The Capitol Insurrection and the Empire of DIrt

The morning after the insurrection at the Capitol, Morning Joe had a video montage/ music lead-in. It must have been two or three minutes worth, but it’s still looping painfully in my mind. It was a montage of angry orc-like MAGAs attacking the Capitol, while Johnny Cash’s Hurt played in the background. By now we can all summon that orc montage from short-term memory so just call it to mind while reading the lyrics of Hurt or playing the youtube 

I hurt myself today
To see if I still feel
I focus on the pain
The only thing that’s real

The needle tears a hole
The old familiar sting
Try to kill it all away
But I remember everything

What have I become?
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know goes away
In the end

And you could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt

I wear this crown of thorns
Upon my liar’s chair
Full of broken thoughts
I cannot repair

Beneath the stains of time
The feelings disappear
You are someone else
I’m still right here

What have I become?
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know goes away
In the end

And you could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt

If I could start again
A million miles away
I would keep myself
I would find a way

There’s nothing new about fascism. We’re seeing all the classic patterns play out. The grossly inferior strong man. Demonizing the mainstream media. See spittle coming out of Hitler’s mouth as he shouts Lügenpresse (the lying press) besides Trump spitting out fake news. People buying the big lie and scapegoating the Jews. People getting mesmerized by fever dream conspiracies. We’re just hurting ourselves with same-old-same-old broken thoughts and habits. Like sharing a dirty needle in the park. Or skinheads in an alley huffing glue before a rampage. Same-old shadow casting, same-old rampaging mobs, same-old mass psychosis.

I keep seeing the scruffy mob boiling over into the Capitol while my mind keeps looping and morphing Johnny Cash’s lyrics.

We hurt ourselves today,

Just as we did back in the day.

The same-old broken fascist record

continues to play.

The mob it tears a hole.

The old familiar sting.

The orcs come rushing in

And we’ve forgotten everything.

So desperate, desperate, desperate for

the same-old-same-old-same-old

Empire of Dirt . . .

See part one of the Fall of the Orange Goblin series: Trump’s Detwittering and the Great Danger

Dispatches from the Trumpocalypse