NYT: We Are Animals
Thing is, Americans, too, are animals. Not in a hateful sense. Americans are Hominidae.
Family. Optimism. Dreams. Faith. These are not things I know anything about. Mayhem. Murder. Cruelty. Hatred. Assault. Rape. Addiction. Young boys doing sex work. Sorrow. Death. Grim. Repellent. Cops. Killing. War. War. War.
This is what I know because this is the real America.
The American dream is, in fact, a nightmare.
My parents were intent on killing me. You will refuse to believe that, and the New York Times, in it’s policy of civility, will not reiterate or allow the idea of violence against children to be articulated. Civility is relative in America.
I do not know the America Howard Fineman was privileged to grow up in, and writes so eloquently about. I do not think he’s wrong about mass murder. I just don’t know what he is saying.
That is my responsibility to own. Not his. His world is a mystery to me.
When Reagan began to talk about evil empires, it took me a while to understand he did not mean America.
Trump is the embodiment of what I know as the enforcer of the dream’s fundamental hierarchy. The rules. It is forbidden. You will pay a price – breaking decorum – to portray Trump’s base within the context of a sad ignorance as to how the world works.
The world works for him. Not for you. Not for me. And not for that mysterious base we think is so intransigent. They terrify me.
We seek an America that cannot stand. The center of its gravity cannot and will not hold.