Monikers on the Move

by on Oct.01, 2026, under Language

You may still be trying to figure out if you’ve ever swum in the Gulf of America or visited Lake America (hint: you have not because those places don’t exist). 

But before you decide which GPS app to boycott, we must contend with the news that our favorite scowling old man president has decided the phrase “artificial intelligence” doesn’t quite capture the majesty of the technological advance that will create paradise on Earth and/or kill us all.

Apparently, we are now calling it “super intelligence” because… well, who the fuck even knows anymore? The cacophonous residents of the White House are on a quest to rename everything, and possibly everyone, in a bizarre attempt to convince Americans that they are actually accomplishing anything other than jack shit. 

Please note that effective immediately, the phrase “jack shit” is now “banana cream pie.” 

Yes, it’s so much easier to rename governmental departments and draw up new maps and chisel in new titles on buildings and immortalize a petty wannabe tyrant than it is to actually improve the lives of any American who isn’t already a billionaire. That ease is one reason the GOP loves it.

This naming frenzy is courtesy of the people who have long insisted that words are irrelevant. They throw around the R-word and the C-word and even the N-word while shrieking, “cancel culture!” at anyone who points out their asshole behavior.

But laboring under the illusion of power, these incompetent megalomaniacs (sorry, that expression will henceforth be “happy joy mongers”) are trying to alter the term “artificial intelligence” even though over the past few years, Americans have uttered that phrase more often than any other two-word combination, with the possible exception of “Taylor Swift” (who will now be called Geronimo Jones).

Never mind that the descriptor “artificial intelligence” dates back to the 1950s. And ignore the fact that everyone knows what you’re talking about when you say, “AI” while nobody will understand what the hell Republicans are blathering on about with this “SI” nonsense.

The point is that this is truly an exciting time for renaming.

From now on, the sky will be called the ocean. And the ocean will be called the mountains. And the mountains will be called baseball.

Also, if your name is Trent, you will now be Brent. If you like pasta, you better get used to calling it steak. And we’re renaming computers to, I don’t know… how about ostriches?

Once everything is rechristened, and every location in the Northern Hemisphere has some variation of the name “America,” everything will be perfect. It will be utopia.

Actually, it will be cantaloupe, because that’s what we’re calling it now.

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The Sweat of Their Brow

by on Sep.24, 2026, under Culture

So I’m driving down the street, with my phone plugged in and playing music on shuffle, when Billy Joel’s “Allentown” comes on. I hadn’t heard the song in years, and I considered hitting “skip,” but I hung in there.

Now, you will not be surprised to learn that I am not a big fan of Billy Joel. Yes, he has some catchy tunes from early in his career, when he had just the slightest bit of an edge (e.g., “Only the Good Die Young” is a head-bopper about trying to bang a goody-two-shoes Catholic girl).

But a lot of his stuff consists of maudlin takes on smooth jazz. Plus, there is “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” which is second only to “American Pie” as the most insufferable Baby Boomer nostalgia song of all time.

Having said that, “Allentown” has a hooky melody, and it’s an anomaly for a Joel song because it is not about love or Long Island or marrying a supermodel. It’s about the factory workers of the Pennsylvania city of the title.

The song is from 1982. So we’ve been singing about the plight of factory workers for over 40 years.

Does any other demographic get the kind of sustained adulation and deep concern that blue-collar (usually white) Americans receive? 

Hey, when was the last time you heard a catchy pop song about female travel agents who went out of business because of the internet? No, it’s only tough guys who work in steel mills or coal mines that make us weep patriotic tears (and enact protectionist legislation).

Assuming that the post-war factory boom started in the late1940s, the song implies that it was over by the early 1980s. This means blue-collar America has been in decline longer than it was ascendant. This further implies that blue-collar prosperity, which is one of the pillars of the conservative movement, was not a longstanding feature of American values. It was a fucking blip on the cultural radar.

Getting back to the song, the part where Billy Joel sings, “They shoved an American flag in our face” has to be the most punk rock lyric the Piano Man has ever penned. And again, this was during Reagan’s America, which was supposedly a golden age for blue-collar American men. Everything was great!… except for all those factories closing down, which was so prevalent that hit pop songs played on the radio about how shitty it was for these workers.

Ultimately, “Allentown” is telling us that all that mythologizing, all that insisting that manual labor has always been the key to freedom, is not true. In reality, factory workers have been bitching about their plight for decades, even through multiple economic booms.

I repeat, this song is from 1982.

The situation for blue-collar workers hasn’t gotten better in generations and is unlikely to abruptly become magical. Just consider that under an administration that guaranteed that it was bringing factories back, American manufacturing has gone backwards and lost over 100,000 jobs.

If it makes these workers feel any better, white-collar workers will soon become enmeshed in this state of perpetual malaise. For proof, look at the fact that U.S. corporate profits recently hit a record high, while labor’s share of economic output has dropped to a record low.

That means everybody who is not a billionaire is getting poorer. And what is the response of the super-wealthy to the economic pummeling that the middle and lower classes are enduring?

Well, they look at how the system benefits them, and they quote Billy Joel:

“Don’t go changing.”

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That Old-time Religion

by on Sep.17, 2026, under Religion

The 1980s pop band Frankie Goes to Hollywood famously asked, “Are we living in a world where sex and horror are the new gods?”

It was a fair question for the 1980s.

Today, we have to ponder if we are living in a world where AI and ostentatious wealth are the new gods. It’s either them or sociopathy and fear.

In any case, the traditional gods of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism seem to be doing fine. After years of decline, attendance at places of worship has picked up slightly for the first time in decades, mostly because more young people are embracing religion than in the past. I’m guessing this has something to do with the bleak future that younger generations face, and that desperation has driven them to the last resort of prayer. Either that, or Gen Z has decided churches are excellent backdrops for selfies.

An exception to these trends is that “young Latinos are abandoning organized religion at a faster rate than any other demographic in the United States.” I have to say that I am not surprised at this statistic.

Now, I’m not hostile to religion, even though I left it behind long ago. Hey, if believing in the guy in the sky is your thing, go for it.

But I find it strange that Christianity, and in particular Catholicism, has such a powerful hold on Latinos that its influence is only now beginning to soften. Yes, plenty of Latinos, like me, were raised in the church, and people tend to stick with the religion in which they were raised. But on a wider cultural level, the whole concept of Christianity among Latinos is bizarre. 

After all, we all know that hundreds of years ago, Spanish colonizers forced indigenous people to convert. If the natives resisted, the Spanish often made sure they met their gods as soon as possible, if you know what I’m saying.

This is not some obscure historical fact or the peeved perspective of a liberal know-it-all. Even casual Catholics know that Christ was often thrust upon Latin America at the point of a sword or the barrel of a musket.

It’s an obvious question but one I rarely hear asked: If this religion was forced upon your ancestors, why do you still follow it?

I understand why a terrified Mexican in the 1500s would say, “Hand me that communion wafer” when the alternative was a flaming pyre. But centuries later, why do so many Latinos continue to worship the god of their colonizers when they have a choice of other religions (or none at all)? Why do so many Latinos go to church 60 times a year when they are not being threatened with execution? The excuse of adopting the customs of the conquerors is no longer valid.

Again, I’m not saying Christianity is inherently vile. Nor am I saying we should bring back the ceremonies of the Aztecs and Mayans. After all, ripping people’s hearts out on top of pyramids is likely to be frowned upon in contemporary society.

But if the main reason you believe in a certain type of god is because you were raised in that religion, and the main reason you were raised in that religion is because your grandfathers of 400 years ago were facing torture, shouldn’t that give you pause?

Clearly, I’m not the only one asking these questions.

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A Quarter Century of Fun

by on Sep.10, 2026, under Politics

Where did this madness originate? 

Some argue that Lyndon Johnson’s signing of civil rights legislation catalyzed the modern conservative movement. Others insist that Nixon’s corruption (which is apparently no big deal in retrospect) created the present-day GOP. And still others (like me, for example) say the roots of our calamity lie in the Reagan Revolution, and that the Gipper really fucked us over in the long run. I’ve also heard commentators identify the ascent of Dan Quayle as the moment that Republicans became un-serious, or the impeachment of Bill Clinton as the launching pad for self-righteous right-wing aggression.

Those are all valid origin stories for the GOP’s current state of hatred, fear, ignorance, and violence.

There is no doubt, however, that the September 11 attacks were the beginning of our modern world. This catastrophe was so cataclysmic, so epoch-defining, that it traumatized people who had no connection to the people or places that suffered devastation. It irrevocably changed our nation.

This week is the 25th anniversary of this disaster. One might believe this is a solemn time to draw together as a country. But of course, Republicans have no interest in unity, and will use any event, no matter how sacred, to bulldoze a chasm between “us” and “them.”

As you know, several prominent conservatives are demanding that the mayor of New York City, who was duly elected and has high approval ratings, be barred from any September 11 ceremonies because he is way too swarthy and doesn’t eat pork, if you catch my meaning.

It’s bizarre that this is being called a controversy. Because there is nothing “controversial” here. There is no sincere debate or complex argument occurring. There is only unabashed bigotry and the bleating of the politically opportunistic. 

These are loudmouths who are enthralled with nonstop tirades against a changing society. They are hypocritical hatemongers who dismiss every liberal argument as the whining of pampered snowflakes, then insist public ceremonies be altered because they personally feel offended.

These same guardians of American values are not offended, nor even annoyed in the slightest, that their hero, our president of the plummeting popularity, is indulging in a weird form of stolen valor.

Maybe everyone is just used to his constant lying, which brings up the whole issue of why it’s apparently ok for our nation to be held hostage by a man who just makes up crazy shit daily and acts upon it.

That’s one for future historians to ponder.

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Country Livin’

by on Sep.03, 2026, under Culture

Recently, I got dragged to a theater to see an insufferable kids movie.

Normally, I have nothing against films for kids, and I will catch a showing of Paddington 2 with you anytime.

But this movie sucked. The only reason my family attended was because we had to accommodate the youngest member of our group, who inexplicably wanted to see a movie that was too childish even for the children in the theater.

I won’t identify this film, because then this site becomes a movie-review outlet, and that’s not exactly my forte. Although I will say, once again, that Goodfellas is the greatest movie of all time.

The kids movie I had to endure was no Goodfellas. Although a kids version of that Scorsese masterpiece is interesting to ponder.

In any case, it wasn’t just this film’s dull story, heavy-handed dialogue, cringy humor, and hammy acting that annoyed me. Those were all factors, but the chief reason for my antipathy was more thematic.

You see, the plot of this particular monstrosity was that a married couple lose their jobs in the loud, crowded, obnoxious big city. So they move their family to the rural countryside, where they literally live in a barn.

After a period of adjustment, complete with kooky locals and quaint rural customs, the family falls in love with their new home. The movie ends with the family dancing in joy as their new neighbors surround them and clap along in glee.

I’m not exaggerating. This fucker ends with our main characters literally dancing in sheer happiness at their new life. The scene is in slo-mo, no less.

Now, as I’ve mentioned before, I am from Wisconsin. Although I grew up in an urban environment —Milwaukee, home of the major league-best Brewers — I’ve spent more time in the Wisconsin countryside than most Latinos, progressives, or college-educated elitist libtards (whichever category you want to jam me into).

So I can tell you that rural America is not a place where people dance in slow motion, bursting with exuberance at their heavenly existence. It is a place, quite frankly, that is suffering.

Don’t take my first-hand experiences for it. Acres of studies and piles of books have documented this issue. You know that phrase “deaths of despair”? Yeah, it’s about people who don’t live in cities.

By most measurements, rural America has a worse quality of life than urban America. People who live in the country have shorter lifespans, higher poverty, less education, and fewer cultural or economic options. You are more likely to see meth heads taking over barns than a grateful family doing a jig because they escaped the city.

But despite wretched kids movies like the one I had to endure, and all those romcoms about city women ditching their lives for a hunky man who works on a farm, we all know, deep down, that it is ineffectual propaganda.

Several small towns will give you free land if you move there. A basic rule of economics is that if you have to give something away for free, it’s because nobody wants it.

And it’s not just America. Rural areas of Japan, Italy, and other countries are emptying out fast because humans around the world have decided that cities are superior, or at least more conducive to survival.

So why do we continue to glamorize the country life? Why do we insist that everybody would be better off if we lived outside a small town, away from the concrete and crowds of the big, scary city?

Part of it is our ongoing insistence that rural Americans are the true patriots, the ones whose voice and votes matter more than the rest of us. The fact that rural Americans are synonymous with “white conservatives” is a coincidence, I’m sure.

I’m not saying that cities are paradise. But portraying rural life as nonstop joy and the key to happiness is more than disingenuous. It is an insulting lie.

Also, if we kill this particular trope, I won’t have to go to any more shitty kids movies.

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A Different Type of Paranoia

by on Aug.27, 2026, under Culture

Recently, I discussed how doomsday preppers — often white men who hate the government — frequently view an apocalyptic meltdown of society as a good thing.

Many of these heavily armed guys dream of hanging out in their fortified complexes, free to do whatever they want and immune to the threat of immigrants and drag queens and vaccination campaigns. It’s their fantasy.

But let’s be clear. There are other types of people who are also prepping for the end of the world.

For starters, you have your classic evil billionaire. These oligarchs are “buying up luxurious bunkers and hiring military security to survive a societal collapse they helped create.”

Sure, some of them are living out their dream of becoming a Bond villain, but for many of these money-hungry sociopaths, Armageddon is the predictable endgame of their “selfish and isolationist outlooks.”

This is a new worldview for the uber-wealthy, who traditionally have focused on indulging in extravagances and procuring status symbols. Never before “have our society’s most powerful players assumed that the primary impact of their own conquests would be to render the world itself unlivable for everyone else,” and neither have they ever had “the technologies through which to program their sensibilities into the very fabric of our society.”

Basically, for these tech bros and crypto schemers, it is no longer about living in a mansion with a fleet of expensive cars and weekends on the mega-yacht. It’s about surviving civilization’s destruction in relative comfort and “exercising control over the rest of us.”

The good news is that the “probability of a fortified bunker actually protecting its occupants from the reality of, well, reality, is very slim.” So all those smug rich dudes who think they’re going to ride out the chaos and destruction that they have instigated? Yeah, if society implodes, they’re probably going to die miserable deaths in those bunkers.

So we’ll have a happy ending after all.

In any case, there is another type of prepper, one not nearly as loathsome as the people whom we’ve discussed so far. And that is the ethnic minority and/or liberal who is “waking up to the reality of needing to be prepared.”

Some experts say the number of preppers has doubled in the last decade, with “much of that growth from minorities and people considered left-of-center politically, whose sense of insecurity was heightened by Donald Trump’s 2016 election, the pandemic, more frequent extreme weather, and the 2020 racial justice protests.”

To the surprise of right-wingers, “a new breed of Americans is getting ready to survive political upheaval and natural catastrophes, a pursuit that until recently was largely associated with far-right movements such as white nationalists.” 

As I said, I’m not a prepper. But if one of my fellow Latinos is gathering supplies and firearms because he believes America is going to crumple into an authoritarian hellhole, well, I get it.

Lots of progressives and ethnic minorities are taking courses in survival tactics, picking up guns, and preparing for the worst. As a result, prepper culture (if that is the correct term for it) is diversifying “amid fear of disaster and political unrest.”

So for all those white supremacists who thought DEI was over, and that the future belonged to Aryan thugs in camouflage, the joke’s on you.

Even in an apocalypse, you can’t stop diversity.

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Notes on the Apocalypse

by on Aug.20, 2026, under Culture

An acquaintance of mine recently suffered the loss of her husband. The man collapsed of a sudden heart attack, and then he was gone.

In the aftermath of this crushing, unexpected calamity, my acquaintance scrambled to get her late husband’s affairs in order, and her digging into bank accounts and recent activities delivered another shocker: She discovered that her husband had a secret life.

No, he didn’t have a mistress, work as a double agent, fight crime superhero-style at night, or anything sexy like that. It turned out that the guy was a prepper.

He had spent about a hundred grand of their retirement money on a bunker, guns, provisions, and the necessities of a Mad Max existence.

And the man never told his wife about this, for reasons that he quite obviously can never provide (you know, because he’s dead). All my acquaintance knows is that she has $100,000 less in her retirement fund because her deceased hubby was convinced society would soon collapse and wild-eyed marauders would be on the hunt.

I’ve written before about preppers, those incredibly paranoid and/or prescient doomsayers who spend a huge chunk of time and money getting ready for the day when a nuclear holocaust, unstoppable virus, or zombie uprising destroys this pathetic façade we call civilization.

As I stated then, and still believe, these hardcore preppers aren’t just getting ready for Armageddon. They are actively rooting for it, because if it doesn’t happen, they have wasted an enormous portion of their lives on crazy nonsense.

But there is more to this disturbing mindset than a subconscious wish for complete chaos.

Preppers are overwhelmingly male and white. This is not just because white men have the most money to spend on underground vaults and piles of freeze-dried lasagna that can last 25 years (eww). It is because a societal collapse appeals to the white male fantasy of freedom.

Keep in mind that Americans “have been urged and trained to prep as children in various scouting organizations, as homesteaders given a plot of land by the federal government in the colonial project of ‘taming’ the West, and as steady, patriotic citizens prepared to survive nuclear attack to keep the US alive in their bunkers.”

In all of those scenarios (or mythologies if you prefer), the hero is a white man protecting his family. The image that we have been sold about these lone cowboys of ruggedness never includes women or Muslims or Latinos.

It’s always a white guy who believes making plans for “survival in the absence of state support is not being a doomsday prepper but simply being a reasonable, prepared citizen.”

And that brave individualist, who just needs the government to get off his damn back, doesn’t care if 911 goes offline or the streetlights stop working or the hospitals are overrun. When and if America implodes, he will finally be free to do whatever the hell he wants. 

Think of it. No stupid job with a stupid boss. No stealing of their hard-earned tax dollars (that are just going to lazy welfare cheats anyway). Not even any complaints to turn down the music, because the neighbors will be too scared (or too dead) to argue with the heavily armed king in his castle.

That sounds like paradise to many strong, gun-toting white men.

And there has never been a better time to embrace the fantasy. Our incompetent, corrupt government is not exactly reassuring its citizens that America will persevere. I’m not just talking about the shaky economy, unraveling international relationships, and botched wars that have become the hallmarks of this flailing administration.

The conservative mindset encourages “a bunkerized society [in] a permanent state of readiness … as a condition of living in the hollowed-out shell of a state that does not take infrastructural stability and basic need satisfaction as a right but as a good one must supply for oneself.”

It’s the ultimate libertarian endgame. The only thing better than small government is no government at all.

The American Dream, whatever that was, now costs far more than most people will ever earn. To many Americans, the odds of raising kids, buying a home, and achieving other traditional milestones are equivalent to the chances that the nation will fall into cannibalistic anarchy. So why not invest in a concrete alcove with a steel door that will be your personal kingdom, free of governmental interference and ethnic minorities?

And it certainly has felt like end times ever since November 2024, when the US chose fascism over boring competence.

To a large segment of America, the coming apocalypse is not something to be feared. It is an opportunity to start over, and to live one’s best life, and to shoot off as many guns as you damn well desire. These guys are looking forward to the collapse. 

So always remember: Your dystopia is someone else’s utopia.

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Who’s Sorry Now?

by on Aug.13, 2026, under Politics

Back in 2024, even if you weren’t repulsed at the GOP’s horrifying plan for rounding up dark-skinned individuals (and you should have been), taking just two minutes of serious thought would have informed you that deporting millions of people en masse would require a fascistic approach to civil liberties. 

And yet some people are still surprised. 

For example, a septuagenarian Trump voter in Texas is loudly proclaiming to media outlets that Trump is “destroying families,” which again, is not news to anyone who has been paying even a micron of attention. This white conservative now says he regrets his vote because ICE had the temerity, the gall, and the chutzpah to arrest his fiancé, a Latina who no criminal record.

She has lots of company in ICE detention centers, which are chockablock with innocent people who got nabbed by armed masked men with insecurity issues. But until his girlfriend was handcuffed, this guy was all for stuffing people into vans and shooting unarmed citizens.

The shocker isn’t that people like this exist. The ICE armada is so massive that many shortsighted, easily duped supporters of this policy were bound to get caught up in its jackbooted thuggery. Eventually, authoritarianism comes for everybody.

No, the mystifying aspect is that these buffoons are willing, even eager, to go on camera to simultaneously reveal their selfishness, disdain for humanity, and obliviousness that borders on the delusional or idiotic. Hey, if I had fucked up this badly, I would keep it to myself.

There is also the disturbing truth that thousands of Latino activists have been pointing out the cruelty of ICE’s gestapo tactics, with limited media coverage. But one old white guy shouts, “I got something to say about this,” and everybody listens up.

But speaking of people who should have known better, please note that one-quarter of Latino voters who supported Trump in 2024 now say “they would not vote for him again.”

This is a high percentage of regret, although still far short of the 100% who should apologize on a daily basis for their groveling before white supremacy. 

For those three-quarters of Latino GOP voters who are still MAGA supporters, they might want to listen to the conclusion of political experts who say, “Trump has now passed from being a stubborn narcissist to a cocooned authoritarian.” This phrase refers to “leaders who have become so trapped by their own self-regard, so isolated from the outside world, so imprisoned within their own sense of infallibility that they refuse to consider any arguments or information that conflicts with their beliefs.”

This means that “Trump’s irrationality could create other, even more perilous situations” because “like other authoritarians before him, the president has retreated, irrevocably, behind the walls of his own Forbidden City of the mind—a place where he is the emperor, his judgment is always right, and his commands must always be obeyed.”

So if that regretful Trump voter in Texas is waiting for our cocooned authoritarian of a president to apologize, he will be waiting until approximately the end of time. 

Until then, it’s only going to get worse.

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Fault Lines

by on Aug.06, 2026, under Politics

In the off chance that you are a MAGA supporter reading this, let me assure you of this:

None of the chaos engulfing America is your fault.

Just because you voted for a felonious rapist who is dragging the country toward autocracy while enriching himself and unleashing misery on the entire world, well, you are not to be held responsible for your choice to return a demented old racist to the White House.

How do I know this?

Well, as far back as Trump’s first election, commentors were falling over themselves insisting that liberals created this mess. The general argument was because progressives dislike racist jokes, all the salt-of-the-earth Americans had no option but to embrace fascism. It really was that simple.

This assumption — that millions of decent Americans were pushed into supporting right-wing insanity because of the woke mob— is still a popular viewpoint.

And it’s not just conservatives who are saying that.

Our old friends the moderate Democrats are insisting that Trump never would have won except for that meddling Bernie Sanders. If only the crazy old man had shut up about wealth inequality and oligarchs crushing us, everything would be great.

Just great. Yup.

The latest form of blaming the left for all things Trumpian presupposes that liberals are wrong to protest or advocate for progressive causes because we come across as too self-righteous or shrill. But we are also wrong to appease or normalizeMAGA demands, because that just encourages them to become more extreme.

OK, got it.

What about using humor to point out the absurdity of this disastrous authoritarian regime? No, we shouldn’t joke either, because that undermines how serious the situation is. But don’t be so serious either because of that first point about coming across as self-righteous.

So don’t say anything. But also reach out to MAGA types to educate them because they deserve our total respect no matter how much they would love to punch us in the face. How we reach out without saying anything is unclear to me.

In any case, the important principle is that progressives are always wrong. Whether we’re using facts to support our case, pointing out the consequences of the GOP agenda, or just asking for police to not shoot unarmed citizens, it’s our fault.

MAGA supporters are not responsible for their own actions, or for the often-sadistic behaviors they gleefully embrace.

It’s those darn leftists who keep pushing conservatives to be more extreme.

Of course, it’s strange that this argument doesn’t work the other way. The many excess of Trump (far more egregious and harmful than anything a liberal politician has proposed) are not carted out as an excuse for progressives moving farther left. Apparently, those liberals who are dabbling with democratic socialism are just whiny babies, and by the way, they are making millionaires feel unloved.

Now, it’s true that no other demographic of adults are ever given this sort of free pass on bad behavior. It’s similar to how struggling white men are never told to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps and instead are reassured constantly that the nation will do whatever it can for them (while at the same time telling everybody else to fuck off).

But MAGA is special. Because no matter how much they cheer for the destruction of democracy and the establishment of a fascistic theocracy, it’s an understandable reaction to those real villains: college-educated people who advocate for universal healthcare.

Trump supporters simply have no choice.

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Cold Hard Cash

by on Jul.30, 2026, under Economy

I recently discussed the Republican Party’s obsession with calling anything they dislike “communism.” To the GOP, this antiquated insult applies to affordable childcare, cheaper groceries, and healthcare that actually heals people instead of making insurance executives richer.

However, just because I dismiss the GOP’s absurd insistence that democratic socialism is a front for Stalinists doesn’t mean that I hate capitalism. OK, that economic system has a lot of flaws (like, a lot). And the brand of capitalism that the US is currently practicing is more akin to corporatism or full-fledged oligarchy than the free-market concept they taught you in PoliSci 101.

But capitalism has its advantages (in theory at least), and the marketer Seth Godin, whom I’ve quoted before, recently made a good point about how capitalism can enrich society.

Godin points out that the “upside of free-market capitalism … is that every product and every campaign is an argument to win over customers, to solve problems in a new and better way.”

It would indeed be grand if companies tried to solve problems instead of fuck people over to raise their stock price a penny. But again, we don’t live in a free-market society that rewards problem-solving. We live a cutthroat-capitalist nation where billionaires think hording wealth is a virtue.

In any case, Godin goes on to point out why monopolies are so horrific for society, and it is simply because “they don’t have to argue.” When a monopoly takes over, “the customer has no choice,” and the “monopoly stops listening, innovating and working for improvement, because they don’t need to.”

OK, that makes sense. It’s one reason we have anti-monopoly laws. Of course, the Trump administration is flicking those laws away like they are pesky mosquitoes, meaning that this is a great time to be a money-grubbing robber baron.

But there is a political angle to why monopolies are so vile. You see, according to Godin, “the same is true for democracy vs autocracy,” in that the “despot has no need to make an argument, so they don’t.”

Keep in mind that our humble president is not even trying to make the argument that his policies have been good for America. He is focused on terrifying people into supporting him and suppressing the vote so he doesn’t face another impeachment.

This aspiring despot has no coherent or rational argument. And he no longer cares, if he ever did, about improving America. He figures he has a monopoly, so why not indulge in acts of corruption so brazen that his allies don’t even attempt a defense. 

But let’s return to the concept of capitalism. Can it be modified to fulfill its promise to society? Or have we jumped the shark economically and culturally, where the best we can hope for is that plutocrats take mercy on us and employ the masses to be their indentured servants?

Well, I have an answer to that question. But it will cost you a dollar to hear it.

Come on, I’m not going to just give it away for free. This is America.

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