Notes from Trumplandia

After the trip back home from hell -- stuck 2 days in SFO and another two in Istanbul snowstorms, for a total of about 90 hours door-to-door -- I got a case of the flu from hell, so far 8 days of coughing my lungs inside out for a total of 666,000 painful hacks, with 5 days of hallucinatory fever like I can't remember since I had typhoid over 40 years ago, and all the while following the exponential disgustingfulness of our elected leaders -- I feel compelled to leave my sickbed and turn in this report to my foreign readers (all 6 or 8 of you) on what I experienced firsthand in the New USA during my recent visit from a politicalogical-sociological standpoint.

How's that for a first sentence? Can you tell that I haven't slept more than an hour a night for the last week?

Okay then, down to work: My first idea was to write an insightful essay about Trump the Trickster. Based on my background in folklore studies, I thought I could show how he's actually the expression of an ancient archetype, the creator-destroyer of worlds, blahblahblah ... and maybe I will someday.

Then my delirium gave me an even better idea: Race War. Why and how one is being subtly set up and launched. Remembering the late 60's (as I do), I see similar signs of race war on somebody's agenda, somebody's way to gain or distract or just have fun breaking heads, but, yeah, another time.

Then one word in the Russian dossier summary struck me -- Pervert. I know DT the Perv ain't news: the predatory behavior, the porn films, the penis brags, pussy-grabbing, if she weren't my daughter, mistresses, prostitutes, assault and abuse, and more we'll find out later. One thing about perverts is that they love company, they form clubs, so who does DT surround himself with: Julian Assange, Mike Tyson, Bill O'Reilly, Arnold Swartzeneger, Roger Ailes, Steve Bannon, Jeffery Epstein, Andrew Puzder, Corey Lewandowski, and Vladi Putin. Not a full or confirmed list but you get the idea. And it is all horrible, a rape culture so vulgar and filthy that in the end it's hard to look at. Or joke about.

So what happened on the ground regarding the Prez Elect (or PEE) for me to report about? Not much. People aren't talking. Like the eerie winter of 2001, following 9/11, there's a tense fake calm that equals fear. The country-town-neighborhood-friends-families are divided. The issue was avoided in holiday gatherings. One liberal friend told me she "felt like vomiting" every time she thought about that monster. But she said it in a whisper, as if 1984 were still in effect. It is a uniquely distressing moment for half the country, or three quarters I should say, and that includes most of California.

Republicans and Democrats, like Dodgers and Giants, play by the same rules. Everyone wants the transitions to go smoothly. Yet that ends now. No more rules, no smooth transitions in mutual respect, no more morality.

Come Friday, the trickster, race war-monger, pervert, un-named one has the nuke buttons and can't wait to destroy something, or everything.

Happy trials, Martin

Mutt and Jeff are both sick too.