I was with my friend yesterday and he said, "if I lived in D.C., I'd go the the reflecting pool and hover my finger over the water in front of an officer while saying "I'm not touching it, I'm not touching it!"
I howled in laughter and said if I were rich, I'd put us on a plane tomorrow to make it happen. And we'd livestream the reaction. If they jailed us, I'd would have a lawyer already prepared to get us out ASAP.
I mean. It’s getting to the point where it’s just ridiculous. But your friend is right, that is the level of maturity we’re dealing with at this point, and if you live-streamed that shit, I would watch 😂😩🫠🫣
Yes, I was nodding. I do know that kind of fight, the tectonic plate kind. And I so appreciate getting caught up on all this after coming home from sea, thank you for always keeping me more informed than I would be on my own. Love.
I’m sorry you were nodding! It is exhausting being close to people who handle conflict that way. I did it for so long. When it’s a close family member, sometimes it’s a thing you learn to manage with boundaries and coping mechanisms (that’s what I did with my mom for decades), but I just can’t have “chosen” people like that in my life anymore. Life is uncertain enough, and those interactions are not the fun kind of adventures, they’re more like a case of food poisoning😩 Like…can’t you just say you’re sorry once in a while? Lol. This could be so much easier. Oh, well. And welcome home, Mary Beth. Sorry I couldn’t welcome you with happier news, but I do feel like the cracks in their foundation are growing all the time, so there’s that! Hugs and love ❤️
I guess the president thinks everyone in my state supports him. Wrong! Lots of liberal women in SC and they didn't all come from somewhere else. I was born here. I have liberal NY friends here and I also have NY neighbors who ran down here because they didn't like their liberal NY neighbor or Mamdani. I am sure they are enjoying a neighborhood with many liberals, the scorching heat and low wages. Oopsie!
💀😂🫠people and their ideas, projections and assumptions about *everything* Mary! I literally laughed out loud at your comments.
I was born and raised in NYC and obviously I am super liberal, but — two things: people seem to associate a “New York accent” with one that you’ll usually find in folks who are born in the surrounding boroughs (and this is not me throwing shade, I have deep and abiding respect for a full-throated Brooklyn, Bronx, New Jersey, Queens or Long Island accent, and I like to think I do a good impression) — but I don’t sound the way people expect someone from New York to sound, and I know this because about a million people have told me through the years. I also must not “seem” the way people expect a New Yorker to “seem” which I guess is hardened or tough or something, and I know this for the same reason. People have let me know. It is so weird the things people will let you know 🤣 I guess the upside is it taught me early not to make assumptions about people from places I’ve never been, no matter what I might see in the movies or hear on tv or from someone else. I think that’s also a stubborn personality trait, but it serves me well in this area.
Anyway, thanks for making me laugh, and hugs to your southern liberal self. May the liberal transplanted New Yorkers find you quickly, and may the ones who moved thinking they were going to find a red MAGA conservative monolith have the day they deserve 😜 I love this for them😂❤️
Love how you twirl together your personal story and the political now into a super readable piece. I’m constantly hearing my mother in DT’s phrasing and voice, and vice versa, which makes nothing better about any of it but has at least been obvious enough to help speed my emotional healing from childhood 🙄
When you grow up immersed in this "language" it's unmissable...which doesn't make it any less exhausting (and might even make it more so), but at least you don't waste time thinking you might get through to anyone! And thank you, Joy, I appreciate your kind words, and I'm very glad you're here <3
In a recent plant medicine journey (which I realize for many folks will undercut much of what I’ll say) I felt I had a glimpse into the hell that is Trump’s life. The road anyone has to take to deny their humanity and unleash pain and destruction upon innocent people…it was a very, very dark vision. As with all such journeys it didn’t (thank any and every god) leave me there, but I had the uncomfortable feeling that Trump is no different than me in the sense that so much of my pain, and poor choices arising from that pain can be traced to issues in my childhood, mommy and daddy issues, if you will. The difference, of course, is that the daddy issues of Genghis Khan, King Leopold II, Hitler, Trump, pick-your-narcissistic-ruler result in a level of horror and pain that most of us are incapable of inflicting upon others.
I thought, “So is this what is at the heart of it all, that we are experiencing a worldwide shit show because Trump is still seeking some sort of validation from a horrible father?” Who knows. Or maybe much of this chaos can be traced to the monster Epstein and the feverish attempts by Trump, et al to make that story go away.
Whatever the case, I am likewise hopeful that we will collectively wake up from this stupor and begin to set things right. Let us do all the good we can, wherever we are, and onward towards November…
I think your plant medicine journey is as good an avenue as any for getting at what lies beneath the tumult and torment we're all experiencing.
Both my father and my father-in-law (may they rest in peace) had the tendency to flare, turn their fear or shame into anger and direct it at those around them.
Of course, I wasn't around my FIL when I was a child, but I picked up on a key difference between the two men: My dad would say he was sorry, but I never once heard my FIL apologize. I loved him for who he was as best I could, but that trait was a sticky one for me.
I'm listening to an audiobook right now called "Are You Mad at Me?" by Meg Josephson about what happens to kids who grow up in these kinds of unpredictable situations and how we heal from them as adults. And this gets to something else that sticks in my craw: We're talking about people with money, people in relationships with people with money, and there's this magical opportunity not entirely unrelated to plant medicine called THERAPY that is within easy reach for every one of them.
At a certain point, I get tired of blaming this kind of mayhem on past experiences. I don't necessarily think that's what you're doing here, Robert, and the last thing I mean to do is diminish your valuable input -- but your comment scratched the scab off an old wound.
I get that childhood trauma messes with your mind and can affect who you grow up to be. But for gods sake, get some counseling. I'm so weary of our cultural tendency to let trauma overshadow accountability. ::sigh::
And Ally, thank you, as ever, for your reply here and for the essay itself.
I agree. We have so many options, and I have been in therapy for years myself. For the record, I don’t think “blaming” childhood trauma is helpful, if that’s where it stays. But it is an undeniable component of our lives. And on some level it humanizes all of us. It’s been helpful for me to understand this.
Totally with you both on this. There’s such a difference between examining (and sometimes excavating, revisiting, re-processing, integrating) childhood trauma, getting help with it, having compassion for the kid you were who couldn’t possibly have understood what was happening and wasn’t responsible — and being a grown adult who doesn’t do any work on your childhood trauma, but uses it as a shield to deflect blame and deny responsibility for your own actions and choices. Two totally different things.
I’ve had relationships with a few people like that along the way and I would find myself making those excuses for them. “He’s avoidant because his dad was violent with him. He says horrible things to me and is violent himself because of his trauma.” But…I had trauma. I dealt with violence, and a lot of it. There is help and there are tools if you seek them out.
I don’t think there’s equal access to those tools, I don’t think all trauma can be painted with one brush, and I think there are environmental factors at play as well. But if we’re talking about people who have access to help and support but would rather point to their childhood….yeah. Can’t do that anymore. At a certain point (let’s be generous and say 25) if you’re not happy it’s time to start looking inward.
Hahaha…I appreciate your generous view about 25 being a cutoff! It was unfortunately the reverse of those numbers for me…fear and religious certainty can keep one going a LONG time in a sleepwalk. Oh well. Better late than never.
Thanks again for your work, Ally. You’ve been very helpful in my late-awakening journey. Peace.
I think that’s exactly at the heart of this mess. This is why I’m always so focused on the personal impacting the political, because we’re always dealing with human beings. You hope that people in leadership positions are going to be the best of the best in us, that we’re going to be smart enough to elect people with character and integrity, and the kind of basic human decency that will keep them up all night when they have to make impossible decisions. I’m not naive. I understand we live in a brutal, violent, world. I know there isn’t a president anywhere who could walk in and fix everything overnight, or in four years, or eight. But FFS. You don’t send *this* guy in.
Every president we’ve had has been a flawed human being, and that will always be the case, but we have never had a president as ill-equipped to serve as this one. I mean that on the most basic level. I don’t believe this man could spend ten minutes thinking about another person and if they were okay, and how he could make things better for them. He doesn’t have it in him. He is a wounded, vengeful, petty man, full of 80 years of the venom that results from not feeling loved for who he was as a tiny kid — and objectively, that’s sad. It’s also sad so many people decided to vote for him because they felt he was “real” and not just another politician. But this is the last kind of person you want to put in a position of power, and of course I know you are well aware of this. It’s sending the worst of the worst of us in. So, these are the reckoning times. I guess we are about to do the reckoning. I sure hope we reckon in the right direction ☺️ I have faith in us. I think the majority of people are not enjoying this ugly ride. Thanks for being here, Robert.
I just finished watching the Netflix documentary “Maternal Instinct.” The thin skinned, racist orange man baby has a lot in common with the woman who committed such a horrific crime. They both have the psychopathic urge to lie and make things happen no matter the costs and make people believe them and sympathize with them while they lack empathy for others. The Reflecting Pool is just one of his many wacky ideations, one where he lied to so many, than had to cover up the lie with another deceit, or an excuse. The difference is he has willing bootlickers and power hungry jackals on standby, willing to lie, kill, imprison, harass, punish, etc to obtain power, money, influence, etc. He has sadists, racists, greedy, creepy people to do his dirty work for him. It’s never ever his fault. It’s always someone or something else’s fault. You can only fake a pregnancy when certain people know you can’t get pregnant for so long. You can only run a country into the manure pile and not have it begin to stink to everyone eventually. You can only have a not-a-war war for so long and lose bigly in the public eye and global scale. The part I’m scared of is what will he resort to to get what he wants? In the documentary she kills a friend brutally to get a baby she ends up losing as well. A pregnancy she made social media posts of, wore a fake belly, did financial crimes, etc before she psychopathically decided (they actually as a rule are not geniuses or good planners, they just do whatever to get what they want) to kill as a solution. What is he capable of doing or getting other fellow cowards to do for him?
As an animist, I love that nature is reflecting back his handiwork in broad, public, no -denying reality view. I’m mad ducks are dying and they arrested someone just touching the water, but the worst hex one can put on a man who is already self cursed is- let their actions reflect their corruption and fall apart in front of all. Let it be public, spectacular and humiliating. Let the fog clear, the smell be rancid and let all be revealed in ineptitude and rot. I just wish the press worked harder to bring sunlight to it all to help.
This is so wild because I watched that doc this week, too, and had a whole part about it in the essay that I pulled. It’s such a gruesome story, I just did not want to be the one to share it if people were not already familiar with the story (which I was, though I didn’t realize that was what the doc was about until I was watching it). But the parallels between them are unmissable and that’s exactly what I was writing about. The lie on top of lie on top of lie, and the stubborn insistence that they are not lying, even in the face of incontrovertible facts. The “I’ll show you” determination to prove they are “right” ie, to “win” at all costs — morals, ethics and empathy be damned, regardless of who loses a life, and whose lives are destroyed. It’s sociopathic. You don’t make a person like this president, except 77 million people did I guess. So now we have to undo that. Loudly and profoundly. But I totally agree, just like her story fell apart spectacularly in the hospital room with the doctor and nurses and detectives, and then the courtroom and jurors and judge, and now, everyone…his stories are falling apart, too. They’re bubbling up and spilling over and he’s started to lose the plot. Just like people were watching her house wondering what she was going to do those last weeks, I think a lot of people are looking at the White House now. The games are not working like they were. The “250th state fair” looks like empty af😳We need to “pull a Hungary” in November.
Big hugs to you, too, Paul. I should have realized the walk with my dad would hit you harder than most (pun left where it is). I did my very best to be funny with the material at hand, and believe me, I tried not to leave any gallows humor or potential chuckles on the table. These people do not make it easy! Personally, JJ Cafaro alone doesn't seem possible, so I thought I had us covered at least a third of the way with that inexplicable reality.
I may be the only person looking at this shit show and feeling more positive than I did last week, but I genuinely do. I think he is losing support with Republicans in Congress, because he's cutting them off at the knees now, to the degree where their constituents are PISSED. Which is only good. Meanwhile, he's out there showing off his shiny new jet, and Vance is laughing about how Watergate would be a 12-hour news story today, and it would be "crazy" to think it would take down a presidency! I think they are so out of touch the crash and burn is going to be epic, so maybe I'm alone in this, but I am feeling pumped. <3
It actually was funny, which made that part hit even harder. Admirable move you pulled off as a writer, with a powerful effect on me as a father (I'll have to write a Substack about writers like David Sedaris who keep you laughing until suddenly you are crying, kinda like this one of yours). I don't believe in hitting children anyway, but fathers hitting daughters is to me a fundamental contradiction in the universe. It maketh me angry, Allyfriend, and more so because I can see your big, kind heart (Jenn has one too, so I recognize it). And I am feeling a little more positive as well. I think it is getting harder and harder for Republicans to stand up for him. (That line should have been drawn 10 years ago, but I digress.)
Ha. David Sedaris is another writer I don’t read in public for that reason (I jest, I do, I don’t care if people see me crying on a plane, train, etc. as long as I’m in the right frame of mind. You’re another one I have to watch. But come to think of it, all my favorite writers are like that. If I’m not going to feel anything, what’s the point?) Anyway, I’m relieved. If you hadn’t gotten any laughs out of this one, I was going to have to recalibrate my sarcasm axles or something. Get the crankshaft looked at hahahaha.
I can't tell you how deeply I feel these pieces, and how I marvel at the way you take it from the personal to the political so deftly. It's really extraordinary.
I'm so sorry your dad hit you, Allly, and all the more so that he couldn't own it. I know this sort of thing all too well, the violence, and then being encouraged later to believe it didn't mean anything, or in my case, that it never happened. It's so much to carry.
And yes, you're so right: people are being assaulted at large right now, then told that it didn't happen, that it's not happening. It really does give me a similar feeling to the one I felt long ago.
I do think you're right about the courts (the lower courts, anyway) holding this maniac back from the worst he wants to do, all of it some insane power/cash grab. I read something yesterday that said the left seems to be lit up and coming together more, and the right seems to be splitting, circular firing squad, etc... and I hope it's true.
We all need some hope, and I'm so glad you're continuing to light the way, every week, with all of your heart.
Thanks so much, Rob. It's funny (not haha funny), he was not one for physical violence usually, that was my mom, unfortunately. My dad would yell, though. I almost wish I had a recording (I don't really wish that), but it sounded like it was coming from the depths of Hell. Like hellhounds had released this sound that was now emanating from my dad's being at a volume that didn't seem possible, since he hadn't been yelling the previous second. Unsurprisingly, I don't do well with yelling, lol. He had flash rage, but he only hit me twice — that day, and once when I was fourteen, which is maybe a story for another time.
I wrote about it once years ago and he called and asked me to take it down (I said no). He didn't mind if I wrote about all his extracurricular activities with women, or how he took me along on these "dates" as a kid and plunked me in front of a tv while he got busy in their bedrooms, but god forbid I wrote about the time he hit me upside the head!
It always helps me to remember we're just talking about people. It all feels more manageable that way, and easier to grasp. Just a bunch a deeply flawed individuals wreaking havoc, and a devastating percentage of people who are so angry or feel so ignored, they've signed up for the cruelty and lies. Hopefully it's all starting to go up in flames. It feels that way to me. Like the Reflecting Pool is this incredible metaphor and everything has become toxic and swampy and all the corruption is staring to boil over and become unmanageable. I hope I'm right! I'm so ready to be done with this agonizing reality tv show. Thanks for being here, Rob. Always sending love to you and the fam <3
I'm sorry for these things that happened, but I'm glad you're sharing them. I had a very similar situation (yelling dad, extremely violent mom). I've found it's hard for people to understand how true both things can be... the violence (or neglect, or whatever difficult aspect) and the love, which I've seen in many of your posts about your mom... and I still feel toward my own late mom, despite everything. I'm still learning (at 55!) to allow the anger and the acknowledgment of what happened, as being the former kid of a borderline/NPD parent, I'm always rushing to make everything okay. I guess there's a lifetime of work there. The complexity is challenging in the extreme, but learning to hold and allow everything feels important.
One of the best things about someone sharing stories similar to one's own is just feeling less alone in it, which is also why I'm so grateful for your bravery in writing about all of this.
And as for your dad not liking what you wrote, I'm sure you know the Anne Lamott quote... something like if they wanted you to write better about them, they should have behaved better! Love to you and your family, too, my friend.
Well isn’t that funny, I’m 55, too, haha. There are a lot of similarities here, and absolutely when I read your writing I feel understood and seen in a way that is very unusual and comforting. I know there are a lot of us who grew up with mothers we loved so much, who could also be so scary. Dorothy Allison breaks my heart in the same familiar way because I can tell she’s been there. Pat Conroy is another one.
And yes, I’m finally coming down the home stretch with this memoir, and I could not have written it while my parents were alive. I tried, but it was like writing with my mom on one shoulder and my dad on the other. So much fun.
Weirdly enough, my mother was so concerned about appearances her whole life and making everything look perfect on the outside, but ALS will cure you of that. Absolutely merciless disease I would not wish on anyone. By the end, I really don’t think she cared about outward appearances anymore, though, it was kind of amazing. This lightness came through her, and as brutal as it all was, I could see she was free of that.
I think so much of life is complicated and happens in the grey area. People are complicated, some more than others. I know my mother had a lot of trauma — and while that doesn’t excuse what happened — as a grown woman I can look back and see she didn’t have the resources to handle single motherhood well. Not at 28 with a four-year-old. The lens I look through has evolved and is a little less rigid I suppose. It leaves more room for compassion and forgiveness.
Funnily enough, the lens I was trained to look through as a kid was shaped to contain understanding and compassion for my dad, and as a grown woman, oops, there’s a lot less of those feelings for him. I can find some gallows humor and see his great qualities as long as you weren’t his kid or someone married to him or dating him, lol. Otherwise 🧐😬
And I love Anne Lamott, and Bird by Bird is one of my favorite books, ever, but that quote has never totally helped me. I wish it did. I think life is more complicated than that, but maybe that’s a conversation for another day 😂
All of this. If Congress had any backbone, they would stay in town for the 10 days it takes to become law, even if he doesn't sign it. And that story about your dad made my stomach hurt for you. Thanks for sharing your heart and your wisdom.
Unfortunately, if the Speaker sends them home, they're not "in Session" even if they stay in town. Now it seems Johnson is saying they will "transmit" the housing bill to the White House Monday (formally submit it to the president to sign) which will start the 10-day clock ticking on Monday). It's all a big game to these people. No way to call what will happen, but he will try to leverage it to get what he wants. No surprise there.
What he wants is the SAVE Act. It is so crazy, because he absolutely has his supporters convinced these are perfectly reasonable asks. "Just prove you're a citizen when you go to vote, what's the big deal? Bring a photo ID." It doesn't matter if you say non-citizens do not vote in our elections and we do not have election fraud. Anyway, this is the latest on all the ways he's trying to force the SAVE Act through: https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5941573-save-america-act-gop-strategy/
Thanks so much for being here, Mary, and for your very kind comments <3
Sometimes, I have to remind myself that my kids have only known this batshitness. And I am still blown away by the fact that one petty little narcissist can suck the air out of the world on a daily basis. I mean for all the harmful, petty, grifting, lying, cheating, raping, assaulting shit he's done, he is really good at sucking the oxygen out of the world. For ten years. I feel like something has shifted. Maybe. I think it was the reflecting pool. I think that maybe even that was too much for some people to buy. Or maybe it was the disaster of an Iran deal. Or inflation hitting 4 %. Who knows? I'm just always grateful for the way you connect the personal to the political, because as we know, there's no real border between them, they're one in the same.
It is genuinely so sad — aside from all the horror and suffering this man has caused to so many truly decent people — that someone who this self-serving and devoid of any redeeming qualities whatsoever, could deplete so many resources and take up so much of our time and energy. As a country, on the world stage, as a person, at all. He is one of the least interesting people humanity has ever created. The emperor truly has no clothes, no morals, no insight, no empathy, nothing of use to share. His has a black hole where a soul should be.
And than you, again. I know I said this under your note. I think it feels more manageable when I remember we are dealing with people, driven by human impulses. Some of them are awful people as noted above, and some of their impulses are repellent, but it feels less hopeless when I remember we are just facing other people, and these particular people are not even impressive. They're only impressive in their ability to be cruel.
We shall overcome and build something better. Hugs and love xx
Having been raised by a clinically-diagnosed NPD, I know this much to be true: there is no reasoning, no conversation, no nothing. The rule of law -- at the dinner table or the White House -- doesn't matter, because the NPD doesn't want it to matter: he only wants the mic. Which he keeps getting because everyone keeps giving it to him. Because what he does is so utterly outrageous, contemptible, and unbelievable, that the media and most of America can't look away in the same way they can't look away from Jerry Springer. Agent Orange in no way would see the passage of the housing bill as his own win because there are too many other people involved who could take credit, and worse still: it was bipartisan, which would represent to him the danger of both sides of the aisle coming together.....which, generally speaking, could destroy him in the larger sense. He doesn't give a fat rat's ass about SAVE America; he only cares about, as all NPDs do, grabbing the mic and turning the attention back to himself. Because that is what NPDs do.
Yes, it took me so long to learn there was no perfect email I could write, no turn of phrase to get my mother to "see the light" and realize her drinking was the problem between us. My god did I try. I got the memo eventually, but by then, I'd left my mother's house and gone out into the world and WTF! Found myself in relationships with other people who behaved the same way! How the hell did THAT happen? lol. (Sarcasm font for people who aren't Elissa and don't know I'm joking. I know how it happened). Anyway, I had to ride the train into the brick wall more times than I'd like to admit to finally decide it wasn't a very fun ride and I'd rather walk or fly. But I got there eventually, and I don't have people like that in my life anymore because there is no honest communication possible, and who wants to walk on eggshells or always be the bigger person? Always be the one to forgive the apology never extended? It gets old.
But it sure does suck that 77 million people thought it was a smart move to put a malignant narcissist in the White House. Holy shit. The only reason he cares about the SAVE Act is that he wants to retain power. He doesn't want anyone to stop him now, he's enjoying his fiefdom.
I am 100% that person keeping a record from even fifty years ago readying to explode with my points someday. and a 85 year old writing pal pointed out to me when you look back on the things you fought about at her age, it just wasn't worth it. And so I stay silent. But this certainly gives me something to think about. Seeing my self like you wrote it. Helpful. thanks - ginny
We could probably talk about this for daaaaays, Ginny! I used to be someone who avoided confrontation, which is not super surprising given that I grew up scanning the environment, looking for signs of danger and trying to head it off at the pass. I'd bottle things up, not talk about how I felt, and write, instead. I wasn't in relationships with people who made it safe to talk, though. I'd also get migraines, and I wouldn't feel seen, and I'd have that horrible feeling of being alone inside a relationship — because if you're walking on eggshells then you aren't really being yourself.
I think there is a happy, healthy place in relationships where you speak up in the moment when something bothers you. My god did I have to work on that! It was SO hard for me. I had no infrastructure for that at all, so I had to build one. I used to be scared of making mistakes, because growing up, making a mistake could be deadly. I had to learn how to say, "Shit, I really screwed that up, I'm so sorry." And also I had to find people who knew how to do that, too.
I do think there is value in talking about things from the past if there's the potential for deeper understanding, or healing. Not everyone is up to those conversations, though. In that case, sometimes writing is great, because then that record you're storing in your head can be a record that isn't taking up space there anymore. But I don't think it's productive to try to get people to confront things they aren't willing to confront.
You can present an airtight case with tons of details and all the facts, and you can be 100% correct, but if you're dealing with someone who will not face it, it will not matter. Ask me how I know. I'm sure I'm not saying anything you don't know, either. Anyway, feel free to message me if you want to! This is one of those topics that I might have spent about nine million hours thinking about :) Hugs and love, Ginny. Really glad you're here.
Against my will, I have had to overhear way too much 🦊 news as of late and it is bananas the shit they spew. I really can’t wait for this portion of our fucked up government programming to be over.
Another spot on, masterfully written essay friend. Thank you for your distillation and insight and heart. ❤️
My heart goes out to you. 35 years of yoga is not enough for me to tolerate that crap lol. But sometimes I will go to find a clip on youtube, and I'll see comments underneath it that are mind blowing. Or once in a while I'll post a link to one of my essays on another platform and get attacked, and remember why I don't write on that platform anymore.
I am so ready for the Reality TV/Twilight Zone Episode of America to be over. Zero fucking stars. Hard pass.
But massive hugs to you, always grateful for you <3
Yes! The more they try to mess with the elections, the better I feel about our ability to defeat these bastards, Janeen. The courts are blocking him. Not all of them, but enough. And Senate Majority Leader John Thune has opposed efforts to force a vote on the SAVE Act or bypass regular Senate procedures to pass the bill, because there isn't enough support for it. We'll see what happens, but I don't think gramps has the unwavering support he did. I think these guys all know the midterms are gonna be a blue bloodbath, and they aren't happy. Mike Johnson was losing his mind today. I don't hate to see it lol. Thanks for being here, as ever <3
Of course it is frustrating dealing with liars and people whom act like they’re telling you the truth while you know damn well they are lying. They know they are lying but just don’t care. Congress and the Supreme Court have given Trump so much power that he does not have to care. If you are looking for normal logic or reason you are wasting your time. The truth is all Trump wants is money. He can’t say that to Americans and he knows it. Our best bet is to hobble him at the midterm elections
I was with my friend yesterday and he said, "if I lived in D.C., I'd go the the reflecting pool and hover my finger over the water in front of an officer while saying "I'm not touching it, I'm not touching it!"
I howled in laughter and said if I were rich, I'd put us on a plane tomorrow to make it happen. And we'd livestream the reaction. If they jailed us, I'd would have a lawyer already prepared to get us out ASAP.
It would be totally worth it.
I mean. It’s getting to the point where it’s just ridiculous. But your friend is right, that is the level of maturity we’re dealing with at this point, and if you live-streamed that shit, I would watch 😂😩🫠🫣
Yes, I was nodding. I do know that kind of fight, the tectonic plate kind. And I so appreciate getting caught up on all this after coming home from sea, thank you for always keeping me more informed than I would be on my own. Love.
I’m sorry you were nodding! It is exhausting being close to people who handle conflict that way. I did it for so long. When it’s a close family member, sometimes it’s a thing you learn to manage with boundaries and coping mechanisms (that’s what I did with my mom for decades), but I just can’t have “chosen” people like that in my life anymore. Life is uncertain enough, and those interactions are not the fun kind of adventures, they’re more like a case of food poisoning😩 Like…can’t you just say you’re sorry once in a while? Lol. This could be so much easier. Oh, well. And welcome home, Mary Beth. Sorry I couldn’t welcome you with happier news, but I do feel like the cracks in their foundation are growing all the time, so there’s that! Hugs and love ❤️
I guess the president thinks everyone in my state supports him. Wrong! Lots of liberal women in SC and they didn't all come from somewhere else. I was born here. I have liberal NY friends here and I also have NY neighbors who ran down here because they didn't like their liberal NY neighbor or Mamdani. I am sure they are enjoying a neighborhood with many liberals, the scorching heat and low wages. Oopsie!
💀😂🫠people and their ideas, projections and assumptions about *everything* Mary! I literally laughed out loud at your comments.
I was born and raised in NYC and obviously I am super liberal, but — two things: people seem to associate a “New York accent” with one that you’ll usually find in folks who are born in the surrounding boroughs (and this is not me throwing shade, I have deep and abiding respect for a full-throated Brooklyn, Bronx, New Jersey, Queens or Long Island accent, and I like to think I do a good impression) — but I don’t sound the way people expect someone from New York to sound, and I know this because about a million people have told me through the years. I also must not “seem” the way people expect a New Yorker to “seem” which I guess is hardened or tough or something, and I know this for the same reason. People have let me know. It is so weird the things people will let you know 🤣 I guess the upside is it taught me early not to make assumptions about people from places I’ve never been, no matter what I might see in the movies or hear on tv or from someone else. I think that’s also a stubborn personality trait, but it serves me well in this area.
Anyway, thanks for making me laugh, and hugs to your southern liberal self. May the liberal transplanted New Yorkers find you quickly, and may the ones who moved thinking they were going to find a red MAGA conservative monolith have the day they deserve 😜 I love this for them😂❤️
Love how you twirl together your personal story and the political now into a super readable piece. I’m constantly hearing my mother in DT’s phrasing and voice, and vice versa, which makes nothing better about any of it but has at least been obvious enough to help speed my emotional healing from childhood 🙄
When you grow up immersed in this "language" it's unmissable...which doesn't make it any less exhausting (and might even make it more so), but at least you don't waste time thinking you might get through to anyone! And thank you, Joy, I appreciate your kind words, and I'm very glad you're here <3
In a recent plant medicine journey (which I realize for many folks will undercut much of what I’ll say) I felt I had a glimpse into the hell that is Trump’s life. The road anyone has to take to deny their humanity and unleash pain and destruction upon innocent people…it was a very, very dark vision. As with all such journeys it didn’t (thank any and every god) leave me there, but I had the uncomfortable feeling that Trump is no different than me in the sense that so much of my pain, and poor choices arising from that pain can be traced to issues in my childhood, mommy and daddy issues, if you will. The difference, of course, is that the daddy issues of Genghis Khan, King Leopold II, Hitler, Trump, pick-your-narcissistic-ruler result in a level of horror and pain that most of us are incapable of inflicting upon others.
I thought, “So is this what is at the heart of it all, that we are experiencing a worldwide shit show because Trump is still seeking some sort of validation from a horrible father?” Who knows. Or maybe much of this chaos can be traced to the monster Epstein and the feverish attempts by Trump, et al to make that story go away.
Whatever the case, I am likewise hopeful that we will collectively wake up from this stupor and begin to set things right. Let us do all the good we can, wherever we are, and onward towards November…
I think your plant medicine journey is as good an avenue as any for getting at what lies beneath the tumult and torment we're all experiencing.
Both my father and my father-in-law (may they rest in peace) had the tendency to flare, turn their fear or shame into anger and direct it at those around them.
Of course, I wasn't around my FIL when I was a child, but I picked up on a key difference between the two men: My dad would say he was sorry, but I never once heard my FIL apologize. I loved him for who he was as best I could, but that trait was a sticky one for me.
I'm listening to an audiobook right now called "Are You Mad at Me?" by Meg Josephson about what happens to kids who grow up in these kinds of unpredictable situations and how we heal from them as adults. And this gets to something else that sticks in my craw: We're talking about people with money, people in relationships with people with money, and there's this magical opportunity not entirely unrelated to plant medicine called THERAPY that is within easy reach for every one of them.
At a certain point, I get tired of blaming this kind of mayhem on past experiences. I don't necessarily think that's what you're doing here, Robert, and the last thing I mean to do is diminish your valuable input -- but your comment scratched the scab off an old wound.
I get that childhood trauma messes with your mind and can affect who you grow up to be. But for gods sake, get some counseling. I'm so weary of our cultural tendency to let trauma overshadow accountability. ::sigh::
And Ally, thank you, as ever, for your reply here and for the essay itself.
I agree. We have so many options, and I have been in therapy for years myself. For the record, I don’t think “blaming” childhood trauma is helpful, if that’s where it stays. But it is an undeniable component of our lives. And on some level it humanizes all of us. It’s been helpful for me to understand this.
Yes. We're on the same page for sure! Thanks, Robert.
Totally with you both on this. There’s such a difference between examining (and sometimes excavating, revisiting, re-processing, integrating) childhood trauma, getting help with it, having compassion for the kid you were who couldn’t possibly have understood what was happening and wasn’t responsible — and being a grown adult who doesn’t do any work on your childhood trauma, but uses it as a shield to deflect blame and deny responsibility for your own actions and choices. Two totally different things.
I’ve had relationships with a few people like that along the way and I would find myself making those excuses for them. “He’s avoidant because his dad was violent with him. He says horrible things to me and is violent himself because of his trauma.” But…I had trauma. I dealt with violence, and a lot of it. There is help and there are tools if you seek them out.
I don’t think there’s equal access to those tools, I don’t think all trauma can be painted with one brush, and I think there are environmental factors at play as well. But if we’re talking about people who have access to help and support but would rather point to their childhood….yeah. Can’t do that anymore. At a certain point (let’s be generous and say 25) if you’re not happy it’s time to start looking inward.
Hahaha…I appreciate your generous view about 25 being a cutoff! It was unfortunately the reverse of those numbers for me…fear and religious certainty can keep one going a LONG time in a sleepwalk. Oh well. Better late than never.
Thanks again for your work, Ally. You’ve been very helpful in my late-awakening journey. Peace.
“…fear and religious certainty…”
Those are some formidable opponents.
Ah well, I said “start” for a reason 😂
I think that’s exactly at the heart of this mess. This is why I’m always so focused on the personal impacting the political, because we’re always dealing with human beings. You hope that people in leadership positions are going to be the best of the best in us, that we’re going to be smart enough to elect people with character and integrity, and the kind of basic human decency that will keep them up all night when they have to make impossible decisions. I’m not naive. I understand we live in a brutal, violent, world. I know there isn’t a president anywhere who could walk in and fix everything overnight, or in four years, or eight. But FFS. You don’t send *this* guy in.
Every president we’ve had has been a flawed human being, and that will always be the case, but we have never had a president as ill-equipped to serve as this one. I mean that on the most basic level. I don’t believe this man could spend ten minutes thinking about another person and if they were okay, and how he could make things better for them. He doesn’t have it in him. He is a wounded, vengeful, petty man, full of 80 years of the venom that results from not feeling loved for who he was as a tiny kid — and objectively, that’s sad. It’s also sad so many people decided to vote for him because they felt he was “real” and not just another politician. But this is the last kind of person you want to put in a position of power, and of course I know you are well aware of this. It’s sending the worst of the worst of us in. So, these are the reckoning times. I guess we are about to do the reckoning. I sure hope we reckon in the right direction ☺️ I have faith in us. I think the majority of people are not enjoying this ugly ride. Thanks for being here, Robert.
I just finished watching the Netflix documentary “Maternal Instinct.” The thin skinned, racist orange man baby has a lot in common with the woman who committed such a horrific crime. They both have the psychopathic urge to lie and make things happen no matter the costs and make people believe them and sympathize with them while they lack empathy for others. The Reflecting Pool is just one of his many wacky ideations, one where he lied to so many, than had to cover up the lie with another deceit, or an excuse. The difference is he has willing bootlickers and power hungry jackals on standby, willing to lie, kill, imprison, harass, punish, etc to obtain power, money, influence, etc. He has sadists, racists, greedy, creepy people to do his dirty work for him. It’s never ever his fault. It’s always someone or something else’s fault. You can only fake a pregnancy when certain people know you can’t get pregnant for so long. You can only run a country into the manure pile and not have it begin to stink to everyone eventually. You can only have a not-a-war war for so long and lose bigly in the public eye and global scale. The part I’m scared of is what will he resort to to get what he wants? In the documentary she kills a friend brutally to get a baby she ends up losing as well. A pregnancy she made social media posts of, wore a fake belly, did financial crimes, etc before she psychopathically decided (they actually as a rule are not geniuses or good planners, they just do whatever to get what they want) to kill as a solution. What is he capable of doing or getting other fellow cowards to do for him?
As an animist, I love that nature is reflecting back his handiwork in broad, public, no -denying reality view. I’m mad ducks are dying and they arrested someone just touching the water, but the worst hex one can put on a man who is already self cursed is- let their actions reflect their corruption and fall apart in front of all. Let it be public, spectacular and humiliating. Let the fog clear, the smell be rancid and let all be revealed in ineptitude and rot. I just wish the press worked harder to bring sunlight to it all to help.
This is so wild because I watched that doc this week, too, and had a whole part about it in the essay that I pulled. It’s such a gruesome story, I just did not want to be the one to share it if people were not already familiar with the story (which I was, though I didn’t realize that was what the doc was about until I was watching it). But the parallels between them are unmissable and that’s exactly what I was writing about. The lie on top of lie on top of lie, and the stubborn insistence that they are not lying, even in the face of incontrovertible facts. The “I’ll show you” determination to prove they are “right” ie, to “win” at all costs — morals, ethics and empathy be damned, regardless of who loses a life, and whose lives are destroyed. It’s sociopathic. You don’t make a person like this president, except 77 million people did I guess. So now we have to undo that. Loudly and profoundly. But I totally agree, just like her story fell apart spectacularly in the hospital room with the doctor and nurses and detectives, and then the courtroom and jurors and judge, and now, everyone…his stories are falling apart, too. They’re bubbling up and spilling over and he’s started to lose the plot. Just like people were watching her house wondering what she was going to do those last weeks, I think a lot of people are looking at the White House now. The games are not working like they were. The “250th state fair” looks like empty af😳We need to “pull a Hungary” in November.
Thanks for being here, Jen, I appreciate you❤️
Big hugs to you, Ally. As a father, and a human, and a member of the male species, this one hurt. I thought we were being funny this week? <3
Big hugs to you, too, Paul. I should have realized the walk with my dad would hit you harder than most (pun left where it is). I did my very best to be funny with the material at hand, and believe me, I tried not to leave any gallows humor or potential chuckles on the table. These people do not make it easy! Personally, JJ Cafaro alone doesn't seem possible, so I thought I had us covered at least a third of the way with that inexplicable reality.
I may be the only person looking at this shit show and feeling more positive than I did last week, but I genuinely do. I think he is losing support with Republicans in Congress, because he's cutting them off at the knees now, to the degree where their constituents are PISSED. Which is only good. Meanwhile, he's out there showing off his shiny new jet, and Vance is laughing about how Watergate would be a 12-hour news story today, and it would be "crazy" to think it would take down a presidency! I think they are so out of touch the crash and burn is going to be epic, so maybe I'm alone in this, but I am feeling pumped. <3
You are not alone. Rage and hope on…
It actually was funny, which made that part hit even harder. Admirable move you pulled off as a writer, with a powerful effect on me as a father (I'll have to write a Substack about writers like David Sedaris who keep you laughing until suddenly you are crying, kinda like this one of yours). I don't believe in hitting children anyway, but fathers hitting daughters is to me a fundamental contradiction in the universe. It maketh me angry, Allyfriend, and more so because I can see your big, kind heart (Jenn has one too, so I recognize it). And I am feeling a little more positive as well. I think it is getting harder and harder for Republicans to stand up for him. (That line should have been drawn 10 years ago, but I digress.)
Ha. David Sedaris is another writer I don’t read in public for that reason (I jest, I do, I don’t care if people see me crying on a plane, train, etc. as long as I’m in the right frame of mind. You’re another one I have to watch. But come to think of it, all my favorite writers are like that. If I’m not going to feel anything, what’s the point?) Anyway, I’m relieved. If you hadn’t gotten any laughs out of this one, I was going to have to recalibrate my sarcasm axles or something. Get the crankshaft looked at hahahaha.
1000 percent!!
I can't tell you how deeply I feel these pieces, and how I marvel at the way you take it from the personal to the political so deftly. It's really extraordinary.
I'm so sorry your dad hit you, Allly, and all the more so that he couldn't own it. I know this sort of thing all too well, the violence, and then being encouraged later to believe it didn't mean anything, or in my case, that it never happened. It's so much to carry.
And yes, you're so right: people are being assaulted at large right now, then told that it didn't happen, that it's not happening. It really does give me a similar feeling to the one I felt long ago.
I do think you're right about the courts (the lower courts, anyway) holding this maniac back from the worst he wants to do, all of it some insane power/cash grab. I read something yesterday that said the left seems to be lit up and coming together more, and the right seems to be splitting, circular firing squad, etc... and I hope it's true.
We all need some hope, and I'm so glad you're continuing to light the way, every week, with all of your heart.
Thanks so much, Rob. It's funny (not haha funny), he was not one for physical violence usually, that was my mom, unfortunately. My dad would yell, though. I almost wish I had a recording (I don't really wish that), but it sounded like it was coming from the depths of Hell. Like hellhounds had released this sound that was now emanating from my dad's being at a volume that didn't seem possible, since he hadn't been yelling the previous second. Unsurprisingly, I don't do well with yelling, lol. He had flash rage, but he only hit me twice — that day, and once when I was fourteen, which is maybe a story for another time.
I wrote about it once years ago and he called and asked me to take it down (I said no). He didn't mind if I wrote about all his extracurricular activities with women, or how he took me along on these "dates" as a kid and plunked me in front of a tv while he got busy in their bedrooms, but god forbid I wrote about the time he hit me upside the head!
It always helps me to remember we're just talking about people. It all feels more manageable that way, and easier to grasp. Just a bunch a deeply flawed individuals wreaking havoc, and a devastating percentage of people who are so angry or feel so ignored, they've signed up for the cruelty and lies. Hopefully it's all starting to go up in flames. It feels that way to me. Like the Reflecting Pool is this incredible metaphor and everything has become toxic and swampy and all the corruption is staring to boil over and become unmanageable. I hope I'm right! I'm so ready to be done with this agonizing reality tv show. Thanks for being here, Rob. Always sending love to you and the fam <3
I'm sorry for these things that happened, but I'm glad you're sharing them. I had a very similar situation (yelling dad, extremely violent mom). I've found it's hard for people to understand how true both things can be... the violence (or neglect, or whatever difficult aspect) and the love, which I've seen in many of your posts about your mom... and I still feel toward my own late mom, despite everything. I'm still learning (at 55!) to allow the anger and the acknowledgment of what happened, as being the former kid of a borderline/NPD parent, I'm always rushing to make everything okay. I guess there's a lifetime of work there. The complexity is challenging in the extreme, but learning to hold and allow everything feels important.
One of the best things about someone sharing stories similar to one's own is just feeling less alone in it, which is also why I'm so grateful for your bravery in writing about all of this.
And as for your dad not liking what you wrote, I'm sure you know the Anne Lamott quote... something like if they wanted you to write better about them, they should have behaved better! Love to you and your family, too, my friend.
Well isn’t that funny, I’m 55, too, haha. There are a lot of similarities here, and absolutely when I read your writing I feel understood and seen in a way that is very unusual and comforting. I know there are a lot of us who grew up with mothers we loved so much, who could also be so scary. Dorothy Allison breaks my heart in the same familiar way because I can tell she’s been there. Pat Conroy is another one.
And yes, I’m finally coming down the home stretch with this memoir, and I could not have written it while my parents were alive. I tried, but it was like writing with my mom on one shoulder and my dad on the other. So much fun.
Weirdly enough, my mother was so concerned about appearances her whole life and making everything look perfect on the outside, but ALS will cure you of that. Absolutely merciless disease I would not wish on anyone. By the end, I really don’t think she cared about outward appearances anymore, though, it was kind of amazing. This lightness came through her, and as brutal as it all was, I could see she was free of that.
I think so much of life is complicated and happens in the grey area. People are complicated, some more than others. I know my mother had a lot of trauma — and while that doesn’t excuse what happened — as a grown woman I can look back and see she didn’t have the resources to handle single motherhood well. Not at 28 with a four-year-old. The lens I look through has evolved and is a little less rigid I suppose. It leaves more room for compassion and forgiveness.
Funnily enough, the lens I was trained to look through as a kid was shaped to contain understanding and compassion for my dad, and as a grown woman, oops, there’s a lot less of those feelings for him. I can find some gallows humor and see his great qualities as long as you weren’t his kid or someone married to him or dating him, lol. Otherwise 🧐😬
And I love Anne Lamott, and Bird by Bird is one of my favorite books, ever, but that quote has never totally helped me. I wish it did. I think life is more complicated than that, but maybe that’s a conversation for another day 😂
Yes, so much more complicated. I'll check out Dorothy Allison and Pat Conroy, thank you. And I can't wait to read your memoir!
"Bastard Out of Carolina" and "Prince of Tides" are the books I was thinking about, respectively. Though you can't go wrong with either of them ;)
All of this. If Congress had any backbone, they would stay in town for the 10 days it takes to become law, even if he doesn't sign it. And that story about your dad made my stomach hurt for you. Thanks for sharing your heart and your wisdom.
Unfortunately, if the Speaker sends them home, they're not "in Session" even if they stay in town. Now it seems Johnson is saying they will "transmit" the housing bill to the White House Monday (formally submit it to the president to sign) which will start the 10-day clock ticking on Monday). It's all a big game to these people. No way to call what will happen, but he will try to leverage it to get what he wants. No surprise there.
What he wants is the SAVE Act. It is so crazy, because he absolutely has his supporters convinced these are perfectly reasonable asks. "Just prove you're a citizen when you go to vote, what's the big deal? Bring a photo ID." It doesn't matter if you say non-citizens do not vote in our elections and we do not have election fraud. Anyway, this is the latest on all the ways he's trying to force the SAVE Act through: https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5941573-save-america-act-gop-strategy/
Thanks so much for being here, Mary, and for your very kind comments <3
Sometimes, I have to remind myself that my kids have only known this batshitness. And I am still blown away by the fact that one petty little narcissist can suck the air out of the world on a daily basis. I mean for all the harmful, petty, grifting, lying, cheating, raping, assaulting shit he's done, he is really good at sucking the oxygen out of the world. For ten years. I feel like something has shifted. Maybe. I think it was the reflecting pool. I think that maybe even that was too much for some people to buy. Or maybe it was the disaster of an Iran deal. Or inflation hitting 4 %. Who knows? I'm just always grateful for the way you connect the personal to the political, because as we know, there's no real border between them, they're one in the same.
It is genuinely so sad — aside from all the horror and suffering this man has caused to so many truly decent people — that someone who this self-serving and devoid of any redeeming qualities whatsoever, could deplete so many resources and take up so much of our time and energy. As a country, on the world stage, as a person, at all. He is one of the least interesting people humanity has ever created. The emperor truly has no clothes, no morals, no insight, no empathy, nothing of use to share. His has a black hole where a soul should be.
And than you, again. I know I said this under your note. I think it feels more manageable when I remember we are dealing with people, driven by human impulses. Some of them are awful people as noted above, and some of their impulses are repellent, but it feels less hopeless when I remember we are just facing other people, and these particular people are not even impressive. They're only impressive in their ability to be cruel.
We shall overcome and build something better. Hugs and love xx
I so agree…Ally’s connection of the personal and political is so meaningful and beautifully woven together.
Thank you so much, Suzy, and thank you for being here <3
Having been raised by a clinically-diagnosed NPD, I know this much to be true: there is no reasoning, no conversation, no nothing. The rule of law -- at the dinner table or the White House -- doesn't matter, because the NPD doesn't want it to matter: he only wants the mic. Which he keeps getting because everyone keeps giving it to him. Because what he does is so utterly outrageous, contemptible, and unbelievable, that the media and most of America can't look away in the same way they can't look away from Jerry Springer. Agent Orange in no way would see the passage of the housing bill as his own win because there are too many other people involved who could take credit, and worse still: it was bipartisan, which would represent to him the danger of both sides of the aisle coming together.....which, generally speaking, could destroy him in the larger sense. He doesn't give a fat rat's ass about SAVE America; he only cares about, as all NPDs do, grabbing the mic and turning the attention back to himself. Because that is what NPDs do.
Yes, it took me so long to learn there was no perfect email I could write, no turn of phrase to get my mother to "see the light" and realize her drinking was the problem between us. My god did I try. I got the memo eventually, but by then, I'd left my mother's house and gone out into the world and WTF! Found myself in relationships with other people who behaved the same way! How the hell did THAT happen? lol. (Sarcasm font for people who aren't Elissa and don't know I'm joking. I know how it happened). Anyway, I had to ride the train into the brick wall more times than I'd like to admit to finally decide it wasn't a very fun ride and I'd rather walk or fly. But I got there eventually, and I don't have people like that in my life anymore because there is no honest communication possible, and who wants to walk on eggshells or always be the bigger person? Always be the one to forgive the apology never extended? It gets old.
But it sure does suck that 77 million people thought it was a smart move to put a malignant narcissist in the White House. Holy shit. The only reason he cares about the SAVE Act is that he wants to retain power. He doesn't want anyone to stop him now, he's enjoying his fiefdom.
I am 100% that person keeping a record from even fifty years ago readying to explode with my points someday. and a 85 year old writing pal pointed out to me when you look back on the things you fought about at her age, it just wasn't worth it. And so I stay silent. But this certainly gives me something to think about. Seeing my self like you wrote it. Helpful. thanks - ginny
We could probably talk about this for daaaaays, Ginny! I used to be someone who avoided confrontation, which is not super surprising given that I grew up scanning the environment, looking for signs of danger and trying to head it off at the pass. I'd bottle things up, not talk about how I felt, and write, instead. I wasn't in relationships with people who made it safe to talk, though. I'd also get migraines, and I wouldn't feel seen, and I'd have that horrible feeling of being alone inside a relationship — because if you're walking on eggshells then you aren't really being yourself.
I think there is a happy, healthy place in relationships where you speak up in the moment when something bothers you. My god did I have to work on that! It was SO hard for me. I had no infrastructure for that at all, so I had to build one. I used to be scared of making mistakes, because growing up, making a mistake could be deadly. I had to learn how to say, "Shit, I really screwed that up, I'm so sorry." And also I had to find people who knew how to do that, too.
I do think there is value in talking about things from the past if there's the potential for deeper understanding, or healing. Not everyone is up to those conversations, though. In that case, sometimes writing is great, because then that record you're storing in your head can be a record that isn't taking up space there anymore. But I don't think it's productive to try to get people to confront things they aren't willing to confront.
You can present an airtight case with tons of details and all the facts, and you can be 100% correct, but if you're dealing with someone who will not face it, it will not matter. Ask me how I know. I'm sure I'm not saying anything you don't know, either. Anyway, feel free to message me if you want to! This is one of those topics that I might have spent about nine million hours thinking about :) Hugs and love, Ginny. Really glad you're here.
Against my will, I have had to overhear way too much 🦊 news as of late and it is bananas the shit they spew. I really can’t wait for this portion of our fucked up government programming to be over.
Another spot on, masterfully written essay friend. Thank you for your distillation and insight and heart. ❤️
My heart goes out to you. 35 years of yoga is not enough for me to tolerate that crap lol. But sometimes I will go to find a clip on youtube, and I'll see comments underneath it that are mind blowing. Or once in a while I'll post a link to one of my essays on another platform and get attacked, and remember why I don't write on that platform anymore.
I am so ready for the Reality TV/Twilight Zone Episode of America to be over. Zero fucking stars. Hard pass.
But massive hugs to you, always grateful for you <3
I’m so here for this. Thank you for reminding us about the Hope. And each other. 🙌❤️🩹
Yes! The more they try to mess with the elections, the better I feel about our ability to defeat these bastards, Janeen. The courts are blocking him. Not all of them, but enough. And Senate Majority Leader John Thune has opposed efforts to force a vote on the SAVE Act or bypass regular Senate procedures to pass the bill, because there isn't enough support for it. We'll see what happens, but I don't think gramps has the unwavering support he did. I think these guys all know the midterms are gonna be a blue bloodbath, and they aren't happy. Mike Johnson was losing his mind today. I don't hate to see it lol. Thanks for being here, as ever <3
Of course it is frustrating dealing with liars and people whom act like they’re telling you the truth while you know damn well they are lying. They know they are lying but just don’t care. Congress and the Supreme Court have given Trump so much power that he does not have to care. If you are looking for normal logic or reason you are wasting your time. The truth is all Trump wants is money. He can’t say that to Americans and he knows it. Our best bet is to hobble him at the midterm elections
Heck yes. We just need to get out there and do it.