TheBanyanTree: 20 Days into 2021

[tobie at shpilchas.net]

Hello everyone,

	Meyshe and I turned off the television after my mother died and it hasn’t been fired up since. The newspaper stopped arriving after the subscription ran out — no loss: the San Francisco Chronicle is a rag, a surprisingly soft piece of repetitive blather in a city that has far more talent, brains and scholarship to be putting up with such a publication.  My mother was the MSNBC addict and read the newspaper front to back, except the sports section (it’s green, or used to be green. I forget).  She’d listen to the entire run from Rachel Maddow through Lawrence O’Donnell (whom she said she didn’t like—too opinionated and obvious) to, oh, whoever came next and then after that. And later in the evening, she’d watch it all again. 

	She couldn’t hear it well enough unless she turned up the volume so loud that nothing else could happen but be bruised by it or fend it off. I’d be in the kitchen making dinner, Meyshe helping. The drone of bad news was destroying him. This is the man who, as a child, suffered empathetically when he knew someone across the world was in distress. He has a raw heart.  He really couldn’t tolerate the onslaught of the Trump years, and the "news" didn’t help. Mostly it isn’t even news. It’s grinding predictions of what you should be worrying about that might happen soon if you believe all the premises being laid out—like a chronic horse race where your horse looks like it must have taken a knee to the groin but continues to bite at the bit, gaining, then losing, then gaining, then falling behind, then surging forward ahead of the pack and then falling back. If all you can do is be mesmerized by that race, you’re a goner.  That’s Meyshe.

	Well that’s what happens to the world when you’ve got a 24 hour news cycle. They have to fill the space.

	So we’d close the door to the "television room" and turn on the fan over the stove to mask the terror. For four years it was like pieces of us were being chipped away by a rabid frothing animal who'd been installed in place of a real human being. Every day we’d have occasion to think, "Well that’s it. He just tore the legs off of a baby someone handed him to kiss. Even his followers can’t ignore this one. Surely the Repugnicans will squawk and turn against him."  But  while we’re all recovering from the bloody baby-leg incident, he breaks into the National Archives, fires the guards and has the Senate majority leader rip the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights out of the museum’s bullet proof cases and right there wipes his ass with them. They are sucked up noisily into the endless cavity of his black hole that snaps shut and we never see them again.  The baby-leg incident is forgotten immediately. "Oh my God!!! That really is it!" we cry. "He’s out of here!" But somehow he isn’t. Excuses are made on Twitter. Conspiracy theories are trotted out and swallowed eagerly by a public that’s grown so battered by it all that the next week is wasted refuting and believing and refuting and promoting utter fabrications and jaw dropping idiocies, so action is muffled by arguing about something so obviously absurd that the whole incident is forgotten: weapons of mass discussion.

	We have survived in our house by piling up the sandbags and taking news through a slim straw when we think we can handle it. Meyshe is much healthier for it. But then Feyna calls him from the city and recites her mantra: "Everything is hopeless. It’s beyond any redemption or repair.  Nothing we can do to change it. We’re all going to die anyway. Have a cookie," and I spend the next week and a half trying to coax Meyshe off a ledge. 

	We live in Berkeley where a Trump supporter sighting gets reported in the news. I cannot imagine what it must be like living surrounded by the MAGA people. Feyna lives in the city with her husband in his mother’s house. His mother has a boyfriend who is diagnosable. He’s a full blown germaphobe, has OCD and wild fits of paranoia. He refuses to take medication for it which is part of the syndrome. He’s also a loud Trump supporter. I asked Feyna how he reconciles his germaphobia with Trump’s insistence that the pandemic is a hoax, that his followers should go outside without masks, spit far and breathe deeply in great crowds. Consistency is the hobgoblin of tiny weeny itsy bitsy minds. He likes hobgoblins. 

	We’re all crazy, right? It’s just that some of us have a conscience and don’t hurt people with it. Others prefer blunt instruments and a wild revenge that has no true target. They’re just mad as well as crazy. I am ruled by my dogged insistence to be a good person, whatever that is—to do the right thing even if I am aware it’s not going to go well for me. That’s somehow irrelevant. It probably qualifies for crazy. Sure it does. On the other hand, being crazy, I’m probably not the best judge. So am I going to play a game of relativism now? Nope. Trampling people, trampling truth, trampling trust, decimating lives for the sake of murderous vanity is just fucking wrong. He gets no excuse just because he’s insane. We are looking forward to seeing him being dragged out of the oval office while he grabs on to the furniture. I want him to apologize to Meyshe for injecting his faith in kindness with loathing. One down and seven billion minus one to go.

	Forgive me. I ranted. 


Love,

and true glimmers of hope,


Tobie






> On Dec 27, 2020, at 7:57 AM, Teague, Julie Anna <jateague at indiana.edu> wrote:
> 
> Yes, yes, and yes. It’s been so very painful for me and my mother.  Just the daily assault on human decency was hard enough to take, let alone the policies aimed at destroying our earth, deregulating those whose aims have always been profit at any cost, pulling out of hard-won agreements with other countries, and hatred of immigrants. And on top of that we’ve basically “lost” my brother to the cult of Trump, hatred, and conspiracy theories. He didn’t even call my mom  at Christmas. He has directed so much bile towards both of us, and who knows if he’ll ever speak to us again.  The thing that I feel so much anger over, right now, is the year of my life he has stolen from me as far as spending time with my sons and grandkids. All he had to do is tell people to stay home and wear masks and have a reasonable National response to this pandemic and so many lives could’ve been spared. So many lives could’ve been better. We could be in a better place right now. Sometimes I feel that my anger over this will consume me. I can’t let it, I know that. So I do what I can to help people and stay sane. 
> 
> Julie
> 
> 
> 
>> On Dec 26, 2020, at 12:55 PM, trsmith44 trsmith44 <trsmith44 at cox.net> wrote:
>> 
>> Thank you, Jena. It's possible things will come out about Trump that
>> will make you wise in the eyes of family and friends you lost. I salute
>> your principles and perception. This has been a painful experience for
>> almost everyone.
>> 
>>> On December 26, 2020 at 12:28 PM JENA NORTON <eudora45 at sbcglobal.net mailto:eudora45 at sbcglobal.net > wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>>   You have expresses so well what many of us are feeling or have felt. I’ve lost family and friends over Trump.
>>> 
>>>   Sent from my iPad
>>> 
>>>>>> On Dec 26, 2020, at 11:00 AM, trsmith44 trsmith44 <trsmith44 at cox.net mailto:trsmith44 at cox.net > wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>       I thought 2016 election was a sobering tragedy. Really a lot of upsetting things about that for me. How could Trump possibly win the nomination with all the crotch grabbing, infidelity, bankruptcy out on him, his crudeness, rudeness and inability to put a logical paragraph's worth of thoughts together? Our standards of decency and rule of law disappeared. It was upsetting that his most reasonable opponent, Kasich, was eliminated so early in the primaries. After that the choices of Trump, Rubio and Cruz were like picking poison.
>>>> 
>>>>       The most upsetting thing about Trump for me is how so many people must have a non-existent bullshit detector, zero perception of character, and be so full of hatred, like him. It's scary that about half the U.S. population each think the other half are morons, yet I struggle to understand and respect any Trump supporter myself. I'm grateful I don't have any family members that are fans of his. My next door neighbor has two sisters and a brother that are Trumpers. She dislikes him as much as I do. I guess they just avoid discussing politics in her family.
>>>> 
>>>>       Barbara has read Mary Trump's book. I haven't yet, but I've been positively impressed with her in interviews. We've both read Michael Cohen's DISLOYAL One poignant excerpt: "At the very least trump didn't care about the truth. If facts didn't suit him, he denied them, changed them, invented them, and then seemingly believed them--to hell with reality" Cohen's wife, daughter, and son all pleaded with him early on to quit working for Trump.
>>>> 
>>>>       Another Cohen excerpt: "Without the immunity from prosecution granted to the president, Trump will almost certainly face New York State criminal charges. He will likely be convicted on both the Federal and State charges and face serious prison time. That is Donald Trump's greatest fear in life, believe me, and if he fails to get reelected, that will be his fate--and he knows it"
>>>> 
>>>>       The Electoral College and Supreme Court have not given Trump what he wants. same with Barr, and swing state governors. McConnell has recognized Biden won the election. Trump continues operating his usual way, with threats. He threatened important GOP figures he needs the support of in a tweet, shouting "I'll NEVER FORGET." Trump sometimes can't remember what he said in a previous sentence. The best defense of those important GOP figures is to eliminate Trump's power with their power. They've proven they have backbone. He will continue to make things worse for himself, and unfortunately, many others because he is a psychopath who gets off creating pain. There is hope, I keep telling myself, that 20 days into 2021, Don will be gone.
>>>> 
>>>> 
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>>>> 
>>>>> 
>> 
>> 
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> 
> 
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"Might makes right."     Old proverb

"Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth."    Matthew: 5:5

"Make a fist."     Phlebotomist to patient


Tobie Shapiro
mailto:tobie at shpilchas.net <mailto:tobie at shpilchas.net>