Stop with the woke-bashing already. You’ve beaten it to death, relegated it to cliché status. And most of all, you’ve confirmed yourselves to be the closed-off, anachronistic, conveniently Christian lemmings you’ve always been.

If “woke” means being tuned in to injustice and caring about others, then that’s really all one needs to know about the word. Sure, it seems in some ways some have taken it too far, and that’s a fair critique. But you’ve lumped everything into this one word, and that’s wildly unfair and inaccurate, and lazy.

Woke culture is mostly people who recognize that change and discovery are givens and we don’t live in a static, cookie cutter world—as much as such a place would please people like Donald Trump and the whole crew at The Heritage Foundation. Woke culture views the Bible differently, less like a cudgel, which might be the biggest wrinkle of all, the most heinous affront to the average MAGA loyalist.

Wokeness gets associated with someone who believes Social Security actually is an entitlement, that mRNA vaccines and their predecessors actually do save lives. It gets associated with people who believe scientific research always deserves a seat at the table and is critical to our continued well-being as a species. Wokeness gets associated with people who, without the benefit of 20-20 hindsight, thought Covid restrictions were sensible– in light of the fact we were dealing with something we’d never seen before that spread through people who gathered in close proximity to one another. Wokeness is a label slapped on those who reasonably think 8 billion of us are having an effect on planetary systems, that we are most definitely affecting CO2 levels while trying to live like that’s not the case.

“Wokeness”, somehow, is sadly perceived as weakness masquerading as genuine concern, when in reality it has become a catch-all, a buzzword, corrupted and used by conservatives to rile up the base, like “Niagara Falls” used to rile up Moe and Larry.    

The Tour Championship at East Lake has been fun to watch. Only thirty players from Thursday to Sunday. No cut line, just the top 30 FedEx Cup points leaders on the PGA tour, all playing 72 holes for bragging rights and a $10 million first prize. The person who places 30^th gets $355K! The purses are insane, stimulated by Tiger Woods’ advent and LIV. And I guess FedEx must be doing OK.

Every now and then I think about why I watch, and maybe even why I shouldn’t bother, as if this would be some sort of meaningful protest directed at the extravagance and excess. I guess there’s a certain vicarious satisfaction in watching anyone win that much money. Still, the purses are outrageous. So I mostly watch for the creativity– for the sheer accomplished nature of these players, along with the layouts of the courses themselves.

The prize money has me dreaming, sure, but I watch because I enjoy seeing really good players do their thing. It’s the artistry, the strategy, the realization and the pay-off of thousands of hours and years of practice—which in itself is a luxury not everyone can avail themselves of.

Playing the sport myself, I can only marvel at the level of proficiency and style and technique. At what they can do. Nothing fazes them—no lie, no situation (I can’t imagine wanting to play to a sand trap, or being able to shape a shot, or knowing their own capabilities well enough to place a shot between trees or play to a specific patch of grass…).

The money is one thing—people can argue breathlessly over whether or not the purses are justified. But no one can argue with the skills these players possess. Ask any duffer or 15-handicapper.

2100

I apologize for my pre-occupation with Trump and what’s happening to our country. It’s just that it’s all so hard to watch. While we gasp and wonder how he gets away with it, he and the Heritage Foundation architects, and whoever else, just keep trying to mold America into something it was never intended to be.

Ideals, hopes, and dreams are nice to talk about, but at the moment, they seem no match for this crew of cretins and hoodlums intent on hijacking and destroying. The level of disqualification and ineptitude is aided by a disturbingly well-executed plan and a laser focus, a drive to double down on the insanity.

We’ve needed a zero tolerance policy from the start—we all should have smelled a rat from the time he descended that fucking escalator—but instead, enough of us got sweet-talked and bamboozled and otherwise sucked into the ruse. So now we all pay for the self-involved, entitled, emotionally damaged adolescent taking up space in the Oval Office, along with the aiding and abetting crew who’ve grabbed onto his coattails.

The trouble with the gerrymandering tit-for-tat exists on at least two levels. First, it’s wrong and a sign of desperation. Second, where and how does it end?

Trump and company bring out the worst in us, don’t they? They’re instigators who probably enjoy watching those they perceive as do-gooders and holier than thou get dragged into the mud. The fact that Gavin Newsom and California have responded may feel good at the moment, as in “finally, the Democrats are giving Republicans a taste of their own medicine.” It’s just that I can’t help but think the real Republican brain trust figured this would happen, and they’re already plotting their next devious moves that will only add to the huge amounts of energy expended and time wasted in these unnecessary pursuits.

It’s all monumentally infuriating—that this is the road we’re on, where instead of debating actual policy and working on solutions to societal problems, we’re mired in minutiae, distracted by this unraveling of the rule of law, this maddening, unwanted race to the bottom.

Imagine how hard he’s working to make this go away. What’s he got up his sleeve in the way of diversion tactics? What does he have left in his bag of tricks that will throw the press and everyone else off the Epstein scent?

It seems it’s only going to be an escalation of some sort—more ICE agents and more troops in more blue cities, more oppressive or wildly short-sighted moves that startle the pundits and have them falling over each other trying to voice their shock and concern.

Maybe he’ll issue an EO renaming the District of Columbia “Trumpton.”

Israel-Hamas appears intractable, but I guess he’s pretty focused on winning himself a Nobel Peace Prize. So maybe we can look forward to news about a half-assed Ukraine deal. That might set him up for a trip to Stockholm.   

We should be beyond weary of people who spend their days devising ways to dominate, ways to shut down free expression and dissent, ways to ensure their own continued lofty status and comfort and influence.

For example, why does Russia need more land? It’s the largest contiguous land mass under one flag in the world. It covers 11 time zones, stretches from its border with Finland and Ukraine, among others, all the way to the Bering Strait, near Alaska. Why this infernal need for more territory? Is it simply about conquest and land acquisition, or some antiquated mission statement?

We can try to understand Putin’s motivations, but having that, should it make what he’s doing any more palatable or proper, or right? We can’t possibly fathom the suffering he and those around him have wrought, and all in the name of… what?!

All we can still manage is that we must fight fire with fire. That’s the best we can come up with. Always a layer of suspicion and mistrust, and wildly, shamefully misallocated funds spent on war, or the fear of it.

Meanwhile, people the world over go without, and never have the chance to move beyond struggle and mere existence, to really live.