Resistance –circa 2018 in America rests not on
backbone, clear thinking and bravery but walking on eggshells around the US
president because he’s BONKERS. This is like giving someone a cup of tea on the
pavement because they’ve been hit by a truck when there is a hospital around
the next corner. Why don’t they just go for the 25th Amendment? Then
I got to wondering if this could work for a weird destructive political phenomenon
like Brexit.
The anonymous op-ed in the New York Times claiming
to be from The Resistance in the White House is at least funny – sort of. TAR –
the Trump Administration Resistance. (OK you come up with a better acronym)
Pahleeeeease.
There is a real way to resist and this isn’t it.
Political or social resistance does not involve
hanging on to your position and large public salary and writing an anonymous
op-ed to a famous newspaper about how you snuck a few sheets of paper of the bad
baby president’s desk. Accept that Trump is deranged as we all seem to – say so
out loud - and get the ball rolling with that part of the constitution that was
put in place to deal with this very
problem. The 25th Amendment was precipitated by the murder of J.F.Kennedy
(although there had been previous incidents of a presidential vacuum for a
variety of reasons – death, ill health, mental impairment) and was enshrined in
1965. It is a cover-all for a president who cannot fulfil presidential duty and
includes if, like Trump, the pres is a lunatic. The 25th Amendment is the solution. Use it America.
Mr Anonymous needs to realise that real resistance
involves some personal sacrifice. Check out perhaps the French Resistance
during WWII. The self-proclaimed hero of TAR has clearly never seen Le Silence de la Mer or Casablanca.
But maybe we all need to think about resisting.
Isn’t everyone just being ridden over by anyone with power and money and by
giant corporations and mind-bending media? Frankly if Elon Musk is what
unimaginable wealth and corporate power looks like we should all be even more
worried than we are.
These days – if you want to resist it is still the
case that you need to sacrifice a little. Not your life, like the resistance
fighters of old but – maybe – some shit you don’t need. Sacrifice some laziness.
Stop updating your phone every 12 months. Stop feeding the fuel tanks of
airlines by ‘nipping abroad’ twice or thrice of four times a year for a break
from your stressed life. Unless of
course you want to go visit a refugee camp for a month so you can find out what
real stress is. Stop watching shit on the TV and buying shit and eating shit
and accepting the shit in the gutter press. Stop allowing the distraction of
reality TV to blind you to what is happening around you. Stop blaming
everything and everyone else for what is wrong in your life. Stop shopping in
shops that refuse to employ your fellow human beings (see blog 218. Lidl 0 –
Barack Obama 1).
That is real resistance circa 2018. Dump just needs
to be sectioned and all his spineless, corrupt, self- serving enablers provided
with orange jump suits also (they clearly like orange). Then they can be
incarcerated for a long time for the crime of being gutless in the face of blatant
corruption, racism, sexism, vile brutality against children etc etc etc.
From this side of the pond, the SS Britannia continues
to take on water having been deliberately driven onto the rocks of Brexit but
the gross blob I wrote about last week seems – I think – to have mis-stepped
and is not as close to being PM as he thought he’d be. Interesting!
It is fascinating to see another country equally in
the midst of a political mental, moral meltdown. However, as further moves are
taken to ensure the speedy demise of our nation it is cold comfort to look
across the Atlantic and find that there is a democracy, bigger than our own,
that has self-harmed to such an extent.
Access Hollywood – tick. Kids in cages – tick. Fraud
– tick. Treason – tick. And that’s all
before breakfast. Prior to lunch there’s blatant racism and white supremacy and
tinkering with global annihilation whenever there is too much focus on Trump’s
tax returns or treasonous behaviour.
Ultimately – despite his attempts at embalming while
still alive – even if Trump does manage to turn the US into a fascist
dictatorship he will – eventually – die… America will have to relearn how to be
shocked at appalling public behaviour but much of the current shit will go with
him. Not so Brexit.
If, somewhere hidden in our unwritten constitution,
there is the equivalent of a 25th Amendment for Brexit - would
someone please find it in the next 198 days...