Coping.

Yes, That's it. That's all. Coping.

I was in receipt of more than one texts or e-mails gently inquiring if I’m, you know, OK.

Sure.

I’m OK.

I’m a privileged white male Pulitzer Prize recipient with a college degree (even an honorary doctorate, in humane letters!) with some savings (who has enough?), and I’m 64 with, thus far, no pain issues.

So, yeah. I’m OK.

There are people in my life who aren’t OK, and it would break your heart for me to tell you who they are and why they’re not OK.

Do you have any transgender friends? I do. They are very much not OK, for the incoming president of the United States, the guy who’s supposed to represent all the the American people, has singularly targeted them for, what? Extinction?

I mean, this Queens real estate hack ran television commercials about trans people that made Willie Horton look like St. Thomas Aquinas.

Oh. My. God. Trans people! So very dangerous.

They may be using a bathroom that women should be using! Of course, they were told they wouldn’t be welcome in the U.S. military by our incoming president last time he was in. So they’re all labeled as perverts for wanting to pee someplace safe. But hey.

Do you have any people of color in your life? I do. One I know has spent the days weeping sporadically, wanting to know if she should dye her lighter and go with a lighter shade of makeup. You know, to pass. Like in the 1940s.

You know, back when America was great.

But now it’s even greater again because my POC person has to feel like she’s got to change her hair color and lighten her makeup, so she doesn’t get pulled over by a cop who, she fears, might kill her because she’s too mouthy. You know. Sandra Bland.

That’s what they voted for.

Gotta make those non-affluent non-white non-Pulitzer Prize winners feel like they’re not as good as the man who wears orange makeup to cover up his pasty, purple rimmed-eyed face. Oh, throw in his dyed chartreuse cotton candy hair. He is, by his own description, more attractive than Kamala Harris, who he says isn’t really BUHLACKUH.

All good.

Have any older people in your life? Say, approaching retirement age? Are any of them your parents?

I have been involved in more than one conversation with older people about this very subject, as I am one myself. They mention the fragility of Social Security and Medicare, which, the 400 wealthiest families in America say, is a drain and a waste. Of course, a one percent increase in the SSI payroll deduction, or kicking up the contribution a few more months would keep it solvent until well after most of you reading will be alive. That includes me.

Of course, a lot of those 400 families got big, beautiful federal subsidies. They got a nice tax cut in 2017, you may have heard. Elon Musk comes immediately to mind. Oh, and he wants to have his own currency, too. You know, because being the wealthiest man in the United States (he’s a South African with hair plugs) isn’t quite enough.

How do you distract yourself now?

Do you watch plutocrat-owned teams instead of watching the news? I know I am. I just watched the skybox of a man who owned an NFL team. My son says that if the NFL had just given Donald Trump the New York Jets, maybe we would not be in this position.

I know lots of people who are watching nothing but rom coms and childhood television shows.

Isn’t that funny that it’s that bad?

It is. And worse.

The same son noted that he felt like he did at the beginning of the pandemic. We didn’t know there would be a rather quick roll-out of a vaccine what would save your life. Of course, the incoming 47th president has appointed a heroin junkie as Secretary of Health and Human Services, a scion of a once-grand political family, and he’s very afraid of those needles.

He wasn’t afraid of needles when he OD’d on a flight that had to land at Sioux Falls, South Dakota to get him emergency medical attention.

But hey, watch out for those vaccines!

Remember the first few weeks after 9/11? You know, the war that none of the Trump children volunteered in to fight? Don Jr. was born in 1977. 23-24 in 2001? Hmm. Right age, def. Certainly he could have been given a really cool assault weapon that he now uses to kill elephants, lions, and tigers.

Yes, I did volunteer. Naval Reserve. Funny/not funny story. I was rejected because I was 41, after they made me go through the entire process. But I had a patriotic impulse. Thank you for my non-service. I didn’t even have bone spurs. Volunteering? That’s for suckers and losers. You know.

Do you have any veterans in your life? I saw that they want to privatize the VA. Here’s your massive war wound, what’s your hurry?

Know any journalists? The ones I know are scared to death that their newspaper is going to be closed down because some hedge fund will atomize it, or that if they go too far, they’ll wind up in a re-education camp, or killed by some flying monkeys in a pickup with Trump flags flying in the bed.

Here’s my question. If half of the country is scared, and the other is clueless, where are we?

I don’t recall feeling existential dread about Mitt Romney, George W. Bush, George H.W. Bush, John McCain, or Ronald Reagan—all GOP presidential candidates who either won (or lost) in my voting lifetime. The sensation was, well, see you in four years, well-played, good luck, we’re all Americans.

Now 2028 looks kind of debatable for democracy—like there might not be a presidential election. Can you imagine that? Did you vote for that? Eggs are so expensive, though. And cereal. Cheap cereal is worth this drama, to be sure.

How am I doing?

I’m OK! Thanks for asking.

I’m way more worried about other things.

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Folks, I am nearly to 2500 free subscribers, and closing in fast on 400 paid. This is my main source of income now, and independent journalism is important. Any support you can offer would be much appreciated. See you tomorrow, and, yes, I am indulging in slight self-care. God bless you all, and God bless the ideal of the United States of America. —J.