Silly season gives way to Trump horror show
We’re connected to a hypodermic drip of crazy, and the generic name is Dystopia
Suddenly, February. In a simpler time, the big issue might be kids going back to school, whether school holidays should be scheduled by Met Service, whether kids should be assigned homework or community service, and whether touchscreen devices should have an ageminimum like alcohol.
In a simpler time, the big issue might be whether La La Land deserves the most Oscar nominations ever. Is it even a good movie? Why are its two nominations for Best Song not even the movie’s two catchiest songs? Are these tactical song nominations, deliberately going for sad and slow, knowing they’d be up against a defiant, Let It Go type Disney belter from Moana?
In a simpler time, these are the things we could fixate on, content in the belief that deep down, society was being run in good faith, by qualified adults who at least had to appear to seek the best for people, and who weren’t just running a heist to plunder
the public purses of the most advanced economies.
We could nerd out on cricket; get excited about Roger Federer (finally) or the Year of the Rooster. And it would be harmless. Can you believe how naive we were a year ago, when our biggest concern was the design of the NZ flag? That’s not even rearranging deckchairs — that’s choosing the logo for the deckchairs.
But right now, we’re in crazy times. When the movie gets made about this period in history, it will be called Putin’s Eleven.
Together, across various continents, this axis of white supremacy has put on fake uniforms, breached all the security, got inside all the buildings where decisions are made, and they’re about to rejig all the money pipes so public funds spurt so hard into their own pockets, they’re gonna need new pockets, believe me.
Every day, several times a day in fact, there’s a new dose of crazy. We’re connected to a hypodermic drip of crazy, and a sadistic nurse keeps cranking it up. I haven’t quite read the label on the drip, but at a guess, the generic name is Dystopia.
After Trump said he’d bring back torture, because it works so well (if you can correctly hear the names being named, through the screaming), just for a bit of sanity, I switched off social media for a day. When I got back, Trump had banned Muslim refugees. For