MLK-Inauguration Day Special

Trump is the new (old) president, the anti-King, and possibly the anti-Christ—but look on the bright side, things can't get any worse.

I avoided media as much as possible yesterday, but I am nonetheless grimly aware that Trump II is officially upon us. I must have caught a glimpse of the white smoke while doing my damndest to avoid the arctic chill that’s ravaging the DMV.

Waking up the morning after with what feels like a bad hangover makes me recall my worst moments in 2024, when chronic illness, joblessness, social isolation, and general despair led to a midday nightmare where I screamed inside my own head for help but couldn’t move my lips or body. My wife was in the other room—just 25 feet away—but she couldn’t hear me. (It’s possible she just had the TV on too loud.) No one came to the rescue. It was my version of Kafka’s The Metamorphosis.

Now we have this horrible “drain the swamp” creature back in the White House, and it’s unlikely that any amount of screaming or gnashing of the teeth will save us. I couldn’t write about this moment yesterday because I didn’t have the words. I couldn’t even rant about it in isolation or to the few people still left in my life I can trust with my awkward fits of acrimony that often lead to empty threats, rambling digressions, and animal noises. I couldn’t cry yesterday either—not because I think crying is for pansies: America isn’t worth my tears. Our chummy relationship is over post-November 5, 2024. This new America can go fuck itself with a new iPhone designed to fulfill direct sexual needs along with all the other more obvious shit it can do—like receive instant news updates about how screwed we all are. (Apple was one of the many sellout sponsors of Trump’s inaugural party by the way. I will be boycotting as many of those whores as possible—which is admittedly easier if you’re unemployed and live off your wife’s largesse.)

The oligarchy is real and upon us, folks. The only hope I can muster is that it’s finally being flaunted like the bouncing asses in a Nelly music video. Maybe Robert Reich is correct in saying that Americans will wake up if beaten over the head enough times. I’d be happy to beat many of them either way. I can start with a rubber hose and work my way up to a lead pipe—like in Clue. America doesn’t have one.

But, in the spirit of the great Martin Luther King, Jr., I will call for forms of nonviolent resistance instead—as fucking hard as that is. I’m not even sure King himself would bat an eye if the (baseball) bats came out on the left (for a change) and smashed the overburdened knees of the MAGA right. He might consider it righteous vengeance for the violence committed against his fellow Civil Rights marchers and his own assassination. (Make no mistake: The same people who can climax over Trump’s triumphs are those who would attack peaceful protesters fighting to expand democracy and human rights.)

If not club-like instruments the left in 2025 probably has more dogs it could unleash than those pigs in the 1960s South, but we all know how cautious we would be in this regard. We wouldn’t want to risk our dogs catching any diseases—from them.

For now, I say leash the dogs and spare the rod, but summon whatever energy you have left and put it to good use immediately. Engage in a little something King referred to as “creative maladjustment.”

I am sure that we all recognize that there are some things in our society, some things in our world, to which we should never be adjusted. —MLK

King wrote in 1968, the year he was killed, that we should not adjust or adapt to evils like racial discrimination, segregation, and poverty. If he were alive today, I’m sure Trumpism would be high on the list. If he had lived just another decade or so, he may have called for us to be “as mad as hell” on television. But he would have gone much further and beseeched us to find a creative and constructive way to resist the things we hate in our backward society. “Creative and constructive” could be almost anything but does not include doomscrolling, screaming, crying, puking, or waiting two more years to vote. If nothing else, at least help an old lady across the street—unless she’s wearing a MAGA hat. (In that case, fuck her.) My expectations are very low right now.

This platform is my form of resistance in case you didn’t notice. And it hurts me sometimes just to sit in this fucking desk and write—but it’ll hurt a lot more if you stay cowed and complacent. Find your outlet. Find it fast and get to work—until we’re free at last. Free at fucking last.

RIP MLK—one of the greatest Americans who ever lived. It’s some consolation that if/when we get to the Promised Land, Trump won’t be there. Or maybe he’ll get eaten by a Bronteroc.