America lived fast and is now dying young - trying to survive in the fire of Donald Trump's America

[Demovictory9]

https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/drew-magary-feel-dumb-being-american-20255797.php

America lived fast and is now dying young
SFGATE columnist Drew Magary writes on trying to survive in the fire of Donald Trump's America
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I get breakfast ready for the dog and then sit in my chair with my coffee. I could check the news right now, but I’m not ready for the impact yet. Instead, I ease into my day gently, checking scores and playing a few dorky New York Times games. This is arguably the best part of my day, because it’s when I am most at peace. Eventually, that peace will be disturbed: by my younger son coming downstairs to prep for school, by the dog needing to go out for his morning piss and by America barging in with all of its


I have to check the news now. I’m a journalist. It’s my job to stay informed. Besides, even if the news weren’t my job, the news would find me anyway. You can ignore the elephant in the room for only so long. S—t, that elephant all but owns the deed to your house now. So I have to keep tabs on the elephant, lest I end up under its foot. I live in the Washington, D.C., area, and all around me are dead public servants walking. Some of them are family. Some are friends. Some are neighbors. Most are strangers, but ones I’m grateful for. They’re all getting laid off, or are terrified they’ll be laid off at any second, because the people in charge of things have decided to rip the heart out of the government and replace it with a motherboard. Is that what the rest of my countrymen really want? Do they understand what’s going on right now? Do they even know what their government does?

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But America still manages to pierce my shield. The news comes in dribs and drabs, giving me more to process. They’re grabbing kids off the streets, redacting entire chapters of the nation’s history, firing all of the good scientists, and rifling through the passport database to hunt down those they consider to be foreigners. My wife is afraid to travel now because, despite being a U.S. citizen, she wasn’t born here. She isn’t sure they’ll let her back in here if she leaves. I also wasn’t born in the U.S., so maybe that means that I can’t go anywhere either. My wife has also heard a rumor going around that the goon squad’s next act will be sniffing around the passport database to find out which U.S. citizens have listed a new gender for themselves upon reissue or put an X in that space. What will they do to these people? Who’s next after that?



But distractions are only so effective against the gathering storm. I live in a country that lived fast and is now dying young. A strongman has taken things over and used the good will of both America’s citizenry and of its public officials to rob it blind. He can get away with it all too, because he already has, and because my fellow Americans hired him to do it again. And no one in power is fighting back because, in my lifetime, no one has ever wanted to lose Republican customers. Not even Democrats.

[cachukis]

1. Harsh. Reality in capitalism.

It will be later generations who might figure out what was and what was lost.