Alexandra Petri - Nothing Is Wrong and Here Is Why

Essays

ALEXANDRA
PETRI

Pieces that appeared previously in the Washington Post are followed by their original publication date.

Copyright 2020 by Alexandra Petri

All rights reserved

First Edition

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The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

Names: Petri, Alexandra, author.

Title: Nothing is wrong and here is why : essays / Alexandra Petri.

Description: First edition. | New York : W. W. Norton & Company, 2020.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020007461 | ISBN 9781324006459 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781324006466 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Trump, Donald, 1946 Humor. | PresidentsUnited StatesHumor. | United StatesPolitics and government2017 Humor.

Classification: LCC E913.3 .P48 2020 | DDC 973.933092dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020007461

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To Steve

You are a good man and I like you

(sorry, I panicked)

CONTENTS

RELAX. NOTHING IS WRONG.

There are cretins and goofs who will tell you that this is a bad time to be alive. Or, worse, an interesting time to be alive. They want to fill your head with liesfor instance, that outdated horrors are still occurring, and, in addition, new bad things are happening, and if it were not for the ability to order pizza on your phone without speaking to another human being, there would be no good arguments for the present at all. This is simply not true.

Actually, this is a wonderful time to be alive.

We live in an age when anything is possible. Those aforementioned cretins would phrase this another way: Things that once seemed unthinkable are now commonplace. Maybe that sounds bad to you. If it does, you are wrong. Also, you are a coward. Coward! I will explain to you all the wonderful things about being alive today very slowly and carefully so that even a child could comprehend them, keeping in mind that I despise children.

Things that humankind feared for millenniacertain sorts of bears, very big clouds, the weather more generally, large insects, snakes, the creatures who live in the oceans plumbless depthsnow fear us. We are putting the final nail in the tiny coffin of the poisonous frog; next we will tackle the ocelot. The dark, deep rainforests full of things that go hrrrr hrrrrr bumpkawwww shhshhshh cooooee in the nightthey fall before us, acres a day, and their secrets vanish with them. Do not heed the scientists who say that these secrets could save us, could cure diseases. That is only the forests vile whispering to save its own life, and soon we shall be rid of it for good.

For too many years, we bent the knee to the climate. We let it be hot in some places and cold in other places. We went around meekly putting up umbrellas and donning thick parkas and sleeping next to blocks of ice, because we (fools that we were) thought that we could do nothing to change it. We were forced to get out of the ocean and walk on the dry land and build cities on the dry land. Now see what we have done! Soon there will be water where there was land, and we will have gotten vengeance on the ice for the horrors it inflicted on our most titanic boat (the Titanic). The climate bows before us. We are not under the weather any longer. Now we soar above it in our magnificent jet airplanes, trailing carbon behind! The atmosphere will have carbon in it until we say otherwise, and the atmosphere will thank us.

Generations of parents once told their children not to be afraid to go to schoolWhat is the worst thing that could happen? Now they see the possibilities. Now we all see them everywhere! Things we never thought could happen at places of worship, at concerts, at shopping malls, at movie theaters, at schools, at schools, at offices, at places of worship, at schools, in parking lots, at places of worshipthey happen, and keep happening. Perhaps it once seemed unthinkable that people would fail to take action if such things did indeed occurbut that is the glory of the present time! People are doing the unthinkable every day!

And that is not the only good news! Things we feared lost decades ago are back and thriving. The Nazi, the Confederate, and the measle are all being tenderly reintroduced to their former habitats, where they seem to be flourishing, with a little periodic encouragement from above. Pollutants are being joyfully reunited with their ancestral rivers. Even the dread wide-leg pant is now frequently sighted in the wild.

And it is not only the reintroduction of these treasures to the landscape that has so gladdened our hearts and spread out such wide and tempting vistas before us. Also to the realm of government do these great gains extend.

Before, if someone had told you that they wanted to be put in charge of a large section of the government even though they knew nothing about it and perhaps wanted to co-opt it for personal profit, you would have told them to dream a different dream. You would have told them that this simply could not happen. People would not permit it. Well, you were wrong.

And that was not all. Before, for instance, there were certain things that we could not imagine a president would say. There were certain things, for instance, that we could not imagine a president would do. There were certain people, for instance, that we could not imagine would be placed in charge of anything, let alone the government of the United States of America. But no longer!

Indeed, we have much less need of imagination than we did before. Once people could make whole careers conjuring up outlandish things that were not happening. No longer! Nowwe need simply watch. Caricaturists are out of business, joining the ranks of travel agents and most (but not all) of the people who scan and bag purchases at the drugstore. We have become our own parodies, eliminating waste and redundancy. This kind of efficiency is what has allowed us to thrive at home and drop jaws abroad. We have killed off satire once and for all. It is dead. Long live reality!

Which is to say, that it is a wonderful time to be alive. Yes, wonderful! How marvelous to be stepping out of the thick mists of confusing facts and up toward the light of perfect clarity. How glorious to live in an age when things that once were fairy tales are now seen, daily, to be completely realchildren sticking their slim fingers through the bars of cages, emperors with no clothes, women with their voices ripped out. Galileo would probably love to be alive now. So would Jesus, who, I believe, is scheduled to arrive shortly.