Taylor - America 51: a probe into the realities that are hiding inside the greatest country in the world

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men (and women) do NOTHING.

EDMUND BURKE (paraphrased)

Power corrupts. And Absolute Power corrupts absolutely.

LORD ACTON

When they kick at your front door

How you gonna come?

With your hands on your head

Or on the trigger of your gun?

THE CLASH, The Guns of Brixton

America what if God doesnt care?

SLIPKNOT, Gematria (The Killing Name)

SO.

Sooooooo

Heres a funny story that isnt funny at all.

Two political parties walk into a bar. One gets shitfaced hammered and nominates a loud, crude, egotistical, childish, bullying (yet easily butt-hurt) jackass cunt of an orange billionaire to be the president of the United States of America. The other, equally smug and unapproachable, decides to abstain from such low-quality behavior and spends the entire time reminding you that not only are they special because theyre not at all like the other candidate but also that they need you to love them for little more than that reason alone or else they will look down on you with piteous disdain and appallingly bitter bemusement. Both sides had their fair share of intelligent detractors as well as their equal legions of completely devoted zealots. Most people in the middle were left with a terrible choice to make: vote for someone you didnt really support, thus wiping your ass with your constitutional rights as a citizen, or choose someone that nobody else was going to vote for and cast your vote that way, realizing the same result yet feeling a little better about yourself. That is exactly what a lot of people did.

Granted, a lot of people genuinely supported the various candidates. Trump had his swamp-draining pussy grabbers, Hillary had the Im With Her folk, and all the holier-than-thou angsty coffee drinkers had Stein and Johnson, vowing to take their toys and go home because Bernie wasnt allowed to come out and play. Sheisty shit was going on all over the place, and it looked like there was absolutely no way the situation could get worse. Then we watched, in incredulous horror, as that same orange prick, the one whod openly mocked so many others, won the Electoral College, even as he lost the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes. I couldnt believe my fucking eyes: DONALD FUCKING TRUMP WAS GOING TO BE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. Writing it here and now, it still doesnt feel very real. Reading that sentence back, I have to keep stopping myself from correcting it. Its true: Donald Trump is the president.

He aint my fucking president. But he is the president, and well leave it at that.

Ill bet boners to nipple clamps that I was just like most of you: glued to CNN in pure dread as Trumps numbers kept getting higher and higher. So many people were texting me, saying, Is this really happening? What the shit?! I kept myself from losing it by calming them down, saying, Dont worry! Its still early. Itll be fine! Our country cant be that fucking stupid! Then, by the time Pennsylvania fell, I sat stunned on my sofa, realizing that my country was in fact that fucking stupid. I whispered a quote from the original Planet of the Apes, when Chuck Heston sees Lady Liberty up to her tits in the sand and shouts, You maniacs! Damn you! Damn you all to Hell!

This book started out very different.

It started out with a disclaimer about the dangers of foisting a despot like Donald Drumpf (real family name) on this country. It talked about a Hillary victory I was so sure was going to happen. I wasnt really that invested in her per seI just didnt want the Cheeto to win. I had faith that it wouldnt happen, that most blue-collar people would come to their senses and go the other way. But that never happenedand in fact, it got worse. The GOP, otherwise known as the Republicans, ended up keeping their majority in the Senate and doubling down on their super-majority in the House of Representatives, paving the way for a whole lot of bad defunding to go down. So the presidency and Congress are held by the Republicans, while the Supreme Courtthe other third of our three tiers of governmentwas stuck at eight members because Congress refused to allow Barack Obama to nominate a new judge. Lets hear it for Gorsuch, ladies and gentlemen

This book started out with some hope that after a Trump scare, the Democrats could reach over and take some of these working-class folksmy folksand show them that they are in fact their political party. It started out with a vision of seeing the GOP eat a lot of crow for tying their carts to a chauvinistic cocksucker afraid of his own shadow who is easily goaded into saying something pathetic. It had a lot of instances where it would show the GOP for the hypocrites they are: purporting to be for smaller government and yet digging their fingers into just as many programs, grants, and rights as the Democrats do. I wanted to break this shit down like a DJ after a wedding for you all. Then he