A Disservice to Alley Cats
We need to talk about that presidential debate.
Hi,
When I started Webworm four years ago (four years! thanks for being here!) it was motivated by a world slowly falling into conspiratorial madness.
Reality felt like it was slipping, and I wanted to document the chaos.
That has never stopped, be it examining how huge chunks of society have retreated into hermetically sealed bubbles where they’re blasted with information designed less to be true than to set off their dopamine receptors, or watching Brooke Fraser pacing a megachurch stage talking of demons before cold calling an audience about decreased liver function like a grifting carny fortune teller.
2024, huh? It’s not quite as glamorous as Beyond 2000 told us it would be.
Along the way — in this case, yesterday — old friends from old Webworms reappear to remind me that as a species we’re still in the fucking dark ages:
Part of what makes me remain sane — and I say this with all sincerity — is this place. Webworm. I know that might sound dumb, but somehow a collection of smart, funny, kind, diverse people have all ended up here.
And half the joy I get in writing here (and I hope for you, too) is that I know I get to read what you think about it all. Unlike nearly every other internet space, there is no yelling here: just a sort of gentle mutual respect. I read your comments and I learn. I laugh. Occasionally I have the odd cry.
Sometimes we disagree, and that’s fine. In four years, I’ve only had to ban three bad actors who ignored the Webworm house rules. I marvel at that.
It’s weird. It’s the same kind of community I felt when I was desperately looking for my people in the late nineties, stumbling onto some message boards that pretty quickly changed the way I saw the world.
(If you’re going “what the fuck is a message board”, I wrote about those days here!)
With all that said, this is a time I really feel like tapping into the community here, because last night I really felt that thing.
That thing where it felt like reality was slipping.
Because last night I turned on the TV and watched two old men argue about their golf game, and those two men are the two men that want to rule America; that want to rule the world.
If you haven’t watched it, you can suffer here. Here is the transcript.
After witnessing the results of the 2016 election (in a dive bar that smelt like piss; I happened to be in America for Tickled stuff) there has been very little doubt in my mind that Donald Trump will be back as president.
His trial and subsequent convictions just made him more of a hero to his more radical base, reality already so bent it somehow made him more respected.
And last night’s debate sealed the deal for me: Trump will be president again.
Because while Trump almost continuously lied and obfuscated, somehow he was the one who came out looking more sane and competent — purely because Biden was so feeble and, at times, nonsensical.
He felt all of his age and I felt anxiety that he was going to fall over and die at the podium, his brain disengaged as the words spilled out:
“For example, we have a thousand trillionaires in America – I mean, billionaires in America. And what’s happening? They’re in a situation where they, in fact, pay 8.2 percent in taxes. If they just paid 24 percent or 25 percent, either one of those numbers, they’d raised $500 million – billion dollars, I should say, in a 10-year period.
We’d be able to right wipe out his debt. We’d be able to help make sure that all those things we need to do – childcare, elder care, making sure that we continue to strengthen our healthcare system, making sure that we’re able to make every single solitary person eligible for what I’ve been able to do with the – with – with – with the COVID. Excuse me, with dealing with everything we have to do with – look, if – we finally beat Medicare.”
Um… what?
To be clear — I don’t want Trump in any way. He will be a fucking disaster for America and the world. If I could vote in the election (which I can’t) I’d vote for whoever made it less likely Trump would win — which is saying a lot because right now that would mean voting for a man who’s happily championing a genocide.
I know the political system is broken in America, but I still don’t fully understand how we got here. There are so many talented, smart articulate people in this country (some who love politics!) and yet somehow it’s come down to these two.
Often while watching the debate it felt like I was watching Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino — if Clint’s character had become even more petty and senile.
I hate talking about the age thing — but it showed and it was scary.
Towards the end (I think? It all feels like a blurry mess in the light of day) Biden raised the fact Trump had had sex with a porn star. Somehow this made the hush money case seem so trivial, as it boiled down to one feeble old man telling a slightly less feeble old man about his moral ineptitude.
Biden said Trump had the morals of an alley cat, which I’d argue is a disservice to alley cats. America: So fucking obsessed with morals, but so utterly incapable of having any.
At this point I am just ranting at the keyboard, and I want to do what I came here to do — ask you what you think of all this. Let’s talk it out.
Tell me I’m wrong, tell me I’ve lost it.
I’ve made a career looking at the weirder parts of life. It’s part of what I love being in America right now. But also — yeah. We have our limits.
I am glad I have a New Zealand passport. I’m glad I get to be in New Zealand for the popup in a few weeks.
In the meantime — let’s talk in the comments. I want to know what you think.
David.
These comments are good exercise in sanity. And community. Thank you.
America’s political party system is like that cargo ship in the Panama Canal. They are so big and so powerful, but impossible to steer in the right direction, no matter how much you need them to move. Now both cargo ships are wedged in the canal because we let senile old men be the captains and everything is fucked.