Rage
It’s nearly midnight on the first Monday in June this year and 80 degrees out. I have, oddly, decided now is the perfect time to sit on my back patio and write.
I’ve spent some quality time on the phone again today… talking about rage. RAGE. What do you even do with that?
Now that I’m sitting outside in the peaceful calm stillness of an early summer night, it seems like a completely absurd thing to talk about – rage. I’m on one back patio out of a dozen all in a row; all lined up nicely next to an organized row of shiny cars and bordered by boxy beige garages. #ApartmentLife. There’s a comfort to everyone mostly being all settled in for the night. It speaks in some ways to a well ordered society; although I think it’s a deceptive look.
An air conditioning unit hums. A nearby train rumbles on. There’s a steady hum of cricket chirping. The air is heavy but ten degrees less so than just before sunset. Now in the dark of night it’s more breathable. It’s the kind of night that’s addictive; that makes you want to wallow in it even if your better nature says it’d be wiser to go inside and try to sleep. The upstairs neighbors just came outside to smoke, though, so perhaps that will motivate me to move inside – especially with almost no wind.
I can’t explain here in public in this writing why I’m ragey, because the particular thing that set off this round of it is not my story to tell. But my rage isn’t limited to just this newest thing that’s activated it.
If I’m honest, my rage is always around. It’s sort of quietly seething and lurking about below the level of consciousness where I normally operate. I let it out from time to time when something particularly heinous touches that primal temperament.
I can say also that my own rage connects to soooooo many of the other things out there. Because when we’re angry enough for it to be rage… it’s often because there are very, very deep wrongs. And there are so, so, so, so many right now.
As a country, we’re backsliding. As a planet, the fact that our powerful country is backsliding is perilous in a huge range of ways. A zillion aspects of all of that are rage-inducing. Plus, it’s all related and interwoven and commingled and jacked-up… and every day it all seems to ramp up and become even more of all those things.
I made the mistake of listening to the news tonight. In it heard a casual reference made by the current Speaker of the House that the US Supreme Court is perhaps somehow not impressed by the 34 (34!) guilty verdicts Trump received in a New York court last week.
What the hell? As far as I understand, the US Supreme Court has exactly ZERO jurisdiction when it comes to New York state laws. Is this Supreme Court considering blowing up our system of federalism? Or am I missing something? Should I just not listen to the news?
In reality, this kind of possibility fuels more of my own rage. Who are these men (Supreme Court Justices) to think they can just vastly change the direction of the world’s most powerful and (up to now) most stable democracy? Will they? So far they show all of the audacity to do whatever in the world they so desire.
They are lawless men; appointed to Supreme Court Justice positions like kings for a lifetime and with no repercussion or pesky ethics rules or laws to oversee them… unlike any other position anywhere in our entire government at any level. They have already wantonly thrown out legal precedent to get the results they want… a decades- or centuries-long legal standard. They’ve shown zero deference to or cares about ethics or appearances of political bias. What else are they willing to do? Will anyone stop them? Or will we just go along and follow along?
What power does the rule of law have when lawless men make it?
It’s the toxic masculinity that’s getting to me. The insidious, dangerous nature of most frequently mayo-hued men willing to go to great lengths to get what they want, and to uphold a system that has allowed them to get and keep what they want.
Here now we have a whole political authoritarian movement seeking to uphold the status quo; pushing back against diversity, equity, inclusion, and humanity itself. Pushing back against all of the rest of us.
AND WHAT ARE WE DOING ABOUT IT?
Here now we have an entire political party establishment going all in on a convicted criminal cult leader; willing to burn down 248 years of attempted democracy in order to hold on to the status quo where they don’t have to share power with the rest of us… with everyone who’s not white, who’s not a man, who’s not straight, who’s not fully abled, who’s not well-off, who’s not Christian, who’s not Evangelical, who’s not the gender they might have started with, and so on.
Once again I ask… WHAT ARE WE DOING ABOUT IT?
Acquiescence
If I’m honest, right now I’m seeing a whole lot of acquiescence.
Am I missing something? Are we not acquiescing, as a whole?
Where’s the pushback? Where’s the RAGE??????
Where are our fired-up fights for what’s inclusive and just and fair? Are we too worn out? Are we out of ideas? Are we holding off? Are we waiting for fall? Are we waiting for the election for some kind of big push?
WHAT ON EARTH ARE WE WAITING FOR?
I get stuck here every time because I don’t know the answer.
Here in my quiet apartment parking lot with the crickets chirping, it sure seems like everyday American life keeps humming along as usual.
But it’s not just what I pick up from a sleeping small rural American city in the middle of the night.
It’s what I pick up being out and about in the US day-to-day.
Everything is humming along.
There is no huge disruption.
There is no movement afoot.
There is no spectacular pushback.
There are no stories of outrage and trauma and terror pushing through the coverage – whether it be about horror stories from pregnant women or new ways hate has been legalized or more ways to weaken public education or to throw out child labor laws or whatever it might be. That stuff doesn’t even break through lately.
The things driving the news coverage right now are Donald Trump and the whole outrageous cloud of absurdity and institutions and elected officials and media people who follow him around and prop him up – whether it’s the Republican Party or the Heritage Foundation or the US Supreme Court or FOX News or some bigoted podcaster or even just mainstream cable news coverage.
It’s All Donald Trump All The Time.
Every once in a while mainstream cable news takes a break for a tornado here or there. Every once in a a while some other news story that would be breathtaking in another era gets 30 seconds nowadays because we apparently need more breathless legal coverage of the most talented attention-grabber in modern history.
Do the rest of us not have the ability to grab attention? Are we without skills or ideas or talent?
Why aren’t we out driving news coverage?
Where are we, anyway?
Where Are We & What Are We Doing?
Morning and a bit of sleep are not bringing more clarity for me, although the rage has taken a few steps further into the shadows of my mind. Chirping birds from back outside on the patio bring the simple joy of an early summer morning but they don’t clear the air of what’s hanging over this country.
In a sudden swoop of inspiration, though, I’ve decided this post is long enough and that where I was going with it could be in a follow-up post, to be called “What We’re Doing Now Isn’t Enough.”
One of the things I haven’t been doing enough of is being honest about that fact. So stay tuned for that post, to be coming out in a few hours.
We have to be more honest about this moment. It calls for everything, and I’m not convinced we’re bringing that, yet — everything. More on that in the next post.
As always, thanks for reading, and try not to get dead. We’ve got a country to shift. We need us all.
I feel every bit of this.
What do you think are the most important things you can do today?