The Daily Escape:
Spice Stall, Istanbul, Turkey – 2013 photo by Wrongo
This week, there was plenty of talk about âTrump Fatigueâ. This, from Just Above Sunset is a good example:
The Trump presidency has been exhausting. Maybe that was the idea. Itâs one outrageous thing after another. Everything is âbig newsâ â but when everything is big news nothing is. Everyone goes numb. The United States now has concentration camps for children? Canada is now our enemy and North Korea is not? CNN gave up. Every single news story is âBreaking Newsâ there…but everyone else is tired of this. That was the idea. Make America shrug. They wonât know what hit them. They just donât care. Theyâve had enough. Theyâll worry about their own lives. Trump will be Trump. Life will go on.
The biggest, baddest, worst-est bad news was the retirement of Supreme Court Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy. When the court reconvenes in October, there is likely to be a majority willing at least to gut, if not formally overrule, Roe v. Wade. The hope that the Supreme Court will enforce voting rights is now dead. The Court will not strike down gerrymandering, despite ample evidence that it renders quite a few elections undemocratic. And this week, in supporting Trumpâs Muslim Ban, it said it was overturning Korematsu vs. The United States. In fact, it really reaffirmed it, under the guise of overruling it.
We had another mass shooting. This time itâs five journalists dead at the hands of a shotgun-toting man with a grudge against the paper: he lost a defamation suit against it in 2015. So the media presents us with yet another day of video loops from helicopters showing police cars and emergency vehicles lined up, and a ceaseless round of cable TV reporters trying new ways to say they have nothing new to report.
Trump is planning a summit with Vladimir Putin on July 16 in Finland. Maybe itâs his annual performance review, maybe itâs just an effort to get superpower relations on a better track. Hard to know.
We will be getting a new Democratic Congressperson in NYâs 4th district. A 28 year-old first-time candidate, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, will replace Joe Crowley in the Queens-Bronx district that includes Archie Bunker’s old neighborhood. But the old neighborhood ain’t what it used to be. Today the district is roughly 50% Latino and 25% other minorities. It is unclear if this portends anything for Republican House seats in November.
Wrongo knows that our only hope is voter turnout in November. But, has there been a fair election in this century? Probably not. The media and the Republicans will say that our democratic process continues, but as the NYT reported:
Eight of the tech industryâs most influential companies, in anticipation of a repeat of the Russian meddling that occurred during the 2016 presidential campaign, met with United States intelligence officials last month to discuss preparations for this yearâs midterm elections.
The conclusion was that the US government is doing nothing to secure the 2018 vote. Apparently, the Trump administration is hoping for a red wave in November. Combine their hope with SCOTUSâs apparent support of gerrymandering, and we can practically guarantee that our democracy is dying.
And hereâs a cartoon that canât wait until Sunday:
Sorry to be so negative on your Saturday morning. We need to drop this, at least for a little while, and find some way to get a little soothing going. Start by brewing up a vente cup of Laderas del Tapias coffee from Barrington Coffee Roasting Co. in Lee, MA ($21.95/12 oz.), with its chewy fruit flavors of blackberry, plum, and apple. Bostonians can visit their store on Newbury Street.
Head outside to a shady spot. Now, listen to Hugo Alfvenâs Swedish Rhapsody No. 1: “Midsommarvaka” (midsummer vigil), written in 1903. Â It is performed by the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Petri Sakari. The section from ~5:45 to ~9:00 is particularly beautiful:
Percy Faith had a US Top 30 hit with a selection from it in 1953, so it may sound familiar to older readers.
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
I am so upset as to be hateful. It is what happens when faced with what we have now.
Terry, its good to be angry. We just have to turn anger into action in November.