Of course, a lot of this is conjecture - if anyone reading this wants to offer their own theories, they are welcome to do so. 

Thank you for reading. 

Phoenix Is The Quintessential American City

During Trump’s first term, we were the only country in the world to reject the Paris Agreement, and we will surely be again. Now, the Paris Agreement does not go far enough, and there’s no real enforcement mechanism even for countries that remain in said agreement, but at least the rest of the world is doing something as opposed to less than nothing.

No matter how much evidence we get that we need to change our policies, whether it’s on gun violence, health care, or the environment, we continue to stick our heads in the sand and deny, deny, deny that something needs to be done differently. As a society, we tend to believe that we can throw as much money as we need at a problem, and it’ll just go away. 

And there is perhaps no place that’s a better example of this cultural mindset than the “city” of Phoenix.

Golf courses in suburban Phoenix, Arizona, United States. Image taken from Thrillist.

Historically, major cities have been constructed on or near bodies of water for a number of reasons. Water is essential for life, and access to the sea is invaluable for any political entity. The four largest cities in the United States are all near the water. You have New York (Atlantic Ocean), Los Angeles (Pacific Ocean), Chicago (Lake Michigan), and Houston (Gulf of Mexico). 

Phoenix is the fifth-largest city proper in the country, and it’s a major outlier. Instead of being near a major body of water, it’s in the middle of the desert, reliant largely on groundwater in order to sustain itself. Per Wikipedia, the city has a hot desert climate with an average July high of 106.5°F (41.4°C)! And that’s the average daily maximum - in practice, there are often dozens of days a year where the high rises above 110°F. In fact, there’s a famous cartoon scene in which a character states that Phoenix should not exist.

The city proper has a population of about 1.6 million people, but the metropolitan area, the definition some people prefer to use, is estimated to contain about five million people as of 2022. That’s a 3.5% increase from 2020, which is more than a 20-fold increase from 1940. And it’s not called the “Valley of the Sun” for no reason! 

So why did Phoenix get so massive? Well, the start of the city’s rapid growth was around the end of World War II in 1945. Things were looking pretty good for the United States economically at that point, as many places in Europe had to rebuild post-war. Additionally, air conditioning became far more commonplace around that time, which made it more comfortable to live in the desert. 

Peggy Hill once said Phoenix was a monument to man’s arrogance, and I tend to agree. After winning the largest military conflict in human history, America wanted to flex its muscles. The planners probably thought “If we can win World War II, we can build a metropolis in the desert!” With this newfound superpower status, they figured that if you threw enough money at this project, it could work. And, well, it depends on what you mean by “work.”

Homelessness in Phoenix, Arizona. Picture taken from r/UrbanHell.

To be clear, Phoenix is not the only city in the country facing a housing crisis, nor is the United States even the only country with this issue. However, when increasing housing costs coincide with a hot desert climate that’s only going to get hotter, and is indeed already doing so, you have a recipe for real trouble. 

Some people have asked how homeless people manage to survive the extreme temperatures in places like Phoenix. The sad answer is that some of them don’t. In 2023, Maricopa County (anchored by Phoenix) lost some 645 people to heat-related causes, and 290 of these victims were homeless. We can talk all day long about how hazards like extreme heat exacerbate existing injustices, but homelessness is not the only problem facing Phoenix.

Consider the first photo in this post. Despite the lack of water, Arizona is a very popular golf destination. In the winter, the weather is seen as perfect. It’s pleasantly warm but not scorching, and it rarely rains because it’s still a desert. I’m not a golfer, but I’d imagine that’s the sort of weather conducive to that sport.

There’s just one problem, which is water. Namely, the lack thereof. In June 2023, Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs declared that new subdivisions could not be planned in Phoenix due to the water shortage. The majority of the region’s water supply comes from groundwater, which isn’t an infinite resource, and it takes many human lifetimes to replenish. And yet, people continue to flock to the region for the low cost of living and the nice winters.

A golf course in Buckeye, Arizona. Picture taken from the New York Times.

Golf tourism has been controversial in Arizona in recent years. At a time when water shortages partly induced by climate change have gained increased attention globally, and residential areas are sometimes told to reduce their use of water at home, the golf courses very often remain green all year round. And that takes water, an essential resource anywhere that is especially precious in a place without much of it.

Recently I was reading a thread on r/FuckCars about golf and how bad it can be for the environment, and one of the users made a great point. For obvious reasons, nobody goes to Iowa expecting to surf. So why should people go to Arizona and expect to play golf? Golf is for climates with more water security - it was invented in a country with a reputation for rainy weather.

Finally, let’s talk about sprawl. It’s no secret that American cities have a reputation for being car-dependent and sprawling. This stereotype is completely accurate - the relatively few cities that are walkable, such as New York, Chicago, and my beloved Boston, are very often expensive places to live. But I don’t think there’s any American city that exemplifies sprawl more than Phoenix. Just look at it.

All of this is Phoenix. Image taken from the Britannica website.

Now, as bad as things may be in Phoenix, as much as I might say that the city “should not exist”, the fact remains that it does exist. Indigenous peoples lived in the area now known as the Valley of the Sun many centuries ago - there are rivers near it. But not millions of them. Even so, there are steps the city can take to mitigate the uneven impacts of extreme heat.

This Vox video from a couple years ago was pretty fascinating. The dark gray pavement that comprises so much of Phoenix absorbs heat like you wouldn’t believe, whereas tree cover makes a noticeable difference in the opposite direction. 

Currently, Phoenix classifies trees as private property, meaning that anyone wishing to grow trees to cool their neighborhood down must use their private resources (i.e. their own money) to do so. Consequently, wealthier neighborhoods whose residents can afford to plant and maintain trees in the desert heat contain far more tree cover. More affluent regions of Metro Phoenix such as Scottsdale and Paradise Valley have abundant shade - it’s still very hot, but shade does help! And if the authorities classified vegetation as infrastructure, then public funds would be used to maintain them, meaning that (in theory) their distribution would be more equitable around the city.

In the end, though, we have to be honest with ourselves. As it stands right now, I think the necessary changes are unlikely to be made any time soon. This “monument to man’s arrogance” will remain standing.

But not only is it a monument to man’s arrogance, it’s also an illustration of how those with any power in America always look at the evidence staring them right between the eyes and pretend not to see it. Truth be told, because it’s so unsustainable and is only getting more so, Phoenix is the quintessential American city.

Australia’s Social Media Ban: My Thoughts

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese speaks about the proposed social media ban. Image taken from Reuters.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock recently, there’s a good chance you’ve heard that Australia has passed a law that would ban people under 16 from using social media. I understand that it’s not my country, so I don’t have too much skin in the game. Still, what happens in one country doesn’t always stay there.

Whenever I’ve seen discourse about this ban online, one of the biggest talking points I’ve noticed is that it would be impossible to enforce this ban. But I’m not sure that’s true.

After all, I spend a lot of time on the social media platform known as Discord. In fact, probably too much time. Discord has a hard and fast requirement that all users be at least 13 years of age. If you admit to being under that age, you’ll be swiftly banned from all your servers and probably reported to Trust and Safety. And from what I’ve read, the Australian law puts the onus on the platforms to regulate themselves.

First of all, let’s look at the facts. The ban applies to five sites: Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and Xitter. And yes, I call Elon Musk’s platform Xitter, pronounced “shitter.” Because ultimately, that’s what it is these days. 

In any case, only sites for which one requires an account to use will be affected. Websites like YouTube, which you can browse as a guest, are, according to the BBC, “unlikely to be banned.” And there’s a reason I cite the BBC here, because the United Kingdom is considering its own ban under terms similar to those used in Australia. Given that the UK and Australia are relatively influential countries on the world stage, it is at least conceivable that more countries will follow suit eventually.

Overall, I have mixed feelings about this sort of legislation. In all probability, it will never come to fruition in the United States, because the Democrats and Republicans aren’t likely to agree on anything so significant anytime soon. But that doesn’t mean I can’t have an opinion on it.

It has been well-documented that social media can have a negative impact on a person’s mental health. So much so, in fact, that the European Disability Forum felt the need to write an article about how young people should take care of their health in the digital world. I can certainly relate to FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) whenever I see people on social media bragging about their epic vacations.

Let’s use TikTok as another example. Prior to Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter, I would argue that it was the most harmful out of these five social media platforms that Australia is looking to restrict. For now, let’s leave aside the misinformation that’s sometimes spread there, such as trivializing autism. And yes, autism can be good sometimes, but still!

Have you ever noticed that the younger generation’s attention spans seem to be getting shorter and shorter in recent years? Anecdotally, there are many schoolteachers on Reddit who say that the children don’t learn as well as they used to. And yes, Reddit may not be real life, but I think there’s evidence to bear this out. Internet addiction is very much a real thing, and I think it both comes from and contributes to the societal need for constant stimulation. The short, to-the-point TikTok videos that are 60 seconds or less really feed into that, meaning that so many of us are just used to putting in no effort.

I’m 24 years old. I feel myself addicted to Discord much of the time, but I didn’t start using Discord (I’m making it sound like a drug, because it kind of is) until I was 16. If I’d started at fourteen or even thirteen, I might be even more addicted to the platform. After all, there’s plenty of evidence, including common sense, suggesting that it’s harder to break a habit you start at an early age.

As bad as its impact on the attention span is, social media’s impact on mental health through activities such as doomscrolling is even worse. Now, there’s a lot of wrong going on in this world; all you need to do is read one of my “Anti-America’s Top Ten Countdown” posts to know that. But as privileged as it might make me seem, I think I would be in a much better mood if I wasn’t on Reddit all damn day.

Moreover, social media is probably one reason I compare myself to others so much. It isn’t remotely healthy to do so, because you’ll either feel smug or incomplete, but it still happens. Even some of the things I’ve done in real life, as fun as they were, are things I chose to do because others on Discord said they were amazing.

That being said, I can also see an argument for not banning social media for those under 16. If we view social media as a drug like alcohol, I would argue that the U.S.’ policy surrounding the drinking age isn’t the healthiest. Here, you’re flat-out banned from drinking until you’re 21. Now, alcohol isn’t good for a still-developing brain at all, but in practice lots of people go all-out drinking on their 21st birthday.

By contrast, most of Europe has a far more nuanced approach to the drinking age, and I think it’s better. There, teenagers are taught to have a healthy respect for alcohol before they’re allowed to drink it whenever. And maybe social media is a lot like that. Maybe instead of banning these platforms for minors, we should have more media literacy lessons in schools so that the students know the potential downsides of social media.

This isn’t entirely a novel idea. For instance, Finland has a implemented media literacy curriculum for students in basic education. While I’m not privy to the specifics of what is covered (in fact, I’ve never been to Finland even as a tourist), I would imagine it discusses the perils of unchecked social media use. After all, as has been covered extensively, the barrier to posting a story that might be considered “news” is far lower than it once was.

Much like the Internet as a whole, social media is a proverbial Pandora’s Box that we aren’t going to be able to close. We’ll never be able to return to a world without it. Australia is trying one approach to dealing with this problem; the UK might follow suit. Meanwhile, Finland is evidently trying another. And the United States will probably do nothing, just like we did nothing after the horrific tragedy that occurred twelve years ago today. 

I’m curious to hear your thoughts.

What Is The Alaska Of Your Country?

If you’re in the United States (or oftentimes, even if you aren’t), Alaska needs no introduction. It’s called the Last Frontier for a reason. 

Alaska was the 49th state to be admitted to the U.S. in 1959. At the time, the population was about 220,000 people according to Wikipedia. As of 2023, Alaska has a population of over seven hundred thousand people.This might sound like a dramatic increase, and it is, but it is still the third-least populous state overall. Its low overall population comes in spite of its expansive geographic area - it’s larger than Iran! And if it were an independent nation, Alaska would be bigger than all but sixteen countries.

Perhaps because of its isolation and outlier status in terms of population density, Alaska’s made quite the impact on popular culture. As a child, one of my favorite animated movies was Balto. I need to watch it again, come to think of it. That film was one reason my sister had always wanted to visit Alaska, a trip my family made in 2016.

It’s not just children’s movies that have put Alaska on the map. There are any number of reality shows that have done the same. There was that cringe-worthy series Ultimate Survival Alaska that ran for three seasons, essentially a poor man’s Amazing Race that was probably staged five ways from Sunday. Then there’s Alaska State Troopers, which I have not seen, but apparently documents the challenges experienced by law enforcement in such a vast territory.

TV thumbnail for Ultimate Survival Alaska.

All of these statistics might make one wonder: Do other countries have their own version of Alaska? 

Obviously, not every nation has a polar region. For the sake of this article, “Alaska” can be seen as a metonym for a sparsely populated administrative division of a given country that is also relatively expansive in terms of area. Beyond the literal Alaska, as it turns out, quite a few countries have a figurative Alaska. 

Let’s look at Germany, a country I have a few online friends from. By population density, the German state ranked last is Mecklenburg-Vorpommern . It’s situated in the northeastern part of the country, bordering Poland and the Baltic Sea. Its capital is this beautiful-looking city called Schwerin that, according to Wikipedia, has just 96,000 residents. It probably feels somewhat like a small town, though how should I know? I’ve never been there.

Schlossbrücke in Schwerin, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany.

Like many rural areas of the United States, it appears Schwerin is relatively right-wing in terms of its voting patterns. Now, for the most part, the right-wing in Europe is nothing like the Republican Party we have in America. However, the far-right AfD party won a 26% plurality of the vote, and roughly that percentage of seats, in the most recent city council election.

Another interesting fact I learned about Schwerin while writing this article is that it is the city with the highest crime rate in Germany. However, this statistic is somewhat misleading, because it’s the only city in the country where riding public transit without a ticket is counted in the crime statistics. 

Of course, calling Mecklenburg-Vorpommern the Alaska of Germany is a relative term. Its population density is 69 people per square kilometer as of the end of 2018, and it has possibly grown since then. For frame of reference, that’s nearly twice the population density of the United States as a whole.

Aerial view of Niseko, Hokkaido, Japan. Image taken from the Niseko Tourism website.

Now let’s talk about Japan. It’s another beautiful country that I had the honor and privilege of visiting about two years ago now. That vacation was mostly a ski trip in the Hakuba Valley region of Nagano Prefecture. Not only is it a gorgeous place, but the food is amazing - the apple juice tasted like real apples! 

In all seriousness, Japan’s answer to Alaska is Hokkaido. It’s the northernmost prefecture and is relatively sparsely populated. Again, it’s all relative, as Japan has a much higher population density than the U.S. overall. Hokkaido’s capital is Sapporo, a city known for its beer and its annual snow festival.

This island is not only among the most sparsely populated parts of Japan, but it’s one of the snowiest places in the world, at least among those inhabited by any significant number of people. The city of Sapporo itself received almost five meters of snow in the average year between 1991 and 2020. And that’s just the largest city on the island, the place that likely has relatively hospitable winters compared to other parts of the prefecture.

Many other places on Hokkaido, such as the world-renowned ski area of Niseko, receive considerably more snow. In fact, Hokkaido in general is known for winter sports. Most of the ski resorts in Japan are fairly Westernized, but from what I’ve heard, Niseko is quite popular with Australian tourists. It’s to the point where you’ll hear “G’day mate” more often as a greeting than “Konichiwa”. 

So Hokkaido is undoubtedly the Alaska of Japan. However, at 61 people per square kilometer, it’s still denser than the United States’ average, and way denser than Alaska. I’ll go with a third example of “it’s all relative.”

Kayangan Lake, Coron Island, a popular tourist attraction in Palawan. Image taken from Wikipedia.

The third case we’ll look at is Palawan. It’s the westernmost province in the Philippines, itself a very densely populated country. Palawan is the largest province by area, as well as having the third-lowest population density if the provincial capital of Puerto Princesa is excluded.

As you can probably tell from the image, Palawan has a vastly different climate from Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Hokkaido, or especially Alaska. It is what many consider a tropical paradise, and it contains several popular resort cities like Coron and El Nido. Supposedly it’s one of the world’s best places for scuba diving.I’ll admit scuba diving isn’t really my thing; skiing is more my sport. But lots of people scuba dive in Palawan.

The “tropical Alaska” parallels don’t stop there. Palawan is sometimes referred to as the Philippines’ “last frontier” due to its biodiversity and relative isolation from the rest of the country. It’s relatively difficult to reach from more densely populated islands in the archipelago; most travelers have to fly from Manila or Cebu to Puerto Princesa, then possibly take a 6-hour bus ride to El Nido. Coupled with how far away the Philippines already are from the eastern U.S., my rear end is getting sore just thinking about a trip I haven’t even planned to take.

Overall, one thing I find fascinating is that many of these “miniature Alaskas” their respective countries are popular tourist destinations. I don’t know how many people visit Mecklenburg-Vorpommern for leisure, especially those traveling to Germany from thousands of miles away. But Hokkaido is well-known for ski tourism, and Palawan gets a considerable number of scuba divers and other tourists who love the beach. I’d imagine many of the latter’s visitors are from elsewhere in the Philippines, but still.

I think there’s something to be said about visiting places with relatively sparse populations. Yes, there are many reasons why a majority of the world’s population lives in cities. There are economic pressures leading to population growth, cities have more resources that people need, and it’s even more environmentally friendly to live in a city. 

Perhaps, however, the reason so many of these “Alaskas” are tourist destinations is the novelty. If I could travel to an exact replica of Boston in Europe, I would rather just stay at home. It’s the same reason you shouldn’t get McDonald’s as a tourist in Japan; wouldn’t you rather eat something you can’t get so easily at home? People ideally travel for something different from what they’re used to.

Alaskan Ski Resorts: Why Aren’t There More Of Them?

I’ve decided that I want to start this blog up again (I’m still paying for the domain, after all - might as well use it), but I’m going to switch it to being about geography, at least for the time being. Quite frankly, politics get pretty depressing after a while. 

Recently I saw a Reddit thread asking why Alaska had very few ski resorts. This was a question that fascinated me to no end, because for those of you who don’t know, I am an avid skier, having participated in the sport since I was 6 years old.

A topographical map of Alaska, taken from Earth@Home.

As you can see, the state is quite mountainous. In fact, it contains the highest peak in North America, Denali (which was named Mount McKinley until then-President Barack Obama restored the indigenous name for the mountain.) Fun fact, I actually have met someone who served as a Denali guide, though that’s a story for another time.

Not only does Alaska have a lot of mountains, it’s also got a lot of snow in the winter. Many of the mountains even have snow in the summer. Based on that, one would think the state is fertile ground for a ski resort. In fact, however, there are only 10 ski areas in Alaska with Wikipedia articles , a number that seems far too low for the largest state in the country by area. For frame of reference, Colorado, which has less than a sixth of Alaska’s area, has 35 notable ski areas. But as global warming threatens our beloved sport in Colorado, colder places that get more snow now will increasingly become more popular…right?

In other words, Alaska “should” have more than two hundred ski resorts if they were distributed evenly across the state. However, it doesn’t. So why not?

First of all, let’s consider one thing that won’t change no matter how much the climate warms: The length of the day. In my experience, most ski resorts I’ve been to close around 4 PM - that’s when the last skiers are allowed to get in line for the lift. Without totally doxxing myself, I live at about 42°N, and on the day I’m writing this (December 5, 2024), the sun rose at 6:59 AM and will set at 4:12 PM. That’s 9 hours, 13 minutes of daylight. During winter, the days are shorter; who woulda thunk? And crucially, the winter days get shorter the further north you go.

At 42 degrees north, the shortest day of the year is slightly over 9 hours long. However, in Anchorage, Alaska’s largest city, the sun doesn’t rise until almost 10 AM this time of year, and it sets just under six hours later. That’s just six hours of daylight, which may not be long enough to make a ski resort economically viable. And the further north you go in Alaska, the more limited the light will become. It just doesn’t make sense to run a ski resort that’s only open a few hours a day, and night skiing isn’t possible (or safe) everywhere.

Now look at this map. It’s from Wikipedia and shows Alaska highlighted in red. Given that, you can see just how far it is from the rest of the United States. The closest major U.S. airport to Alaska is Seattle/Tacoma (SEA), and even that flight from Seattle to Anchorage has a block time of 3 hours, 50 minutes. Ted Stevens International Airport (ANC) does maintain flights to some major cities in the American West, as well as Minneapolis-Saint Paul (MSP), but those are even longer than the one from Seattle. 

The only regularly scheduled international route to or from ANC, for now, is Frankfurt, Germany (FRA). This route is operated by German leisure airlines Condor and Discover Airlines; however, both are only seasonal. And that season is summer, which is not ski season, even in Alaska. I don’t know how many Europeans would want to visit Alaska anyway when Norway is a more politically stable (and perhaps more importantly, much closer) alternative. But with no direct flights during the winter, I’d imagine that’s a very limited market for ski tourists to the Last Frontier.

To put this into perspective, imagine that you live in Greater Boston, like me. If I want to go for a ski trip in the American West starting on January 20, I could either go to Denver in 5 hours or less for $250/ticket, or I could go to Anchorage and be there in 12 hours or more for $600/ticket. Yes, I looked it up; that’s the quickest way. Considering the limitations faced in terms of daylight, as well as the fact that things in Alaska are more expensive, most people in such a position will choose Colorado. And that’s doubly so for those in Europe, who have plenty of ski resorts in the Alps.

Aerial photo of Copper Mountain in Colorado showing how much infrastructure it takes to run a ski resort. Taken from Ski.com.

The last reason I’ll touch on is the cost. Not the cost borne by those who would ski at these hypothetical Alaskan resorts, but rather the cost borne by those who are going to build the resorts. 

A ski resort takes lots of time and money to set up. I’ve never been involved in the process of developing one, but I’d imagine that anyone who wants to would need to get environmental permits squared away. Who knows how much money that takes. And that’s before the lifts are built, which not only takes money, but also labor. Plus, most ski resorts in North America build “villages” at the base like the one pictured above - you need building permits (money), the salaries of people who staff the businesses (money), and upkeep (money).

As monetarily expensive as it may be to run a ski resort, labor is the real problem here. As my country has “learned” time and time again, you can throw as much money as you want at a problem, but if you don’t have enough people to work on a project, it will never be built. There’s a reason this country has a teacher shortage that is only likely to get worse.

At the time of writing, Alaska is the third-least populous U.S. state, with about 733,000 people in 2023. It is, by a factor of nearly five, the most thinly populated state relative to its geographic size, and that won’t change anytime soon. Employers in industries we might consider more essential than running a hypothetical future ski resort have already faced problems filling positions. They’ve turned to labor from outside the state. It sort of reminds me of how some young Australian adults work as ski instructors at resorts in Canada like Banff and Whistler. However, the sort of mass ski tourism some would envision in Alaska would require out-of-state labor (and sometimes out-of-country labor) on a far greater scale. 

In my opinion, if Alaska is going to gain a labor surplus sufficient to build new ski resorts (let alone dozens of them), the only thing that would really cause that is an increased AI boom. AI, of course, is problematic enough on its own - we’re already seeing these problems. Is it really worth training artificial intelligence to build ski resorts when there are more pressing issues to deal with?

All of the above being said, Alaska is a beautiful state that I believe is worth visiting if you can spare the effort and expense to get there. There are many types of nature tourism that can thrive there, but ski tourism likely isn’t one of them.

Back To December

So now it’s December, and that means the right-wing is going to go all-out with their culture war issues that sane voters won’t make their number one priority. Of course, “sane voters” is doing some heavy lifting here, given that this is the country that just gave Donald fucking Trump a second term.

Most of the time, Christmas is my favorite holiday. I love the aesthetic of it, especially when there’s snow on the ground (which, admittedly, isn’t as common as it used to be where I live). I even love Christmas music, but then again, I have never worked retail. If I did, maybe I would see Christmas music differently, because I’ve been blessed with so many memes about how “she’s defrosting” and the like.

A meme of Mariah Carey defrosting, taken from Reddit.

Now that we’re well and truly in the Christmas season as defined by retailers, the culture warriors are going to be at it again. I’m old enough to remember when Trump proclaimed people would be saying “Merry Christmas” again because of him. Yet again, this is another non-issue that the GOP has blown out of proportion.

I celebrate Christmas myself, even if it’s not really in a religious sense. That’s the same with the rest of my family. We are semi-nominal Christians, but we don’t go to church or anything like that except maybe for funerals or weddings. And I’ve never been to a wedding.

That being said, I know a good amount of people who don’t celebrate Christmas; there is a decently-sized Jewish population in suburban Boston. Yes, it’s polite to say “Happy Holidays” as a greeting in order to be inclusive, but I’ve never once met someone who’s offended when I slip up and say “Merry Christmas.” It seems everyone (at least, everyone I talk to on a regular basis) accepts that it’s just a greeting.

I’m telling you, it’s sickening that the Republican Party has been able to take power once again through emphasizing such vapid issues. I’d thought almost nobody cared about which greeting I used, but evidently so many right-wingers are even more insane than I gave them credit for. They’re really making a mockery of our country abroad, and I’m ashamed.

To me, and to many other Americans, Christmas has diminished in religious importance. Yes, a good number of people still go to church - significantly more than in Canada, Australia, or the majority of Europe. The percentage is, admittedly, lower than it used to be. But just because the religious meaning of the holiday has kind of fizzled out, that doesn’t mean it’s not still an important holiday to most of us.

Christmas in the United States is a lot like Thanksgiving in many regards. As I wrote about two weeks ago, Thanksgiving is an excuse to celebrate something. Even if it’s just the simpler pleasures in life, the fact that all of the family has survived another year in good enough health to gather together for the meal and to watch a Charlie Brown episode afterwards, it’s still significant. 

Like Thanksgiving, Christmas takes place near the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. Where I live, there will only be 9 hours, 5 minutes of daylight on December 25, 2024. The further north you go, the darker that day will be.

Maybe most people have done away with pagan traditions centered around worship of the sun. Maybe an increasing number have turned away from religion in general. But I think on some level, humans want some light in the dark of winter. Perhaps, amid the decrease in sunlight, people feel they need something to celebrate, even if it’s not based on anything supernatural.

Christmas at Bondi Beach in Australia. This will never not be amusing to me. Image taken from TimeAndDate.com.

I know what my family is going to do for Christmas. We’ll get a tree like we usually do, and we’ll hang up the numerous ornaments in our collection. We’ll get up that morning and go through our stockings by the fireplace. We might not be children anymore, but that doesn’t mean the power of rituals has been fully lost on us.

 And then we’ll eat breakfast consisting of fruit salad, bagels with lox and cream cheese, and of course, that delicious cranberry apple coffee cake my mother and I bake every year. During that time, my paternal grandmother, one of the most interesting and wise people I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing, will no doubt have plenty to talk about. That’s what Christmas is like in my family. Even in an era of increased secularization, even when white Christmases become less and less frequent, some things never change.

Overall, I’m not sure what the overarching message of this post is. I’ll admit that I just wanted to write something for the blog after a few days’ radio silence. It’s probably nothing profound, but if it makes at least one person think, that can only be a good thing.

A Reflection on Linguistics

I have never thought of myself as a linguistics expert. In fact, I’m basically monolingual. But it’s nonetheless a fascinating topic that I think deserves a blog post today.

You see, I live in the United States, a country whose tourists are infamous for being “ugly Americans” who expect everyone to speak English to them wherever they go. Now, not every American tourist is like this, but stereotypes exist for a reason. And a reflection on this topic has led me to realize that we’re at a disadvantage relative to many other countries.

A map showing leaders of select countries according to how many languages they spoke as of late 2022, per r/MapPorn. Joe Biden (USA) was the only one to speak only English.

Most of the people I know were required to take a foreign language in high school. Many of these people, including my brother and I, selected Spanish, but it never came naturally to me. At least, not as naturally as it came to my brother. My brother, one of my best friends, did an exchange program in Spain at age 16, and later an internship in that country. I have done neither of those things.

This stands in stark contrast to Europe. On the occasions when I’ve been fortunate enough to visit European countries where English does not have official status, virtually everyone I’ve spoken to has had good enough English to where I could hold a conversation with them. Until recently, I can’t say I questioned it very much. I guess I just assumed “that’s the way it is”, without really thinking about why.

Indeed, the data bears this out. According to a 2022 survey, almost 80 percent of Americans living in the US are monolingual. This stands in stark contrast to the fact that 65% of Europeans speak multiple languages according to the same survey. The linked article, published a few months after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, details the implications this has for both America’s economy and geopolitical status. And TLDR: It’s not good.

It wasn’t until Trump’s first term that I learned the United States doesn’t actually have an official language at the federal level. Of course, in practice, English is as good as the official language, since day-to-day life here really runs on English; indeed, more than half the states have designated it as such. That being said, the real reason Trump proposed making English the official language at the federal level was as a monument to his xenophobia, not because it would actually affect U.S. policy, let alone daily life in this country.

I could go on and on about how the United States and United Kingdom exerted efforts to promote the notion that English should be the “default” language. This has been well-documented in many academic texts and doesn’t need to be discussed any further here.

However, it’s not just Anglophone nations that have contributed to “language consolidation.” The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), uses English as its official working language.  This is despite the fact that only two of its member states, Singapore and the Philippines, have actually designated English as having official status for civilian life.

Representatives from Southeast Asian countries at their 2024 summit in Australia, taken from Kiripost. Despite (or because of?) the diversity of languages used by civilians in their countries, all of these leaders have agreed to speak English at the meeting.

Meanwhile, here’s some food for thought: There are more than seven thousand languages currently spoken by the world’s roughly 8.2 billion people. Many of these tongues, however, only have a couple thousand speakers at most, meaning that if they are not taught to younger generations, we risk losing these languages for good.

Just think about that for a moment. This post is published in English. If your primary language is English, or another widely-used language like Spanish, Mandarin, or Russian, it probably seems unthinkable (if you’ve considered it at all) that one day your language, the tongue you use for everything in your day-to-day life, could vanish. And yet, there are people, including a large percentage of the world’s indigenous population, who live with this reality every day.

Moreover, languages are not just systems of communication. Anyone who’s taken a second language in any capacity has probably figured out that every language provides a different way of seeing the world. Whenever the last speaker of a language passes away, the world loses a unique perspective. I think that’s regrettable, just like the loss of biodiversity all over the world as a result of environmental issues like deforestation and climate change.

In my mind (and again, I say this as someone who is functionally monolingual), this is an issue that deserves more attention than it’s getting. As indigenous issues have become increasingly politically salient in countries like Canada and Australia, both governments and civilians in those places have reflected on their ancestors’ role in what would become this crisis.

The Aboriginal and national flags of Australia, side by side. Image taken from the Catholic Leader website.

Canada, for instance, has their Truth and Reconciliation Commission, something I wish the United States would do. Indeed, there are many things Canada does that I wish we would. But I’m getting off track here.

The point is, if English is your first language, you should think critically about how it came to be this way. If you travel abroad, don’t be that “ugly American” who assumes that everyone around you needs to speak your language. And consider what it must be like if your own language was marginalized in favor of what others say should be the “default tongue.” 

Maybe the opportunity to gain this knowledge is the only thing I can be thankful for this year.

Platform Peril

No, not THAT kind of Platform Peril.

One of the things I’ve thought about a lot lately is just how important it is to be mindful whenever you have an audience. 

What I mean by this is the responsibility you have as someone with a platform to disseminate information responsibly. In the age of social media, the barrier to posting information that others might see as news is far lower than it used to be. You can simply go to your computer (or phone), type in a series of words on BlueSky, and congratulations - you’ve become a reporter! 

This is one of the many ways in which the Internet has fundamentally altered the way we live our lives. Among other things, it’s driven local journalism to the brink of extinction. Maybe I’ll write more about that some other time.

Of course, as a certain superhero once told us, with great power comes great responsibility. That has hardly ever been more true than it is today, in an era when we face so many overlapping crises that the U.S. government is either not solving or actively working to exacerbate. And if you don’t believe me, just take this example:

Boston Globe political cartoon from 2017.

It’s no secret that systemic racism exists in America. Even after it was no longer legal to own black people as property, we had the Jim Crow era in which there were whites-only drinking fountains, schools, etc. And I also don’t need to tell you that even after segregation no longer carried the force of law behind it, it remains effectively in place in many U.S. cities. This doesn’t even take into account the endless police brutality we see in the United States that nobody ever bothers to do anything about other than kneel in kente cloth.

All of this came to a head when Trump became President the first time. In case you’ve forgotten (which would make you the average American voter) , there was a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017. After the murder of a counter-protestor, Trump went to the podium and announced that there were very bad people in that group, “but you also had people who were very fine people, on both sides.”

The uproar was immense from the same “liberal” media who seem awfully silent now. They rightly pointed out that when the President of the United States speaks, people listen. It’s no surprise that hate crimes spiked under Trump’s first term, and they are already rising again now - just look at all those racist text messages sent in the days following his 2024 victory.

But just think about the power of Trump’s platform. I might be among his detractors, but the fact remains that when the President of the United States speaks, people listen. I’m old enough to remember he told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” during a debate, and days later the FBI unveiled a plot to kidnap and probably kill Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. 

Now, I’m going to do something surprising. I’m going to talk about irresponsible famous people who don’t live in the U.S. I know. Crazy, right?

A 2013 anti-vaccine rally in the UK, from The Independent. As an important disclaimer to remain in compliance with ethical standards: These people are incorrect, and the ideas they promote here are not only dangerously wrong, they’re just plain dangerous.

Those of my readers who are significantly older than me might remember that in 1998, a study was published in The Lancet, the most prestigious medical journal in the United Kingdom, “demonstrating” a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. Again, to remain in compliance with my better judgment, this link does not exist.  

The “doctor” behind it, Andrew Wakefield, was stripped of his medical license once this “study” was found to in fact be fraudulent. In a way, however, the damage was already done. Just look at who the US is going to have in charge of public health in Trump’s next administration. The harms of not vaccinating your child are very well-documented. We have seen the consequences in the 2019 measles outbreak in Samoa, a particularly dangerous disease given that the measles virus can “reset” your immune system’s memory. But there are over eight billion people in the world, and if even a relatively small percentage are led to believe that vaccinating your child can cause them to develop autism, that’s still a lot of people.

More importantly, this doesn’t just harm public health, but also public trust in scientific institutions. As a reminder, The Lancet was previously the UK’s most trusted medical journal. It’s not just the conspiracy theorists who always shit on scientific advancements who might be swayed by such a fraudulent “study.”

Consider also the average person who doesn’t pay much attention to the scientific community, but trusts science as an institution because they have the evidence on their side. In the UK at least, this is far, far more people than those we might call anti-vaxxers. The Lancet published, and still does publish, many things that are demonstrably true. So when they publish such harmful disinformation, even if only once, this plants the seeds of doubt in some minds that maybe other scientific journals aren’t to be trusted as well. And if too many parents refuse to vaccinate their children, herd immunity will be jeopardized for the rest of us. If RFK Jr. is confirmed, we’re in deep trouble as a species.

In both of the cases I described above, the messengers probably didn’t care how much damage they would end up doing. Trump certainly doesn’t, and it speaks to the unique depravity of this country that we allowed him to return to power. 

Just because some of our “leaders” aren’t mindful of the power of their platforms, however, doesn’t absolve small creators like myself of our obligation to tell the truth. After all, the reason I write this blog is because I want to provide a news outlet for the resistance to the incoming Trump regime. I’m as careful as I can be to always get the facts right, and I only wish that more well-known people were equally mindful.

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Anti-America’s Top Ten Countdown: Week 4

It’s that time of the week again, so it’s time for Anti-America’s Top Ten Countdown! Today we’ll be going through the top ten most important stories that every progressive member of the resistance needs to know about. Without further ado, here we go!

10: GOOD RIDDANCE TO GAETZ

So Matt Gaetz had to withdraw from consideration to be Donald Trump’s Attorney General after four Republican Senators (including Senator-elect John Curtis of Utah) privately voiced their opposition to his confirmation. To me, this is a case of “good riddance.” This sex-trafficker is not going to be the Attorney General of the United States after all. However, that doesn’t mean anyone else Donald Trump picks (such as Pam Bondi, his new choice) is going to be any less dangerous. If anything, I’d argue that Bondi is more dangerous because liberals don’t despise her as much. People won’t be as motivated to resist this outwardly inoffensive lady as opposed to Matt Gaetz. But at least Gaetz won’t be coming back to Congress, and I always love to watch a conservative get humiliated. Countdown number nine!

Protest against anti-Asian hate crimes in 2021, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Image taken from ABC News.

9: VOICES OF VIOLENCE

So in Minneapolis, Minnesota the other day, two trans women were beaten outside of a railway station. Minnesota, of course, was the home state of Kamala Harris’ running mate, Tim Walz, and Walz has designated it as a sanctuary state for the LGBTQ+ community. Remind me again why the country chose Trump and Vance over the jovial, joyous man known as Tim Walz? In any case, this shows that Trump’s rhetoric has emboldened those who traffic in hate. This is hardly news, considering all too many moments during his first term. Even so, now that Trump is actually going to be President once again, his words matter even more. I fear that hate crimes against marginalized communities are only going to increase in the coming years. Countdown number eight.

Bob Casey Jr. speaking at a Kamala Harris rally on November 4, 2024. He would be narrowly defeated at the polls the following day.

8: CASEY STRIKES OUT

The final Senate race of 2024 has been decided, ladies and gentlemen. In the midst of a recount, three-term Democratic incumbent Bob Casey Jr. of Pennsylvania has conceded to Republican challenger David McCormick. Casey ran a pretty lazy campaign, and I’d long been a pessimist about Democrats’ Senate chances in 2024, but even I didn’t expect him to lose his seat.

 And yet, by a margin of 48.8 percent to 48.6 percent, he has indeed been defeated. This means that the Republicans will have 53 Senate seats in the coming Congress, and that Democrats will need to flip four GOP-held seats to retake the chamber in the 2026 midterms. Honestly, this is the Senate loss that angers me the most. Sherrod Brown and especially Jon Tester were always going to have very difficult races, but Casey won by 13 points in 2018! I suppose he got too complacent. Countdown number seven.

Rooster getting swabbed to test for H5N1/avian flu. Taken from the American Veterinary Medical Association.

7: ONE FLU OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST

The last time a zoonotic disease emerged during a Trump presidency, it ended with more than a million Americans dead of COVID. And that was when Trump still needed to get reelected. Now, with a further emboldened Trump having nominated anti-vaxxers to key public health posts, dozens of cases of bird flu keep popping up in humans. A case was confirmed just yesterday in a US child. If Americans were able to grow numb to COVID deaths, though, they’ll grow numb to this. And I guarantee you that if this does indeed spiral into a pandemic, nothing will be done. It’s just like how we do nothing about mass shootings, only on a far greater scale. Oh yeah, and this disease has a 50 percent case-fatality rate, whereas COVID’s case-fatality rate was 2 percent at most. And look how much devastation that caused! We’re clucked. Countdown number six.

Donald Trump shaking hands with Mark Rutte. Image taken from Bloomberg.

6: THE RUTTE REACTION

Recently NATO Secretary-General and former Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte met with President-elect Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago. I think we can all read between the lines and know that this was done for one reason, and one reason only: Rutte was begging Trump to stay in NATO. 

Well, I hate to say it, Mark, but you’re wasting your time. I voted for Kamala Harris in part because I wanted the US to keep supporting Ukraine for as long as it takes. But you’re not going to convince Trump to remain a NATO ally. Just as Joe Biden is Benjamin Netanyahu’s bitch, Trump is Putin’s bitch. I wish the US would hold fast to our European allies, but he isn’t going to, and the sooner these countries realize they can’t convince Trump not to lick Putin’s boots, the better off we’ll all be as a species. Countdown number five.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at some meeting. Image taken from the Toronto Star.

5: DON’T BLAME CANADA

So Canada has decided to defy the United States with regards to the recently-issued arrest warrants against Benjamin Netanyahu, Yoav Gallant, and a deceased Hamas leader. Meanwhile, Biden keeps supporting Netanyahu to the ends of the Earth. It’s as though Biden didn’t want to wait for Trump to take over and destroy our relationship with our closest ally; he had to do it himself.

Now, to be fair, this is mostly moot. Netanyahu isn’t stupid enough to travel to a civilized country when he knows he’s likely to be arrested on the spot if he does. In other words, Trudeau probably won’t need to act on this promise. But it’s far more than Biden was willing to commit to, so I’ll give credit where it’s due. Even after Biden’s Vice President literally lost to Donald Trump because she supports Israel, he keeps showing that he deserves the title of Genocide Joe. If Trump throws him in prison, I won’t be too sad. Countdown number four.

US Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) riding the escalator. Image taken from Yahoo News.

4: THIS AIN’T NO NETHER-NETHER LAND

Tom Cotton, the biggest warhawk in a Senate full of them, isn’t too happy about the ICC’s arrest warrants against a pair of genocidal maniacs. In fact, he’s so unhappy about it that he wants to invoke the Hague Invasion Act.

Now, in case you all don’t know, The Hague is a real place. I’ve actually been there. It’s the third-largest city in a beautiful country known as the Netherlands. More importantly, the Netherlands is a NATO ally of the United States, or at least they’re supposed to be. At a time when NATO needs to be strongly behind Ukraine, Tom Cotton wants the alliance’s most powerful country to invade a fellow member. All of this for the sake of supporting Netanyahu against the warrants. 

Will this actually happen? Probably not, but you never know when you have people as insane as Tom Cotton in the Senate. Countdown number three.

Donald Trump pointing at something. Image taken from Yahoo News.

3: AMERICAN IDIOTS

Donald Trump’s Cabinet is taking shape, and it’s every bit as bizarre and horrible as many of us feared. I don’t need to tell you how dangerous people like RFK Jr. are, because you already know that. But remember Project 2025? The reason we kept saying that we could not allow Trump to be elected, but that so many people dismissed after Trump distanced himself from it?

Well, it’s happening. Trump has designated Russel Vought, one of Project 2025’s authors, to lead the Office of Management and Budget. Even if, during the campaign, Trump kept insisting he had “no idea” what Project 2025 was, he’s now filling his Cabinet with people who were behind it. I’ll borrow a line from a wise YouTuber I used to watch regularly: “Trump is a man who has no ideas, who surrounds himself with people who have bad ideas.”

But at a certain point, I have to give Trump credit. Even in the face of anti-Project 2025 attacks, even though so many people should have known just how dangerous it was, they voted for him anyway. Our education system is truly lacking, and we are a sick country. Many of us deserve what we’re about to get. Countdown number two.

Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who will remain a former President. Image taken from the Boston Globe.

2: I WISH I’M GOING TO BRAZIL

I never thought I’d live to see the day when Brazil’s democratic institutions proved more durable than those in the United States, but that day has arrived when I’m all of 24 years old. A Brazilian court has indicted former President Jair Bolsonaro on charges related to trying to overturn an election loss. Now, where have we heard that one before?

Oh yeah. The guy who attempted a coup after losing an election was just elected again here. A country that had a military dictatorship in the not-too-distant past now has stronger institutions. I wish America would have taken note and realized that there’s only one way to deal with people who try to overthrow your government. Instead, we get to suffer under Trump for four more years and end the rule of law, all while Brazil and the rest of the world laugh at us. Countdown number one.

DNC JumboTron in 2024, taken from Politico.

1: THE DUMBOCRATIC PARTY

In this case, Dumbo is not a flying elephant who was the titular character of one of my favorite movies when I was a small child. Instead, it’s the prefix for one of the most incompetent political movements in the history of the world. 

These people managed to lose to Donald Trump twice. He might be a convicted felon, but apparently that doesn’t matter if the opposition runs a horrendous campaign. I don’t know how the DNC managed to screw this one up, but quite frankly, it’s unforgivable. In fact, we should probably burn the Democratic Party to the ground, because whatever rose from the ashes afterward could not possibly be more inept than the current opposition to fascism.

I’ve written about this before; it’s the feckless versus the fascists.Despite being given so many avenues to attack Donald Trump for so many different horrendous policies, they have been utterly incapable of taking advantage. Twice. In any other country, a political party with a similar record would go the way of the Whigs. But the Democratic Party has to stay, because it’s our only domestic bulwark against the world’s most dangerous organization. Arceus help us all.

Bibi’s Biden Bitch

Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, who now face arrest warrants from the ICC. Taken from France 24.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last twenty-four hours, you’ve probably heard that the International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu, Yoav Gallant, and a dead Hamas leader. This is an important first step in holding the Israeli government accountable for its crimes against humanity in the West Bank, Gaza, and now Lebanon. 

If Netanyahu travels to one of the 125 countries that are signatories to the Rome Statute of the ICC, he will be arrested. Notably, the United States is not among those countries, though that shouldn’t be surprising given that he came here in July to address Congress and was welcomed with open arms by most lawmakers.

Now, I’ve previously written about how not voting for Harris over the Gaza issue was idiotic and selfish. While I feel terrible for the people of Palestine, I continue to have no sympathy whatsoever for the Americans who were determined to defeat Biden and Harris because of their support for Israel. It’s not like Trump is any better on this issue, and he’s so much worse on everything else.

If you were to criticize the arrest warrants for any reason, you could argue that Joe Biden should have been listed as well. And I would agree. As someone who voted for him in 2020, and would have voted for him in 2024 if he’d accepted his party’s nomination, he truly is Genocide Joe. Yes, Israel had the right to defend itself after the inside job that was October 7, but they didn’t have the right to massacre more than 44,000 civilians and counting.

The choice Joe Biden faced. Taken from RootsAction on Xitter.

Now, it’s no secret by now that Joe Biden’s unconditional support for Israel likely cost his Vice President the election. Biden repeatedly claimed that Donald Trump was a grave danger to American democracy, and now he’s buddy-buddy with the man. But in order to prevent Trump’s return to power, he needed to appeal to the voters who were turned off by his support of this genocide. 

Again, as disgusted as I am by Biden’s support for Netanyahu, I didn’t support the Uncommitted movement. But these people held the election in their hands, and they could still vote. American voters are pretty shortsighted, and it’s not just those on the right. But back to the ICC.

After the arrest warrant was issued, Justin Trudeau, the Prime Minister of the magical utopian land known as Canada, stated that his country would comply with international law and the arrest warrant. If Netanyahu travels to Canada, he will be arrested on the spot and sent to The Hague to be tried for war crimes. Admittedly, this is mostly moot, because I highly doubt Netanyahu is dumb enough to travel to a civilized country like Canada that supports international law. Trudeau likely won’t have to act on this promise, but it’s still far better than my home country’s response to the warrant.

Lawmakers of both parties have condemned the ICC for issuing the arrest warrant. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, the most aggressive warhawk in a Senate full of warhawks, even cited the Hague Invasion Act. He threatened to attack the Netherlands, or any other country that complies with the arrest warrant. The Netherlands, one of our NATO allies in Europe! Of course, I suppose they won’t be our ally much longer once Trump takes a sledgehammer to our relationships with our soon-to-be former allies.

 Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, meanwhile, stated that if the ICC went after Israel, “we’re next”. My response to that is like that owl meme saying “O RLY?” Like, what would you expect? If you commit war crimes, the ICC will go after you. That’s how a civilized world should work.

However, I can’t absolve the Democrats of their complicity either. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, who might as well switch parties at this point, signed the joint statement issued by a bipartisan group of Senators. He said that accepting the ICC’s jurisdiction over Israel was to acknowledge that they had jurisdiction over the United States. No shit! That’s the point! No country should be above the law!

Finally, let’s get to Joe Biden, also known as Genocide Joe. The man I voted for in 2020 and was prepared to vote for this year in order to stop Trump from returning to power. Even after the issue of Israel-Gaza likely cost his Vice President the election, bringing the man he claims to be so dangerous to democracy back into the Oval Office, Biden continues to be Bibi’s bitch. He refuses to condition aid to Israel even now (though, to be “fair”, his successor in two months won’t condition aid at all), and his Press Secretary, speaking for all of America, has stated that we’re working with Israel to consider sanctioning the ICC.

A picture is worth a thousand words. Taken from Reuters.

I’ll leave you with a double standard. According to official numbers, Russia has killed more than 12,000 civilians in Ukraine. Admittedly, the actual number is probably several times higher, but you could say the same about the civilian death toll in Gaza. To be clear, I do not support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, even if my country’s next President does. I think Putin should be locked away in The Hague, no questions asked.

But while Russia is the scum of the Earth for invading Ukraine and is rightfully condemned and sanctioned, Israel continues to get U.S. support even under Biden. I think that demonstrates that the United States doesn’t care about human rights at all. Russia is our enemy, so they must be sanctioned for committing genocide in Ukraine. Israel is our ally, so we must support them as they commit genocide in Gaza. When you hold such inconsistent positions on two conflicts, it’s no surprise that the world treats your word as though it has no meaning.

Then again, U.S. foreign policy does a 180° every four years. Maybe I’ll write about that in the future. For now, as sickening as it is that Trump will be our next President, I won’t shed a tear if Biden is locked away for his support of a genocide. He was willing to back Israel even to the point where he ensured the destruction of his own country, and that’s not what a patriot does. So I’ll say this from a leftist perspective:

This, but unironically. Taken from Amazon.com.

Relevant Song Lyrics: “World On Fire” by Daughtry

A wildfire burns at Blue Hills Reservation in Milton, Massachusetts. Courtesy of CBS Boston.

Because I’m posting this on a Thursday, it’s time for an episode of Relevant Song Lyrics. Given that it hasn’t rained here in literal weeks and wildfires are burning all over a state that isn’t supposed to get them, and given that we just elected a climate-denying President, I thought “World On Fire” by Daughtry was an appropriate choice. Lots of people don’t like Daughtry, which I don’t understand. But here we go.

Going down like a dead man walking

One step from a body in a coffin

Just one, one of the fallen

This passage perfectly reflects the state of American democracy, if you could even call it a democracy at this point. Even though we just had an election in 2024, and even though we might still have elections in 2026 and 2028, they won’t be free and fair. We’ll be a “zombie democracy” like Turkey or Hungary until our democracy is in the grave for good, just like in Russia.

Waking up to a blood moon, howling

Can't drown it out, even with the medicine

Tearing through me like a bullet of adrenaline

In my case, I’m on anti-anxiety meds, and they don’t help. Not well enough. I just want to lash out at my country for electing such a dangerous man again. Every time I wake up, I’m reminded that Donald Trump is the President-elect of the United States, and I feel sick to my stomach. We knew exactly who he was, and we still gave him the popular vote. I may not have voted for him, but I’m still responsible.

Arms heavy, face down on a deathbed

Blame the gods while choking on the violence

In the end, silence is deafening

I take this to mean that the Trump voters are going to blame Democrats for everything that goes wrong in the next four years. When the economy doesn’t improve (or gets worse - Harris lost despite a booming economy!), the red-hats are going to blame the politicians who claimed to resist this orange fascist as opposed to the orange fascist. If bird flu goes south and turns into another pandemic, then they’ll literally be choking.

Marjorie Taylor Greene “boldly” claims that the Democrats created Hurricane Helene and can control the weather. Image taken from Rolling Stone.

Can you hear the crowd like a thousand sirens?

In the night like thunder striking

The sickness is rising, the angels are crying

That's the sound of a world on fire

Admittedly, I don’t expect there to be very many protests this time around. Trump won the popular vote, so he can at least claim some “legitimacy” even if he shouldn’t have been allowed to run in the first place. Besides, most Democrats are too scared to protest. I know I am. In terms of “the sickness rising”, just look at HHS Secretary-designate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has some serious brain worms. Whether or not you take the word “angels” literally (which I don’t, not really), it’s clear that those of us who want to do good in the world are distraught right now. And why shouldn’t we be? That’s exactly what a world on fire looks like, as Chris Daughtry reminds us.

Stressed out, head trauma, took a beating

Takes more than a pill to numb the feeling

It’s been said before, but the United States is almost surgically designed to keep you stressed out. Even though we’re supposedly the richest country in the world, our life expectancy is on the decline, That should be a national scandal, especially when one party continuously pushes policies that make it this way. It’s been said that half the country couldn’t afford a surprise $400 expense, which is pretty damning when four hundred dollars isn’t that much money in the grand scheme of things. And again, my anti-anxiety medication doesn’t do much to make me stress out less. At this point I mostly take it because I feel dizzy if I don’t.

Bang, bang, no mercy for the healing

Oh, twenty dead without a fight, without a reason

Twenty more in a cop car, bleeding

All tryna win a war without a meaning

The first two lines of this passage probably refer to the United States’ gun violence crisis. And yes, it is a crisis of our own making. There’s no mercy for those who are injured but survive mass shootings, as they often have obscene medical bills. That’s the only thing more American than mass shootings. 

The children at Sandy Hook or Robb Elementary, the concert-goers at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Vegas, or the bowlers in Lewiston, Maine (a shooting that’s pretty much been memory-holed even though it’s the 10th-deadliest to date)...they weren’t fighting anyone at all. In all four of these cases, no concrete motive was determined for the massacre, not that that means anything. They’re just dead without a reason. And don’t even get me started on police brutality. In fact, this song was written in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and the George Floyd protests.

The George Floyd Protests in 2020. Thanks to the GOP, they accomplished nothing other than banning discussion of racism in schools.

So yes. The world is truly on fire, and what’s more, half the American public are arsonists. If human civilization still exists at the end of Trump’s term (and that’s a big if), and if there is to be any accountability at all for those responsible, I blame the voters just as much as the politicians. Trump would be a deranged old man whining on Truth Social if not for the tens of millions who were frothing at the mouth to put him back in the Oval Office. And they got their wish. The world is burning, and Americans lit the match. And if I believed in hell, we’d all be going there.

Enemy Of The People

MSNBC, I expected better. Image taken from the Variety Magazine’s website.

Donald Trump is wrong about many things. He’s wrong about big things, like basic science, jeopardizing the ability of the global community to deal with the climate crisis before it’s too late. Indeed, maybe it already is too late, but we’d be less fucked if we didn’t have a President dedicated to ripping up environmental protections. He’s also wrong about the little things, like whether or not there were airports in the 18th century. And yes, that really happened.

But one thing Trump is right about, even if for a different reason than us progressives might believe, is that the media is the enemy of the people.

Now, I don’t use that phrase lightly. Some of history’s most notorious dictators, such as Hitler and Stalin, used it to refer to their political rivals. So I want to be careful: I’m not calling anyone I disagree with the enemy of the people. I’m calling the legacy outlets, who were so desperate to return this traitorous, felonious scumbag to one of the highest offices in the world, the enemy.

I could write a book about the way the media has normalized Trump. They’ve sane-washed so much of what he’s said and done over the last four years, paving the way for voters to elect him once again. Most infamously, the Washington Post owned by corporate overlord Jeff Bezos blocked an endorsement of Kamala Harris at Bezos’ behest. 

At the time, I didn’t think it would have much of an impact on the election results. In hindsight, maybe it did; even a “marginal” impact can mean all the difference in this deeply polarized nation. But the fact that it may have helped to elect Donald Trump is actually not even the most frightening part of this.

Look at the image that heads today’s article. Morning Joe on MSNBC, the news network of choice for the Trump administration’s detractors, has just announced that they met with Donald Trump at Mar-A-Lago. The same network that avocado toast wine moms making up the #Resistance swear by has now turned its back on any efforts to hold Trump accountable. Politics is just a game to them, even though real peoples’ lives are affected by it. 

To their credit, even CNN is reporting that this meeting was driven by fear of retribution from the incoming administration. If it weren’t so frightening, I would consider this an amusing case of “be careful what you wish for.” The legacy media, and not just Fox News, clearly wanted Trump back in office because his first term was the best thing that ever happened to their ratings. Everyone needed to tune in to MSNBC et al to see what insane thing Trump had said or done that day.

This love, however, isn’t mutual; Trump is going to go after the media in his capacity as President. Legacy media probably believes they’ll be okay, and maybe they will be. But progressive independent media like David Pakman are going to be the first targets.

An actual headline of a New York Times guest essay the other day. Really. 

It’s called “anticipatory obedience”, and the headline above is a textbook example of that. Yes, it was basically guaranteed anyway that Trump’s legal cases are going to end anyway now that he’s about to be President. Yes, that means the rule of law is effectively dead in America, and nobody should ever be in prison if a convicted felon is allowed to hold the highest office in the country.

But the New York Times shouldn’t be normalizing this stuff! The fact is, at a time like this, a free press is needed more than ever before, and the New York Times was willing to capitulate so easily! Trump hasn’t even taken office yet and they’re already saying that the voters have rendered their verdict. And maybe they have, but that doesn’t make it okay. 

It’s just like with Sleepy Joe Biden. Biden spent his 2020 campaign and much of his do-nothing presidency warning us about how dangerous Donald Trump was and how he must never be allowed to return to power. Then he ran for reelection knowing he wasn’t up to campaign at his age, which paved the way for Donald Trump to be elected two weeks ago. And then, after the world’s most dangerous man gets voted in as President once again, this is what Biden does:

Biden and Trump, sitting near a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. If I told you that, I wouldn’t be stretching the truth too much.

As with the NYT calling to end the criminal cases against Trump, there’s only so much that can really be done about the situation. Harris trying to reject the results on January 6 wouldn’t do anything, and leftists aren’t going to storm the Capitol to stop Trump’s victory from being certified. But at a minimum, the legacy media and the outgoing non-authoritarian President (the last bastions of democracy in a supposedly free country) shouldn’t be normalizing this madness. It’s not normal. Or at least, it shouldn’t be.

All of the above is why it’s more important than ever to support independent media. If the Democrats and the legacy media won’t hold Donald Trump accountable (and they won’t), then that’s up to us. That’s one reason why I started this blog, and one reason why I would like you to subscribe to my newsletter if you please. Thank you.

Thanksgiving Thoughts

For real, though: Turkey isn’t my favorite food by a long shot. Taken from Flickr.

Ah, yes. As of the time I’m writing this post, it is ten days until Thanksgiving. It is the most American of holidays, in which we look for any excuse to (over)eat and celebrate something we don’t fully understand. Maybe I’ll write about the holiday’s colonial history in a near-future post, but not today.

Most of the time, we have Thanksgiving with my paternal grandmother. This year both of my living grandparents (both my grandmothers) are going to join us for this time-honored tradition. Although we are not a particularly religious family, it’s still customary for us to go around in a circle and say what we’re thankful for before we dig into the meal.

I don’t know what I’m going to say this year. Yes, I’ve got a 3.65 GPA in undergrad. Yes, I have a loving family - my siblings are my best friends, after all. And I’m excited to begin graduate studies in urban planning. All of those are good things. 

And yet, it’s hard to be happy when the world seems to be collapsing all around you. A failed former President ran for the office again after endless corruption scandals, reckless endangerment of the environment, and overseeing over a million deaths in this country alone from a completely preventable pandemic.

Because he was President, he was able to appoint three Injustices to the Supreme Court. They’re on a warpath, and when they’re finished, it’s gonna be a bloodbath of rights dying in daylight. His actions led directly to two genocides in Ukraine and the Middle East. And of course, let’s not forget January 6, 2021, the Beer Gut Putsch, that he was not held accountable for, and now will never be held accountable for.

And now, of course, he’s President-elect once again. America is a depraved, sick nation that never learns from its mistakes. To be clear, this was true long before November 5, but the reelection of Donald Trump was another exhibit in “Mamma Mia! Here I go again!” I’m ashamed to call myself an American, and again, that was true even before Trump won two weeks ago.

How I feel about the American flag now. Image taken from the ACLU of California.

But this crystalizes the fact that I just don’t belong here. This country’s values are not compatible with my own values. I value reason, justice, and a reckoning with our common humanity; the United States values basically the opposite. 

It doesn’t matter that I’m a white person who has never stared down the barrel of a police officer’s weapon, and will in all likelihood never need to learn how to act in such a situation. It doesn’t matter that I’m a cisgender man who will never need an abortion and won’t face genocide for my sexual orientation or gender identity. And it doesn’t matter that I’m a native-born citizen who wouldn’t be deported (though deportation from the U.S. doesn’t really sound too bad right now).  I simply can’t stand to live in a country where half the population wants a convicted felon responsible for the atrocities listed above to be their leader.

Even my home state of Massachusetts isn’t immune from this insanity. In 2020, ranked-choice voting, which would do the most to save American democracy if it were implemented nationwide (which it won’t be), was on the ballot here. It went up in flames because Republicans were able to convince enough people that ranked-choice meant less choice. You read that right. They convinced 55 percent of the voting public in one of the bluest, least insane states in the country of such an insane claim for which nothing could be so blatantly far from the truth.

Even then, I suppose I have some things to be thankful for. Unlike some people in this country, I live in a family that all voted the same way in the most recent election. Some awkward conversations might be held over the turkey, mashed potatoes, corn bread, and green beans, but the political discussion will not be among them. We will be free to air our grievances about the situation together.

But if I were in the LGBTQ+ community and had a family member who voted for Trump, I don’t know that I would be able to face them the same way again. In fact, I almost definitely wouldn’t be. And I certainly don’t blame any such person who decides to cut off contact with their Trump-supporting relative. This video sums up my feelings on the matter pretty nicely.

On Election Night, my university’s Democrats club held a watch party. Of course, I use the word “party” loosely here, because it felt more like a funeral after a while. You could say the atmosphere fell from a coconut tree - the high of “brat summer”, when it looked like Kamala Harris had all the enthusiasm in the world, was long gone. 

And yet, I believe it would have been far worse if I were alone. Almost any difficult situation is harder to deal with when you don’t have anyone else to share it with. Maybe this Thanksgiving, that is what I will appreciate most of all. As long as my family has each other, there will still be hope.

Kamala Harris supporters at her Washington, DC watch party on Election Night when things went south. Taken from ABC News.

Hell Is For Americans

Wildfire in Prospect Park, Brooklyn. This is not normal.

I don’t think I’m likely to ever forget the weather the day after the 2024 election. How could I when it was in the upper seventies? In November!

Even if much of my country doesn’t agree with me, I know that climate change is real. I know it’s caused by human activity. And I know that we have six years at best to cut all our emissions by fifty percent or face runaway climate catastrophe. The election was possibly the most important in the history of the world from that standpoint. And yet, the climate crisis was hardly ever brought up by either candidate.

Now, I’m 24 years old. I was not around for the original discovery that fossil fuel combustion was altering the world’s climate. Yes, fossil fuel companies knew since the 1950s and covered it up, and they should be prosecuted for crimes against humanity. Instead, they’ll be in the world’s most powerful Cabinet. But when it was first known to the general public, I’d have to imagine it was a pretty big news story! Now, crickets.

Drought conditions map of Massachusetts, taken from Telegram.com.

I live in Massachusetts, where a drought has been declared. There’s also a red flag fire warning due to the lack of rain. It hasn’t rained in weeks, and as much as I complain about the rain when we get a lot of it, we truly need rain now. And yet it isn’t supposed to rain for at least three more days. For all I know, the forecast might be wrong again, pulling the rain away like Lucy with the football. But this should not be happening!

However, Massachusetts was hardly the only part of the country to experience climate change this year. In September, Hurricane Helene devastated much of the Southeast, particularly the mountainous western part of North Carolina. Some people there still don’t have potable water almost two months later. That part of the state had once been seen as a “climate haven” that faced relatively few risks, but Hurricane Helene demonstrated that nowhere is safe from the fury of Mother Nature. 

And then there was Hurricane Milton. It was one of numerous hurricanes to hit the state of Florida in recent years, and they’re only going to become more numerous now that the climate crisis will accelerate. Quite frankly, my sympathy for Florida as a whole is limited. They keep voting for climate deniers by ever-increasing margins, even as their state is ravaged by ever-increasing climate disaster.

Hurricane Milton aftermath, taken from the Florida Times-Union.

Remember when I mentioned that it was in the upper seventies Fahrenheit the day after the election? Well, it really felt like the weather was mocking us. Or maybe, as one poster on the Massachusetts subreddit stated, hell was descending upon us. Either way, while I’m not a religious person, I firmly believe that we were being punished for electing a climate denier as President. It does not matter that Harris won Massachusetts by nearly 25 percentage points. We’re guilty by association.

President-elect Donald Trump is going to pull out of the Paris Climate Accords on his first day in office. With his GOP trifecta, he’s likely going to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act. Now, I’ve repeatedly called Biden feckless for how much he’s normalized Trump’s attacks on democracy. But
I think it must be said that the IRA was the most significant renewable energy investment in American history. Yes, it could have been even bigger if Manchin and Sinema hadn’t blocked key parts of it. Yes, other countries are well ahead of us in decarbonizing their societies, even those with “right-wing” governments like the Netherlands. Yet it was still a major win. And now it’s as good as gone.

Lame-duck President Sleepy Joe Biden giving a speech near Manaus, Brazil. Taken from CNN.

The image above is of the first time that a sitting American President has visited the Amazon Rainforest. It should have been a momentous occasion, since Biden’s visit was mostly about climate change and the need to preserve the rainforest as an essential carbon sink. And to some extent, it was.

However, I watched the associated video on C-Span. While Biden makes a lot of great points in his speech, it’s also one of the most depressing videos I’ve ever seen when you consider the context. Biden probably knows as well as we do that everything he announces here is going to be stripped away in two months. That’s another exhibit in how American foreign policy does a total 180° every four years and why no country will ever trust us again. Which I might write about in the future. For now, just appreciate how sad it is that Biden must spend his twilight years defending the good parts of his legacy, and just how futile his efforts will be.

Over the next four years (and well beyond that), the world is going to experience more and more climate hell. No country is safe from Mother Nature’s wrath, even countries that have done far more to mitigate and adapt to the climate crisis than we have. Perhaps other countries aren’t doing enough, particularly in the light of the GOP’s brazen environmental crimes, but at least they acknowledge that the problem exists.

The Republican Party is the only mainstream political faction on Earth that denies climate change altogether, and for that I’d consider them the world’s most dangerous organization. Indeed, they are terrorists. The American people really had no right to elect these people - maybe democracy isn’t the best system after all. At least, not when the electorate is this depraved and dumb.

To be clear, the whole world will suffer for our sins. But at least the rest of the world can take “comfort” in knowing they did the best they could. And they’ll perpetually blame the United States for the rest of human history - which, admittedly, might not be that long. We gleefully voted in the world’s biggest climate menace yet again, and for that, we deserve whatever sanctions the rest of the world gives us.

When the rest of the world acted responsibly in the face of the climate crisis, we willingly exacerbated that crisis.  Every single Trump voter is guilty of ecocide, and if hell exists, there’s a special place in it for Americans. And I’ll leave you with a photo of a public service, courtesy of Just Stop Oil. It really exemplifies how I feel about my country right now.

The United States embassy in London, United Kingdom after Just Stop Oil protestors vandalized it with orange paint following Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 presidential election.

Anti-America’s Top Ten Countdown: Week 3

It’s that time of the week again, so it’s time for Anti-America’s Top Ten Countdown. These are the top ten news stories that every progressive member of the resistance needs to know for the week ending November 17, 2024. At times like these, it’s very important to stay informed no matter how depressing the news is. And most of these stories are pretty depressing, but that goes with the territory right now. So here we go; countdown number ten!

Google Search trendline for “how to change my vote”, taken from the Latin Times.

10: BUYER BEWARE.

Over the last week or so, we’ve gotten many stories about how people are searching for terms like “how to change their vote” or “what are tariffs.” And I’ve got two words for these people: Fuck. Off. Seriously, you couldn’t be bothered to do even a tiny bit of research before you cast your ballot? You took the time to go to your polling place, or request a mail-in ballot, and you didn’t realize that your decision was final? 

Look, it should go without saying that elections have consequences. If they didn’t, there’d be no reason to hold them. But you need to think about what these consequences might be before you vote, not after. I always knew that the American electorate was stupid, but I guess I just didn’t know how stupid. You’ve made this mess, and now we’ll have to clean it up even in the most optimistic potential scenario. Countdown number nine.

Official US Senate portrait for Senator John Thune (R-SD) taken from his Senate website.

9: THUNE TOWN

The Senate Republican conference has selected John Thune of South Dakota to be their new Majority Leader. He defeated Rick Scott, who was seen as the more extreme option, in the leadership race. But don’t let that fool you. He may not look like Voldemort (sorry for the Harry Potter reference), but that doesn’t mean he isn’t dangerous. In fact, I’d argue he’s more dangerous than Rick Scott would have been. 

Thune isn’t going to tank his caucus’ popularity the way Scott might. He may not be charismatic, but he doesn’t need to be in order to fill all those judicial seats and fuck this country over to an even greater extent. Already, he’s embraced the idea of recess appointments for Trump’s horrific Cabinet picks. This is especially dangerous because individual GOP Senators will not have to go on the record supporting or opposing them, insulating them from public backlash that might come from confirming people like RFK Jr. But we’ll get to that later. Countdown number eight.

An example of a racist text message sent to a black voter after the 2024 election, taken from ABC-7 News.

8: SUFFOCATE ON YOUR OWN HATE

It’s no secret that systemic racism is a stain on the U.S. nation that has never really been washed away. In many ways, we’re still suffering from the fact that we were conceived as a slave society. It’s shocking, but perhaps not surprising, that in the immediate aftermath of the election of such a horribly bigoted man, hateful people would feel emboldened to spew their vile beliefs and enforce them upon the rest of us.

Keep in mind that these bigots do all of this with the explicit support of the President-elect. It seems people have already forgotten when he stood there in the immediate aftermath of the Charlottesville hate rally and said there were “very fine people on both sides.” They’ve already forgotten when he told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by.” And I’m not going to absolve the individual texters of their responsibility for this act of psychological terror. But the fact remains that when the President of the United States speaks, people listen. He’s one of the most prominent people in the world, after all, and thanks to the Supreme Court, he’s now easily the most powerful. Countdown number seven.

Bugs Bunny about to saw off Florida from the rest of the country. That’s a public service if you ask me.

7: BUGS BUNNY, YOU’RE OUR ONLY HOPE.

In the recent election, Florida gave presidential nominee Donald Trump 56 percent of the vote, and Senator Rick Scott 55.6 percent of the vote. Both men are climate-denying Republicans. This is despite the fact that Tropical Storm Sara is heading for impact in Florida right now. Hell, have these people already forgotten about Hurricane Milton? Apparently so! 

We keep hearing in the news about how Florida is becoming uninsurable due to the numerous climate change risks facing the state. And yet, they keep voting for Republicans by ever-increasing margins despite this. Florida is a dumping ground for the red-hats and anti-intellectuals of the United States, and if they want to leech off FEMA support whenever they get a hurricane, they might as well secede. But then they’ll come crying back to Uncle Sam, and I’ll have no sympathy for them. I wish Bugs Bunny were real so he could save the rest of America from the scourge that is Florida. Countdown number six.

Alex Jones yells about something. Taken from NYT.

6: KEEPING UP WITH MR. JONES

Here’s the only cheery story for this week. After liquidating all his assets to pay the grieving Sandy Hook families he defamed, Alex Jones was forced to sell his cesspit of a website known as InfoWars. It was bought by a satirical magazine you might have heard of - The Onion. Every time there’s a high-profile shooting, The Onion runs their classic headline “No Way To Prevent This, Says Only Country Where This Regularly Happens”. That’s about the only thing they post that doesn’t feel like satire.

This is the one good thing to come out of the last few weeks. Alex Jones is going to get what he deserves, which is to have his media empire destroyed and ridiculed. Reportedly they’ll make it a gun safety advocacy website, which is a far more productive use of Internet bandwidth. For the record, I’ve watched the documentary The Truth vs. Alex Jones, and it just made my skin crawl. What a despicable man. Countdown number five.

Donald Trump with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., taken from USA Today.

5: POLIO PARTY JAMBOREE

In last week’s countdown, I wrote about RFK Jr.’s brain worms as the number five spot. Now that Trump has officially selected this anti-vaxxer as the Secretary of Health and Human Services, I thought it was only fitting that he be number five again.

Excuse me, we’ll have an anti-vaccine activist in charge of public health in this country? Yes, we will. Even if he doesn’t ban all vaccines, he can still do a lot of damage to public health by promoting the notion that vaccines cause autism and whatnot. The anti-vaccine movement killed more than enough people during the COVID-19 pandemic, thank you very much. Now, with bird flu emerging as a pandemic threat, it looks like we might well have a sequel. And this time, it’ll start here. We truly live in the darkest timeline, and I hope that the protest voters who thought “both candidates are the same” go fuck themselves with cacti. Countdown number four.

Tulsi Gabbard at a Trump rally. Taken from PBS.

4: PARIAH CAREY

At a time when the United States is engaged in a proxy war with Russia that could turn into World War III any day now, at a time when we need to support Ukraine more than ever, we elected a pro-Russian President. That’s bad enough. But that President is going to appoint Tulsi Gabbard, a noted Russian asset who spreads conspiracy theories about the war in Ukraine , to be Director of National Intelligence.

 Effectively, he could just name Putin in that role and be done with it. If there was any hope that our relationships with allies could be salvaged following his first term, that hope has now been dashed. The odds that any NATO country will share intelligence with us is now less than zero, and Trump voters have themselves to blame for that. If the effects of Trump’s tariffs aren’t bad enough on the economy, we’re now likely to get sanctioned just as much as Russia is. But if you didn’t vote for Harris, you have no right to complain about that! The United States is no longer a laughing stock, we are now a pariah. Countdown number three.

Matt Gaetz. Enough said. 

3: GAETZ OF HELL.

Trump has also picked Matt Gaetz to be his Attorney General. Forget Matt Gaetz’s personal life for a moment, forget that the tapes suggest he’s had sex with minors. Gaetz is a Trump loyalist to the core, and he’s going to use his position to go after anyone who opposes Trump. Some people are optimistic about the 2026 elections, but I’m not. Trump will use Gaetz to go after his political opponents, and he’ll throw anyone who is an electoral threat to a Republican in prison. We’ll never have another free and fair election again, and it’s all because of November 5.

And remember, he’s also a sex offender. The release of the House Ethics Committee report to that effect is going to be blocked so that he can be confirmed. If you vote for clowns, you’re going to get a circus. Quite frankly, we’ll be lucky if a circus is all we get for the next four years and beyond. There’s a special place in hell for people who voted for Trump because it was funny, or sat out the election because “both parties are the same.” I don’t give a fuck. Countdown number two.

Image of Trump as an African-style dictator, taken from BBC News.

2: AND THE STREETS RUN RED.

It’s been reported that Trump has drafted a day-one executive order to fire any military generals he dislikes. He’ll replace them all with loyalists.Senator Tommy Tuberville (blech) blocked military promotions last year, and that wasn’t about abortion at all. He wanted to make it easier for Trump to stack the department with loyalists as part of Project 2025. This is Project 2025 right here, and that’s what a plurality voted for. So protest voters, go get that cactus. I’m waiting.

Moreover, the fact that he’ll fire all disloyal generals should make you panic. There’s nothing to stop Trump from ordering the military to fire on civilians who peacefully protest his policies. If the general says no, Trump will fire that general and replace him with someone who will. The streets will run red with the blood of Trump’s enemies, and we’ll be a war zone just like Ukraine. The only difference is that unlike Ukraine, we chose to make our country a war zone. Given that Trump won the popular vote, this is what we deserve. I’m not okay with it, but it’s what we’ll get thanks to the protest voters. Take that cactus and shove it up your ass if you didn’t vote for Harris.

Joe Biden and Donald Trump sitting in the Oval Office like they’re best buddies. Taken from r/Pics.

1: JOE BIDEN, LEGACY OF AN IDIOT

I voted for Joe Biden in the 2020 general election, but it’s clear now that he wasn’t up to the task that needed to be done. The image above really says it all, because Joe Biden has not stood up to the occasion. 

When Republicans across the country increasingly criminalize the LGBTQ+ community, Biden does nothing. I get that there’s only so much he could have done to stop state-level laws, but he barely said a word about them. And now that Trump is about to be President, there is nothing he can do at all. But Biden’s probably fine with that. He’s about to be 82 years old and was going to be okay regardless of the election results. The rest of us may not be.

LGBTQ+ rights are not the only issue Biden has failed us on. Remember when Biden commissioned a report about Supreme Court reform in 2021? Well, it was totally toothless. Again, just like lots of other politicians, because he isn’t directly affected by these issues, he doesn’t care. I honestly wonder what he did all day in the White House - play Scrabble with Jill? Say what you will about Trump, but when he wanted to do something highly dangerous in his first term, he exhausted every possible avenue to find a way. And now that he’ll have the courts even more in his corner, he is going to find a way far more often than not. 

I hope that cactus feels good, protest voters.

Thank you for reading. Please subscribe. This is my Jeb Bush “please clap” moment.

The Kids Aren’t Alright

Donald Trump with the Nelk Boys, indicative of his media strategy this election. Taken from the US Sun website.

If you’ve read any of my blog posts recently, you’ll know that I do not approve of Donald Trump. Indeed, that is a gross understatement. However, we have the “benefit” of knowing that in hindsight, he ran an excellent media campaign.

Lots of us made fun of Trump for going on Joe Rogan, but I recently went to the YouTube page for that interview, and it has more than fifty million views. Five. Zero. And then six more zeros. Now, I don’t have access to the analytics page for The Joe Rogan Experience, but it’s no secret that a lot of his viewers are the sort of demographic that swung hard to Republicans in the recent election. By that, I mean young white and Latino men between the ages of 18 and 29. As a 24-year-old terminally online white man who despises Trump, I have to acknowledge what he did right in this campaign.

It wasn’t just Joe Rogan. Trump went on shows like Theo Von, the Nelk Boys’ “Full Send” podcast, and more. Consider the latter case. The Nelk Boys promote right-wing political causes, yes, but they’re better known for their apolitical content. Lots of people laugh at their prank videos, including those who think politics is the sort of thing young people shouldn’t bother with.

 It’s not much of a stretch to say that people who follow the Nelk Boys (that’s over 8 million subscribers on their main channel alone) might be swayed by what they implicitly support. Politics is not a game - real people’s lives would be affected by whether Donald Trump or Kamala Harris won. Not everyone who watches the Nelk Boys will be swayed to support Trump, but some will, and in a country that’s known for having close national elections, all it takes is some.

The point is, Trump embraced alternative media to an extent the Democrats simply didn’t in the most recent election. I have to give him credit for that, as much as I hate the man’s guts. He met the voters where they were, and for all the alternative policies Harris was offering, her message didn’t reach them.

As an example of the policy implications of this: If I’d harbored any hope that America might eventually solve its gun violence crisis, it was that one day, Congress would be full of people who had to endure active shooter drills in school. Then they would be motivated to pass gun control legislation as opposed to the out-of-touch bureaucrats who comprise most of the federal government. 

The news that Trump outright won young men, according to exit polls, threw cold water on that glimmer of hope. I suppose it’s easy enough to dismiss the news of school shootings if it doesn’t happen in your community, but we’re all “someone else” to someone else. Then again, this “fear roulette” is a subject for another article.

A March For Our Lives protest against gun violence, taken from Teen Vogue.

Now I’m going to say something that might make many of my fellow terminally online netizens uncomfortable. And you should know that I’m not defending the bigotry that has very often gone hand-in-hand with religion. Indeed, I’m not religious myself, but I think it’s important to acknowledge that such organizations served a civic purpose back in the day. 

There are many unfortunate things about organized religion, but as with Donald Trump, I give credit where it’s due - they have fulfilled many peoples’ desire for community. I’m not saying that we should all get on our knees and turn to prayer. I don’t think that would solve all our problems, or even any of them. However, in some cases, I’m not convinced that what has replaced religion in this country is much better.

However, religion is far from the only civic institution that’s been on the decline in recent years. Consider that about a quarter of U.S. newspapers that existed in 2005 had shut down by 2022. Anecdotally speaking, I like to think I’m well-informed on current events, but I couldn’t tell you much about what’s happening in my own city. The decline of local news outlets has hit rural communities the hardest, and in many cases all that’s left there for the older generations to watch or listen to is talk radio and Fox News. And it’s been blamed for political polarization, too.

As for the younger generations, legacy news outlets in general have been rapidly replaced by social media. I’m the first to admit that I get most of my news from Reddit and BlueSky, and some people my age even stay informed via TikTok. But on Reddit, upvotes determine which news stories more people are going to see - the most popular news stories are not necessarily the most important from an objective standpoint. And Reddit is hardly the only social media site that quickly becomes an echo chamber. We all upvote the posts we agree with and downvote those we disagree with - that’s how it works.

A screenshot from a presentation I gave a few weeks ago about the Internet and democracy. Was a skydiving instructor getting prison time REALLY the third-most important story that day?

Again, I’m not going to sing the praises of legacy media. They’ve failed us in a big way, perhaps most notably via the Washington Post’s refusal to endorse Kamala Harris for President. They normalize Donald Trump far too much, since his first term was the best thing to happen to their ratings. Even MSNBC treats U.S. politics too much like a game show rather than something that really matters for the future of the world. And maybe it’s both, but the media has an essential role to play in any democracy.

So what’s the solution? Truthfully, I don’t know. Again, I’m not going to advocate for the revival of fundamentalist evangelical Christianity, because in many ways it brought us into this mess. And yet (and I hate to borrow this saying from Donald Trump), we cannot let the cure be worse than the disease. 

Yes, societal acceptance of LGBTQ+ people has gone up as religiosity has gone down. That’s not a coincidence. But when so many young men, in a generation that is considerably less religious than those coming before it, just voted for politicians who are anti-LGBTQ+ (not to mention anti-peace, anti-renewable energy, and pro-gun), how much is that really worth? 

If you read this article and come away with one thought, let it be this: Religion and the legacy media, two civic institutions declining in influence, were and are deeply flawed. But that doesn’t absolve us of our responsibility to make sure that whatever replaces them is more productive and truly contributes to the healthy, engaged society that we owe it to future generations to build.

Thank you for reading. I’d love if you subscribed to support my efforts.

The Feckless vs. The Fascists

Taken from r/Pics. This is how fascism starts.

Sometimes a picture truly is worth a thousand words. 

The photograph above depicts outgoing President Joe Biden on the right. He’s smiling that naïve old smile of his as though his predecessor and successor, Donald Trump (left) isn’t about to destroy the country and make it a living hell for even his own supporters. 

It’s often been observed that the Democrats are not willing to partake in the same tactics as Republicans in getting what they want. To some extent, I’m not saying they should. I certainly don’t think it would be wise to storm the Capitol on January 6, 2025, even if it worked out just fine for Mango Mussolini in the end. But take another look at the picture above and tell me that this is okay. Then take a look at the picture below and tell me that this is still okay.

Now, I think Trump shouldn’t have been allowed to run this year after he’d incited an insurrection. He tried to stage a coup and remain in power, and that’s totally disqualifying. But nonetheless, he was allowed to run, and he won the election. He even won the popular vote. And for the record, I believe he truly got those votes. As much as I hate the man, he did not steal this election except insofar as he shouldn’t have been allowed to be a candidate in the first place. We have to contend with the fact that half the population truly wanted him to return to power.

Given that context, I understand that there’s only so much the Democrats could do to stop Trump from taking the Oval Office again. Really, there is nothing they could do short of calling in the military to perform a coup. Biden could technically do that due to the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling, even if he really shouldn’t. But he shouldn’t be normalizing it, because this is not normal!

Look at the top photo again. It looks like Biden is Trump’s best buddy, like they’re reminiscing on the good old days. By “good old days”, I am of course referring to when Trump lost to Biden and incited a mob to kill a bunch of members of Congress to stop Biden from taking office. I’m referring to the times Trump threatened to prosecute Biden on trumped-up charges (no pun intended). If the shoe were on the other foot, if Trump had lost the 2024 election, I have little doubt they’d be doing another January 6, but now Biden’s playing patty-cake with this fascist.

 In hindsight, it’s clear that Biden was the wrong President at the wrong time. I voted for him in the 2020 general election, but that was mostly a vote to get Trump out rather than to get Biden in. The biggest problem is that Sleepy Joe’s an institutionalist at a time when the GOP was (and is) taking a jackhammer to this country’s institutions. Admittedly, some of our institutions remain deeply rooted in racism and should be improved, but if you think the Republican Party is going to remove this rot from our institutions, I’ve got some oceanfront property to sell you in Kansas.

Political cartoon taken from Politico. Thanks, Cocaine Mitch.

Of course, let’s not pretend that Biden’s the only Democrat who has shown his fecklessness. Take Nancy Pelosi, former Speaker of the House. In May 2022, after it was leaked that the Supreme Court would strip women of their bodily autonomy, leading to many deaths and other horrific outcomes , the Democrats had a choice to make. They could use the trifecta they would still have for several more months to pass legislation codifying Roe v. Wade into law and keep abortion rights safe from the GOP. 

Alternatively, they could sit on their hands and do nothing. Given the subject of today’s article, I don’t think it takes a genius to realize what they did. Not only did they not codify abortion rights while they still could, but they fundraised off the overturning of Roe v. Wade!

Tens of millions of American women lose their right to bodily autonomy. Nancy Pelosi reads a poem in response. Taken from Slate.

Speaking of the Dobbs decision, it was only handed down because the Democrats did not persuade Ruth Bader Ginsburg to retire prior to the 2014 midterms. She could have been replaced by a 40-year-old who would very probably still be on the Supreme Court today. Instead, Ginsburg “left the court” in 2020, and now we’re all screwed in more ways than one. And abortion rights are just the beginning. When it’s 2034 and the still-MAGA Supreme Court rules that AI-powered police drones can kill you without a warrant, you’ll know who to thank.

As bad as a 6-3 Supreme Court is, it can always get worse. Sonia Sotomayor seems determined to repeat Ginsburg’s mistake. She refused to retire under Biden even when the Democrats looked very likely to lose the presidency and Senate in 2024. If she dies under Trump and a Republican Senate, we’re going to have a 7-2 GOP majority on the Supreme Court. While Alito and Thomas are probably going to retire on day one of Trump’s second term and be replaced by 30-year-old far-right bloggers, Sotomayor did not learn her lesson. That’s Exhibit Number 547 in how the Democrats won’t play hardball. So we’ll have even more Supreme Injustice.

Biden supports abortion rights; at least, he claims to. But when push comes to shove, is he really going to fight for them? Consider his buddy Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of the magically sane land known as Canada. I have no doubt that if Canada had a right-wing Supreme Court that overturned abortion rights, Trudeau (a member of a center-left party by Canadian standards) would not take that lying down. He would not let that stand, and he’d find some way to overturn that ruling. 

Then again, as a tankie YouTuber known as Second Thought once said, Iceland’s banana production has more Wikipedia coverage than the individual members of its Supreme Court. So who knows if there’s even such a thing as a “right-wing” or “left-wing” Supreme Court up in Canada. Besides, abortion rights (and many other things we might consider basic human rights) are not up for debate anywhere else.

Remind me how Democrats lost to this guy twice? Imagine taken from the feckless Democrats on Xitter.

All of the above is to say this: I don’t subscribe to the notion that both parties are the same. That’s clearly not true, and we’re about to find out just how untrue it is. But the fecklessness of the Democratic Party, particularly when it’s against the fascism of the Republican Party, only gives more ammunition to the people who would say such things. When the only thing standing in the way of your country becoming a total fascist state is such a broken-down, dysfunctional disaster of a party, the future looks very bleak indeed.

Relevant Song Lyrics: “IDGAF” by Dua Lipa

Dua Lipa’s judging you. Taken from SoundCloud.

Today is Thursday, which means it’s time for a post about relevant song lyrics. After a brief meditation on the subject, I decided that today’s relevant song would be “IDGAF” by Dua Lipa. Because, quite frankly, I don’t give a fuck how people feel if they didn’t try to prevent the second national nightmare our country will face once more starting on January 20, 2025.

You call me, all friendly, tellin' me how much you miss me

That's funny, I guess you've heard my songs

In the most recent election, Donald Trump likely won plenty of voters who had not voted for him in either 2016 or 2020. Now that these people have realized their votes have consequences, and that politics is not a game, they’re going to come back crying to their family members who did not embrace such a horrendous individual to be the most powerful person in the world. Their family members wisely cut them off because they didn’t give a damn about LGBTQ+ rights, women who might need an abortion, or anyone else who’s not a rich, white, straight man. 

As a disclaimer, I’m lucky enough not to have any family members who voted for Trump. At least, not that I know of. All the ones I’m in regular contact with voted for Harris. This also means, of course, that I can’t speak for someone who does have Trump-voting relatives. Maybe cutting them off is more complicated than I imply here. But let’s continue.

Well, I'm too busy for your business, go find a girl who wants to listen

'Cause if you think I was born yesterday, you have got me wrong

I’m a guy, but this still applies to me. If you took the time to walk in that voting booth and fill in the oval next to “Trump and Vance”, you knew what you were doing. You don’t have the excuse of being lazy or uninformed. And I wasn’t born last night. I wasn’t even born at night, for my birth certificate says 9:01 AM. But that’s beside the point. If you want sympathy for your buyer’s remorse, then look elsewhere, because I don’t want to hear about how sorry you are. You might be sorry, but it doesn’t change the fact that your actions have doomed the country and planet.

So I cut you off, I don't need your love

'Cause I already cried enough

I've been done, I've been movin' on

Since we said goodbye

I cut you off, I don't need your love

So you can try all you want

Your time is up, I'll tell you why

Again, I say this as a cis man whose family members voted for Harris. But if I were a trans woman with family members who voted for Trump, I’d imagine that I wouldn’t put much stock in their “love.” All I would ask them to do would be a very simple non-action - don’t vote for the man who wants to put me in a labor camp. If my “loved ones” failed that very simple test of basic human decency, I would be under no illusions that they truly loved me. 

You say you're sorry, but it's too late now

So save it, get gone, shut up

'Cause if you think I care about you now

Well, boy, I don't give a fuck

It’s been reported that ever since the election, Google searches for terms like “what are tariffs” and “how do I change my vote” have skyrocketed. I’ll give a short response to that: Too late, assholes! But seriously, it’s too fucking late - just like some UK voters after the Brexit referendum, people didn’t realize what they voted for. But unlike UK voters after the Brexit referendum, we made the same mistake twice! You can’t take back your vote - sorry! Actually, I’m not sorry!

Google Trends as of a few days ago. Credit to user “itskrystlewithak” on Threads.

I remember that weekend when my best friend caught you creepin'

You blamed it all on the alcohol

So, I made my decision 'cause you made your bed, sleep in it

Play the victim and switch your position, I'm through, I'm done

While the situation described here isn’t quite synonymous with the 2024 election, in the runup to November 5 there were many “pro-Palestine leftists” who refused to vote for Harris. The leader of the Uncommitted movement said they would vote for Harris at the very last minute, but the damage had been done. A few days prior to the election, I wrote an article about how dumb this was.

I’ve said this many times: I support Palestine. I believe Benjamin Netanyahu is a genocidal maniac who should be locked up in a war crimes prison, no questions asked. But Donald Trump promised to set the pro-Palestine movement back “20 to 30 years”, and he said that when he still needed to win the election. He didn’t even try to pander to these voters, and yet they still swung violently his way. 

Some of the dumbest people alive, proving that it’s not just Trump’s cultists who live in an alternate reality. If they regret their votes, I won’t shed a tear for them. Taken from ABC7 Bay Area.

If you were angry about Gaza, you should have voted for Harris. But all too many of you didn’t, so instead Gaza will be turned into beachfront property or glass. And if you respond by saying that Gaza was glass anyway and it made no difference who would become President, then you clearly didn’t care about trans rights (which so many of you claim to care about). If you believe, as I do, that genocide is bad, then you should’ve voted for one genocide rather than the two genocides we’re about to have, one foreign and one domestic. This is to say nothing of the genocide in Ukraine, but that’s a topic for another post.

I see you tryna get to me

I see you beggin' on your knees

Boy, I don't give a fuck

So stop tryna get to me

Get up off your knees, 'cause

Boy, I don't give a fuck

I don’t care how hard you beg to be forgiven. Unless you vote for Democrats in 2026 and 2028, I won’t forgive you. Honestly, it might already be too late for this country. It’s certainly too late for the world, because electing Trump doomed the whole world, not just Gaza. This generation is just too dumb to live sometimes.

Voting is irreversible. You can’t take it back. And now the people who refused to vote for Harris, voted third-party, or especially voted for Trump are going to reap what they sow. We’re all going to suffer for it, but if this suffering is what it takes for these people to realize their mistakes, then so be it.