Trump has a growing DeSantis problem? Wow. From inane to insidious. From dumbass to scary dumbass.

Trump is awful, but DeSantis is awful with a brain. He doesn’t see anything amiss with creating a Public Health Integrity Committee or hiring a quack as the state’s Surgeon General. He gets lauded for his all freedom all the time Covid policy. He’s a friggin’ star, apparently.

The return to relative sanity has been nice, but it seems it may not last much longer. Darth Vader is knocking on the door.

Is the root of all our troubles simply the matter of perspective? Let’s unpack that a bit.

It goes to darker places where irrational hatred and blinding selfishness rule the day. Dysfunctional upbringings, inherited bigotry, delusions of grandeur, ostentatious lifestyles not easily forfeited, the intoxicating effects of power. Entitlement, philosophies of governance tied to a lack of faith in humanity, alongside the illusion of destiny actually being a thing.

Demon destiny. It bites us more often than not. And sometimes God even ordains it, which is perhaps the greatest delusion: the human capacity for believing God is on their side. Or that God doesn’t exist.

Either way, someone loses. 

The mask rule has returned at our doctor’s office. There’s a nasty 3-fer spreading currently—Covid, RSV, and the flu—and it seems these are in no hurry to go away. Dr. Fauci and other actual experts are right, as they often are—Covid isn’t over. Many may know this, even if they’d rather not admit it. Our resistance is down, and there are plenty of opportunistic maladies seeking out hosts.

I was getting used to going about without a mask, even though I still carry one pretty much wherever I go. It won’t be much of a bother to put it back on.  

Morality police. Sounds funny and pathetic and a bit Orwellian. Among the best arguments for a clear separation of church and state, or whatever they’d prefer to label it in places like Iran or Afghanistan or elsewhere.

In Iran, the price is being paid for stepping out, even as, if reports are accurate, the first people to be publicly executed were violent offenders who allegedly attacked and killed police.

Women cannot not wear their hijabs. Imagine women in this country being told they have to cover their heads. Imagine, in general, such restrictions on personal expression. And the sad irony is that such abhorrent efforts are carried out in a deeply patriarchal atmosphere. Men making decisions for women, perhaps not unlike what’s happening in this country with regard to abortion.

I know there’s a place for good order, but not regarding something that has adiaphora written all over it.

I recently came across a meme that evoked a visceral reaction coming from a place of feeling like enough is enough.

To summarize, it contained a wordy, rambling, paranoid, cliched rant about how we’re all just victims of and slaves to corporate power and malfeasance, about how “things really are in America” that sounded like what I imagine a Q-Anon manifesto would sound like, complete with a superimposed image of some Army or Marine vet looking all menacing and angry, as if to add a certain gravitas and legitimacy to the vial of bile that was contained therein.

I’m really tired of hearing people parrot these streams of consciousness, tired of reading these pessimistic takes on “what’s really going on…” It wreaks of brain washing, and hints strongly at the spread of an insidious poison through a whole subset of angry, disenchanted men and women who apparently are ready to bear arms and create havoc in the name of fixing a problem. Like their hero, Donald Trump, they have no plan. It’s just violence in the name of slaying some boogeyman (a changing complexion?) and hastening what in their minds passes as “restoration.”

I have no doubt that some of these people are ex-military personnel who may very well feel like they’ve been treated like pawns by the rich and powerful– by people who aren’t listening, who have never gotten their hands dirty or stood anywhere near a battlefield.

Still, their worldview has soured. They are convinced that America is really a giant sham, a real mess, and the only solution is a fresh start ushered in with violence and chaos.

No, thank you.

Republicans blame Trump for midterm election losses.

Sounds predictable. What are the chances the sentiment will last, though? Gotta blame somebody, and Trump has always had a knack for supporting the best people. The tally I heard was only two out of the fourteen candidates (term used loosely) he endorsed actually won their races.

How can they expect anything different? More people are finally tiring of the rhetoric, the poor sport attitude, the election denying, overall dark, paranoid un-American vibe. Enough already! Trump will never rise above his own petty beefs, and he’s more than willing to keep carting them out if there’s any chance they could still benefit him.

Maybe—maybe—those days are coming to an end.

With apologies to all so named who aren’t this way, what’s the comparable label for guys who act snooty and entitled? How about Chad? Karens and Chads. Entitled, loud, pushy, wise-cracking snark machines who think the sun rises and sets only on them.

I see someone driving a BMW, or a Cadillac or some other battleship SUV? Most likely a Karen or Chad. I hear a loud, gruff, demanding, maybe demeaning voice at the counter ordering coffee or a meal? It’s gotta be Karen or Chad.

They’re often so immersed in their own little worlds that they can’t think to stop and listen to themselves. They seem, somehow, unhappy.

Maybe you saw the news blurb out of Georgia about a Great Pyrenees defending its sheep pen against a pack of coyotes. Holy shit! I want this dog’s autograph. To look at him, one might not think he’d have it in him, but he must have turned into an absolute beast for half an hour. Half an hour of fighting off eleven coyotes, and killing eight of them!

Sounds almost too amazing to be true, like we’ll be learning at some point that it’s all a tall tale. Not to be confused with tail, which Casper no longer has.

I haven’t seen the final numbers in the Georgia run-off. It was back and forth on Tuesday night, which was a head-scratcher in itself, but now enough votes are in to declare Raphael Warnock the winner. Not a surprise, really, but the fact that the race was close at all says something about the Republican mindset and that penchant for knowingly wasting one’s vote.

What was Herschel Walker supposed to represent? What did he bring to the table that was supposed to woo voters? A reputation as a recognizable former Georgia U. running back and NFL star? Was that all? I’m not seeing how Mr. Walker could ever have been viewed as an able opponent for Mr. Warnock.

Truthfully, I’m not sure I’m ok with the dual jobs Warnock has. How can he be a full-time U.S. Senator and hold a pastorate at Ebenezer Baptist Church as well? Why is this still happening? Isn’t his full-time job as a Senator now? One might think he’s gonna have to give up his Sunday work, now that he’s been elected to a 6-year term.

Anyway, it’s good and proper that Warnock has prevailed, because Herschel Walker was a slap in the face to voters everywhere. It’s almost like Republicans needed a black candidate to compete so they carted out Walker, figuring his star power would be enough to carry the day. Their vetting process overlooked or missed consequential faux pas in Mr. Walker’s past, and they were apparently able to overlook the fact that he was clueless and inept regarding so much else that mattered more than celebrity status and name recognition.

The Republicans remind me of that Billy Crystal character from SNL– Fernando– and one of his stock lines about it being better to look good than to feel good. Herschel Walker’s candidacy was an insult, but they didn’t care.

The other day, I was driving home from doing errands and must have been dogging it. Or at least the person behind me whose headlights I could occasionally see must have thought so. There were a couple moments when I thought about pulling over and letting this person by, but I decided not to. My passive-aggressive streak kicked in and I just kept driving.

The temptation for me is to slow down when someone is tailing me so closely, as if this teaches them anything. I always assume that no confrontation will come of it, no weapons will be brandished, and I will have succeeded in aggravating the son of a bitch a bit more than he or she already was.

On the other hand, I guess I don’t know the situation—they could be late for work or on their way to a maternity ward to comfort a laboring mom-to-be. In any event, assumptions are made, tempers flare a bit, and the day goes on.