It is notoriously difficult to negotiate with a suicide bomber. Regardless of the difficulty of making small talk as his thumb hovers over the trigger, the real trouble will start the moment you try to find common ground. His offer is your immediate destruction. Counter offers will not be accepted.
This, of course, is both America’s greatest fear, and the political strategy of one of the major parties. And after years of this behavior, we have willingly elected them to every high office we have. The irony is so painfully obvious that any author would be thoroughly chewed out by their editor for including something so on the nose, with giant red slashes across the page.
I encountered this problem myself when I wrote the majority of a screenplay over the past week called “American Id”. It is the story of a billionaire businessman who runs for president so he can sleep with his daughter. The solution to the “irony problem” was to end the film with the businessman losing the election. In that moment he realizes that he IS America, that in his core emptiness, he is simply a dark reflection: a voice to the racist, an enemy to liberals. Much like America, he can never be defeated: so he refuses to concede. My only sin was subtlety. Reality is much more blunt.
Like so many I feel grief. I feel ashamed. I feel like there is an absolute loss of faith in every institution. And now, I feel like they stripped the last vestige of pride I had in my country. Worst of all, I feel so much hate towards my fellow countrymen for destroying a system they don’t understand. We’ve inherited this nation and are gladly tearing ourselves to pieces.
If we’ve learned anything, it’s that fascist bullies will always use their power. Be vigilante. Be ready. Don’t let them forget exactly who they elected, exactly what they said before the election was decided. We have to hold Trump and Ryan to their promises, every single one. We have to not look away as the nation we love falls on it’s own sword. The government shutdown was an omen of this day and we laughed at the death throes of the Red beast. But the elephant was just wounded, it’s broken ivory tusks ready to impale the American Dream in it’s bloodlust.
We need to be ready. Ready for the secret abortion clinics, ready for a modern underground railroad for immigrants. When an elephant charges, the shock of being impaled isn’t what kills you. Instead, the Red beast uses it’s incredible weight and massive head like a pneumatic press, crushing you to death.
We’ve been impaled. The head is coming.
-Jack Delaney
The Radical Centrists 