Regime Change

I travel, so I know things. I got as far as Springfield, Missouri, one time. Naturally, upon arrival I was overcome with despair for all of human kind and immediately retreated back home as quickly as I could to buy a fallout shelter and one of those filters that turns pee into drinkable water. I have seen the sign of the End Times and I can tell you, it looks exactly like a giant-ass Bass Pro Shop.

Scurrying back to California didn't help me, of course, because eventually the fucking Bass Pro Shop followed me home, like a sad, wounded puppy. But not a regular sad, wounded puppy, the kind of sad, wounded puppy that also sells semi-automatic rifles. You know, for sport. And nothing else.

Yes, not far from the Bass Pro Shop we now have in Rancho Cucamonga, there's a NASCAR race track in Fontana. It's always been true that the bubbles we reportedly segregate ourselves into aren't anywhere near as impermeable as they are portrayed. The election of a Democratic U.S. senator in Alabama happened just last year. Hell, the most vociferous and passionate liberals I know are in or from Alabama. Sure, that's probably just them being louder than they have to be, because that's what you do when you're stuck in a house that's burning down and being pulled underwater in a bog at the same time by a thousand poisonous python-alligator hybrid snake-lizards and you need someone--anyone, anywhere--to hear you before you inevitably die. You know you're beyond actual saving, but a conversation on the way down seems like a fair thing to insist upon.

California is a weird place that insists on getting weirder as it moves toward a slightly bluer shade of purple, but really, outside the major urban areas, we've got rednecks and gun fondlers too. It gets reflected in some of the localize politics, though I understand that doesn't get the national attention it could. For example, San Diego County has a pretty heavy military and veteran contingent among the populace, meaning it's more likely to lean Republican in some elections, so much so that in 2016, Hillary Clinton didn't even manage to get a full 60% of the popular vote. I mean, that's only 10 points short of a tie.

My point is that, even in fruity liberal sin-havens like the one I live in, our differences aren't really what we're making of them. Yes there are issues that are irreducible that we may never actually agree upon, but bro, this Russia thing... it keeps giving us indictments and rumors of more indictments and on and on and on, but the problem is: the actual interference is working to make us seem more divided than we are. Trump keeps swearing there's no collusion, which is clearly a lie, but also not the point.

It all make sense if you just remember the idea of Russian interference is NOT to get Donald Trump elected. It's to destabilize American institutions. Getting Trump elected was just the way to do that most efficiently, or at least to funnel enough confusion and cash into the system to get him close enough to contest Hillary Clinton. And then, happy accident, the tornado actually won. But now the best return on investment is to continue to drive wedges, to keep the electorate mad and scared and also to undermine the Trump presidency because a weak presidency helps Russia abroad. The fact is that they ended up with a) their preferred candidate and b) one that has proven so uniquely incompetent for the job of president that Trump really can do everything they need him to do--tear down the institutions of government at the point of both policy and implementation--above and beyond their wildest dreams. The reaction they'd hoped to start has become self-sustaining. You know, like the way fission chain reactions do.

And look, even when presented with clear evidence that we're being fed Russian propaganda, Americans are digging in and refusing to believe it, or even worse shrugging their shoulders and walking away, as long as their side wins. The divisions we perceive are becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy as we burrow in like ticks. Trump people become more pro-Trump and progressives get more progressive and Jill Stein supporters... they're probably more delusional too based on this theory, but I'll confess I've never actually met one in the wild.