Group Chat, Who Dis?

Last week I got in my car and it wouldn’t start. It had been completely fine the day before, no indication anything was wrong - and then I got in the next day to go somewhere with my plans the way you do - and every warning light imaginable was flashing and beeping. I had the car serviced a few months ago, got the oil changed, had the air filter changed, too. I take good care of my car because I want it to last, so I could not fathom what was going wrong.

I froze for a second, then googled “electrical system override Honda HRV 2021” and sure enough, found instructions to push down the parking brake button (it’s a button not a stick you pull on, what can I tell you) to get the warning lights and alerts to cease. Then you were supposed to push the power button in for 30 seconds to get the car to turn off. I did all that. Waited a minute, and tried again, like maybe it just needed to be powered off, then on. Like a computer.

It’s basically just a computer with an engine and a carburetor and four wheels, I feel pretty sure about that. Also a transmission, obviously. I grew up watching The Jetsons, and I’ve seen Waymos, not that you could get me in one. But the same thing happened again, everything went wild, so I repeated the same steps and then called Triple A. You don’t have to tell me three times.

The guy came out in twenty minutes, said it was probably my battery, asked if I’d ever replaced it. I hadn’t. He attached the clips with the chunky wires and took the readings, meanwhile I googled “how long do car batteries last” and found out the answer is 3-5 years. Because look, I’m not an idiot. I’m no car expert, but I am an expert on being a woman and getting told a bunch of bullshit. So I know to check. He said it was the battery, and replacing it would cost $260 all in. I googled “how much is a car battery for a Honda HRV 2021” and found options starting at $220, but the guy was right there and he was nice, and I needed to drive my car, so I said yes.

He started doing his thing. Using a drill to remove my old battery. Just then a dude walked by and drawled, “Aw, hey, I woulda jumped you,” but he said it in that dumb fucking way, like he’d had an original thought and was coming up with this brilliant innuendo for the first time in history so I just stared at him. The Triple A guy whose name was Martin made this noise that sounded like a cross between a sigh and a grunt, but also some kind of apology for all men.

Drawling dude wasn’t done, though. “Batteries don’t really die, y’know,” he said, looking at me, waiting. I just kept staring at him, like he was a specimen at the zoo that I found boring. At least, that’s what I hoped my face said, because I did not want him to think he was getting to me on any level. Martin made another sound, and shook his head a minimal amount, but I caught it. He was offended - as if he’s there, with his drill and his tow truck, screwing me over with his new battery that I don’t need.

My lack of reaction must have worked - drawling guy shrugged, shook his head and walked away. He might have said “your loss” or I might have imagined it. It could have been worse, he could have gotten belligerent. Martin could have been a dick, it was just lucky he wasn’t. Lots of things could have happened. I’ve learned to diffuse men like that, it takes years of practice. Even then, it doesn’t always work.

It was good timing in a way. This happened early in the week - I went to get my older kid from college last Thursday, he’s six hours north. Would’ve sucked to have the battery die on the way there or back. One time Waze sent me on a route I couldn’t repeat if you offered me a million dollars. There was heavy traffic and I found myself in some kind of remote farmland with wheat fields taller than my car. I was driving back from dropping my kid off that time, and it was dark. I was psyched at first, there was no traffic at all, but suddenly I realized this was the beginning of every scary movie with a woman driving alone you’ve ever seen.

If you’re a man, I wonder if this shit occurs to you. I started to think about what I’d do if some car came around a corner and followed me. Or if someone followed me for a while and then tapped my bumper hard enough that under normal circumstances I’d stop and exchange information, but under these circumstances there’d be a chance no one would ever hear from me again. My car would be found three days later after my family filed a missing persons report, and my body would be discovered mangled in the wheat field not too far from it, with my underwear ten feet away. I’d spend the last moments of my life agonizing over the fact that my kids would have to live with the knowledge of how I’d spent the last moments of my life.

Photo by Daniel De lima on Unsplash

It’s not too much Dateline that does this to you, by the way. It’s existing as a girl and then a woman in this world. It’s having men flash their erect penises at you in public places from the time you’re eight years old, or rub them up against you when you’re just a little older than that. It’s living through assaults and not being believed, or being believed and having it not matter, anyway. It’s the husbands of your parents’ friends being weird with you, your teachers at school, your coaches - men you should be able to trust, but can’t.

It’s seeing what happens to other women who speak up, the way people ask, What was she wearing? How much did she have to drink? How many guys has she dated? No consequences for the men who take what they want and move on, because you’re just living in their world. “Aw, hey, I woulda jumped you.”

You realize these are the men in the group chat, correct? The one on Signal? They’re the guys who look directly at the camera and say, “No one was texting about war plans, okay?” Even though we saw the screenshots, and everyone was texting about war plans. These are entitled, spoiled, baby-men who get angry when they’re called out. They get violent and irate, and they start attacking and blaming everyone else. They are never sorry, it was never them, they would not recognize accountability or integrity if it bit them on the dick.

For reasons that I cannot comprehend, the people who vote for men like this stick with them no matter what. Even now, they will not speak out about how wrong this is, how dangerous, how alarming. These men are making all of our children less safe, and still they won’t budge. There are women in the group chat, too, of course. My brain hurts too much to go there right now, but we’ll get back to it.

Pete Hegseth is so average it hurts. I was quasi-amazed at his reaction on-camera when he was confronted about what happened, because I have seen that exact reaction before, in so many men I’ve known. One woman, too. That cornered narcissist animal look, wild-eyed, brow-furrowed, chest-panting, rage. How dare you accuse me of wrongdoing just because I did wrong? Who do you think you’re talking to? No one calls me out, not even my own mother, not for more than five minutes - and if she does, my dad puts an end to that right quick. Go fucketh yourself you shitty little nobody. I’ll act fast and loose with highly classified information over a commercial app if I want to, and if you try to make me own my mistake, I’ll attack Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief at the Atlantic Monthly, added to the chat by Michael Waltz through no fault of his own.

Goldberg has more ethics and patriotism in the tip of one of his pinky toes than all these fuckers combined. He did not disclose all the screenshots of all the texts. He held back anything that could put our military in danger. People - real human beings - die over this kind of reckless inexperience. We can talk about how this was supposed to be the “peace president” some other time (though if you ever believed that shit, we probably have nothing to discuss), or how disgusting it is for the vice president and secretary of defense to speak so disparagingly of our Allies, countries who sent their own young people to die in wars we started, or came to defend us the one time NATO was called into action after 9/11. These are unserious, pathetic individuals who have no business sitting in the offices where they are currently spending their time.

Paul Rosenzweig, a former top lawyer at Justice and Homeland Security departments, said Trump administration officials appeared to be downplaying the seriousness of the Signal disclosures.

“Operational details of a military operation are classified no matter what,” said Rosenzweig, who was a special advocate for the Justice Department’s Data Protection Review Court, which was established to enhance safeguards for U.S. efforts to collect “signals intelligence” via cellphone and emails. “But more importantly, anybody who called for Hillary Clinton's removal for having emails on her personal server and participated in this Signal thread is incomparably hypocritical and should never be taken seriously when discussing classification matters again.”

You can read more about the entire display of incompetence here, where you will also find the Hegseth denial I recognized as every day CNS (Cornered Narcissist Syndrome).

Here is the most chilling part of the entire debacle: in one text chat you have JD Vance, Vice President, Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Defense, Mike Waltz, National Security Adviser to the POTUS (who accidentally added Jeffrey Goldberg), Marco Rubio, Secretary of State, John Ratcliffe, CIA director, Tulsi Gabbard, director of national intelligence, and Susie Wiles, White House Chief of Staff.

Photo by Adem AY on Unsplash

It would be very hard to hold titles more impressive than these. And yet, not one of these people - not a single one of them - has enough experience to realize they should not be discussing highly classified war plans in a group chat on Signal? So of all these people who have been nominated by the president to these positions, and then confirmed by every Republican senator and a few Democrats who need to be primaried, not one of them has enough experience for the job? Got it. Pretty much what I thought.

But even if no one who’s been elected is fit to serve, we have Elon Musk, who wasn’t elected, and also isn’t fit to serve. Terrific, things are going great.

Hey, who’s picking up the drinks for this bbq? Just checking. Also, JG, who dis?

---

Welp, friends, here we are. Another insane week and it’s only Tuesday. But, I have both kids under one roof until tomorrow, so I am soaking up the joy. I think I will do the live talk about all this madness here on Substack Friday at 11:15am PST. I don’t know, did you like that? Maybe let me know. I’ll send the podcast version out on Saturday regardless. And I’ll meet you in the comments as always. Hope you’re hanging in there, some way or another. Sending you lots of love xox