by Edward Champion

A Proud Member of the Intolerant Left

Every belief structure contains a line in which you do not cross. The MAGA Cult has now crossed a line and have become more vocal as they have been disinvited from holiday gatherings. As they learn that their actions have consequences, don’t listen to their desperate cries of “another member of the tolerant left.” The “tolerant left” is a conservative invention. Resist by holding these uncomprehending jackanapes accountable for their hate.

We’ll probably never have a completely accurate tally of how many MAGA Cultists have been cut off and left in the cold this Thanksgiving, but we do know that a vast throng of fascists — including the hubris-fueled, dumb-as-rocks propagandist Jesse Watters — has been disinvited and told in no uncertain terms not to come home this week. And now these hateful morons are starting to lose what little of their minds they still possess. Speaking for myself, I refused to attend the Thanksgiving dinner for which I had planned to cook many tasty and hearty side dishes (homemade sourdough stuffing, my four cheese mac and cheese, corn bread casserole, and numerous other delicacies that have made many guests ranging in age from six to sixty-six squeal with delight), once I had learned that a Trump voter had been invited. I was specifically trying to honor one of the sensitive guests — an extremely kind, endearing, and very shy seventeen-year-old (son of a friend) who asked me very politely to refrain from talking politics. Had the entire guest list been comprised of people who stand for democracy, this would have been effortless. It’s the MAGA fuckwads, after all, who want to keep dragging up politics and who hope to “own the libs” with their deranged fantasy football stylings. (Less easy for me is refraining from saying “fuck” for long periods of time. The longest I made it was three hours at a Xmas gathering before I slipped. And after my loose lips betrayed the blunt truth of my ship, my friend hugged me and said that she was very proud of me for managing to make it that long. What can I say? I’m a profane yet erudite motherfucker who tries to atone for his inveterate NC-17 vernacular by dropping as many arcane ten cent words into a colloquy as I can through blind instinct. But I digress.)

The upshot is that I am not going to walk on eggshells anymore. There has always been a line in the sand. I’ll never break bread with a fascist. I am simply not going to tolerate anyone who stands against women’s rights, for mass deportation, for unmitigated restrictions on marginalized groups, for the erosion of education funding, for tariffs and economic devastation that will hurt the most vulnerable members of our nation and line the coffers of the plutocrats, and for restrictions on free speech and the intimidation of alternative voices. No. Fuck off. I’ve urged people to cut the bastards off and I mean it. If you are a fascist, I will denounce you with the most devastating vitriol I can summon and ostracize you loudly.

I can name four friends who are in a similar boat. And we’re all regrouping, gathering for some quiet moments of camaraderie. A time of peace and good eating should not be sullied by these evil goons. If you stand for an ideology that wishes the people I love and me dead, then why on earth would you ever think I could be civil with you in any way? You stand against humanism. You are my sworn enemy.

One would think that the MAGA fuckwits would be happy about this state of affairs. But it’s clear by their vociferous pipsqueaking on my social media feeds and, closer to home, by their desperate attempts to get back into my good graces that they’re not. Now that they realize that the only company they will have for the holidays will entail hateful, humorless, miserable, and uneducated jackanapes, they’re starting to understand just what they’ve lost. Well, tough titty. Don’t look at me. I voted for the centrist democracy-friendly candidate, despite the fact that it involved a lot of compromise of my leftist principles. You voted for the authoritarian strongman and you won everything. Why aren’t you happy about that? Go and consort with your fellow white supremacists and fuck off until the end of time. I mean, come on, aren’t you living the dream?

Well, their “dream” involves us, whether we like it or not. They are so obdurately wretched that they are trying to follow us like rats fleeing a sinking ship. And they are surprised when their feeble minds and flaccid bodies collide into a glue trap. You see, it’s not enough for them to win. What they want is to make us their subservient little bitches. What they are interested in is establishing a new pecking order in which they are on top. They try to taunt us and “expose our hypocrisy” with such hacky zingers as “Another member of the tolerant left.” But as Andy Khori wisely pointed out, the “tolerant left” idea is an invented term of art by the right. It’s designed to inoculate these uncomprehending lemurs from criticism. They’ll never answer to their own complicity in supporting a deranged ideology in which more women die, more families are torn apart because some of them weren’t born on the mainland, and in which LGBTQIA people live in great fear for their future. But they will try to use “tolerant left” as a gotcha point when the truth of the matter is that every political ideology and every form of morality does possess a hard limit on what is considered acceptable.

And now that these dimwitted and entitled little dipshits are starting to learn that we do have boundaries, they’re stunned to learn that they can’t get away with their platitudes and their FOX News mimesis anymore. They’re learning very swiftly that we’ve always been intolerant of any baleful force or figure standing in the way of education, democratic possibility, and human rights. And they’re also learning that we can fight just as dirty as they can, starting with the punishment of social isolation and, if they get more hot and heavy, a peremptory declaration that they are no longer a part of our universe.

“Can’t we just agree to disagree?”

Nope. Talk to the hand. You were eager to usher in a world in which boys are now threatening girls with the phrase “Your body, my choice.” And, as far as I’m concerned, we now no longer have anything in common. For what is the point of a belief structure if we don’t turn our backs when those wildly arrogant Icaruses insist on flying too close to the sun?

But, oh, how they need us! Oh, how these idiots chirrup with half-baked incoherence and small dick energy in the replies! And they can’t own who they are and the disgusting values they represent. They know that they’re now going to have to consort among themselves, without our wit, bonhomie, and all-around decency (and, in my case, my kickass cooking). They know that the only company they will keep will be braindead red baseball cap-wearing zombies who are equally unpleasant.

So call me a proud member of the intolerant Left. If you’re a fascist, you won’t get an invite to my happy life. If you’re drowning in debt after the tariffs kick in, I’ll watch you suffer from afar and not lift a single finger to help you. Because you crossed the point of no return. These fools are now squirming within a nadir of cruelty and insensitivity for which there can be no Venn diagram. They are a hostile threat to all of the human values I hold dear. They have nothing but hate, intimidation, and threats. They have no original thoughts or real ideas. They are completely incapable of understanding historical patterns. And they know deep down that they lack resilience and resourcefulness, two vital qualities for surviving the upcoming dark age that we have and they don’t.

You can also call me an elitist. I don’t care. Although I should point out that the bar for entry into my world is astonishingly low and easy: if you don’t know something, ask a question. That’s it. I’m never going to call your question stupid, even if everyone else in the room knows the answer. You asked. And that counts for something in a world increasingly hostile to facts and checkered by anti-intellectualism. But the fascists cannot even summon the basic grace to do even that. They are incapable of respect, curiosity, humility, or broadening their minds or their empathy. They really believe that they can go about living in this nation, under this wildly dangerous and narcissistic authoritarian, without ever comprehending the impact of vital institutions, once untouchable, permanently dismantled by nihilistic fascists who hope to obliterate decades of progress.

I’m a member of the intolerant Left because I love what used to pass for my country. If we become two Americas because half the hateful rubes wanted to blow up the bridge, then so be it. My side is smarter, pluckier, and more inclined to survive, especially if we keep resisting hard. I have no qualms about transforming the stupidest and most callous members of our nation into braying pariahs. Much in the way that I show no remorse in cutting off a toxic “friend” from my life. The MAGA Cult are abusive addicts who have demonstrated that they fall below the baseline for decency. And now they’re going to learn about what the criminologist John Braithwaite called reintegrative shaming. In his studies, Braithwaite found that ostracized criminals showed a higher probability to fall into recidivism. And that’s what we’re seeing from these red state hayseeds: recidivism. Through death threats and calling me “soyboy” and attempting to belittle everything about life that is fun and joyful. It would be one thing if some members of the MAGA Cult were to prostrate themselves at our feet and beg for forgiveness and ask us for help so that they can better understand the impact of their uninformed vote, perhaps even joining us in the fight against despotism. But they have demonstrated no such inclinations. They would rather double down on their xenophobia and their belittling of anyone who isn’t white, male, hetero, and cis. That’s a line that I refuse to cross. And if it makes me “intolerant,” well calling me a member of the “tolerant Left” isn’t the flex you think it is.

by Edward Champion

Chuck Woolery, the Worst Game Show Host of All Time, Has Finally Dropped Dead

Chuck Woolery was a worthless infestation who plagued American television in the 1980s and the 1990s. His death is long overdue.

Chuck Woolery is finally dead and I feel that I can walk into the wintry air with a modicum of relief and a new step in my stride. For Chuck Woolery was an unwanted infestation in American life who kept resurfacing on our television sets in the 1980s and the 1990s like a reptilian huckster kidnapping you, tying you up in his car, and then driving you out into the middle of nowhere to try and sell you on a timeshare. He was a worthless and hateful husk of a man, a slimy and fatuous fascist wind-up doll who couldn’t seem to wipe the solipsistic drool that dribbled down the corners of his Botoxed mouth at all times. He was incapable of curbing the pat aphorisms of intolerance that forever spewed from his asshole-scented mouth on social media. There was never a day in which this gauche gasbag failed to flatulate through his lips. He hated LGBTQIA people. He was unapologetically anti-Semitic. He demeaned liberal women because of the way they looked. And he was an early adopter of the bigotry and xenophobia that now passes for mainstream Republican talking points, announcing in 2012 that Blacks and gays did not require civil rights. Because that was literally all he had to hold onto when the producers eventually came to their senses and said, “Why the fuck did we hire that arrogant prick Woolery? Whose fucking idea was that?” (Sadly, the man who first hired Woolery could not be reached for comment. He has gone into hiding for his own safety and is believed to be living under the Witness Protection Program somewhere in Utah.) This made Woolery a little bit like Hitler — that is, if Hitler’s mediocre postcard painting skills were recognized by the likes of Merv Griffin and Mark Goodson after a high school guidance counselor had informed Adolf Woolery early in his life, “You know, game show host. That tracks.” That he said all these terrible things while resembling nothing less than a barely motile wax museum figure was the rare aesthetic touch proving to be accidentally apposite.

Some of the most honorable Americans I have ever known had always secretly hoped that Chuck Woolery would be beaten to death by a rare coalition of Quakers and Girl Scouts. They hoped that Chuck Woolery could run for his life in a jungle, pursued by hungry tigers who would instantly spot an unrepentant racist and devour him on a pay-per-view stream that all of us would happily pay for. But he was taken out for the good of America when the universe recognized, far later than everybody else had, that Chuck Woolery — who has been risibly described by some media figures as the king of smooth talk — did not have a heart. And so what passed for his heart — and the onyx malice that powered it was potent enough to keep this dubious fascist icon alive for eighty-three years — caved in on itself.

Chuck Woolery will leave no legacy other than “We’ll be back in two and two,” which he thundered at the cameras just before a commercial break in a matter that made William Shatner’s overacting look like light Method touches. And while many slow-minded reactionaries glommed onto this false temporal precision presaging a commercial break as some evidence that Woolery possessed wit and intellect, what they failed to understand was that these words represented a coded cry for help. With “two and two,” Woolery was announcing his IQ and his dick size.

This execrable slab of white male entitlement had one, and only one, skill. It was a completely unremarkable skill seen today in nearly all mediocre men and in nearly every finance bro: to boom and bristle with unfettered 20th century toxic masculinity. This was literally the only job requirement if you wanted to host a game show in the 1980s. There was never a moment on television in which Woolery believed in the great lie of his own importance. Woolery deployed this basic bitch quality to preside over some of the most manipulative game shows ever produced in America (specifically, Love Connection, which caused my mother to drink gallons of White Zinfandel every night when she was single). How much pain Woolery created for the American clime is difficult to calculate, but he almost certainly spawned suicidal ideations with his shotgun-to-mouth appeal in at least 62% of his audience. And it’s especially telling that many of these easily manipulated morons grew up and look back at the trauma of Woolery being on television every goddamned night of the week on some UHF station punching above its weight through the rose-tinted lens of childhood nostalgia.

It goes without saying that the world is better off without Chuck Woolery. Television has been drastically improved now that Chuck Woolery can no longer be tapped to tender us with his narcissistic belief that he was the center of the universe. And, perhaps most importantly, Woolery’s death ensures that he will not be appointed to a new Cabinet position for this monstrous incoming President. Then again, given the belief in conspiracy theories shared among the vast plurality of these nominated goons, I would not be surprised if Woolery’s stiff and desiccated body were to be exhumed only days after the funeral, deposited and propped up into a chair, Weekend at Bernie’s style, somewhere in the West Wing, and installed as the Secretary of Game Shows through a recess appointment. Woolery may be dead, but America may not be done with Woolery.

Rest in piss, Chuck Woolery. You were clearly one of the evil ones. You were such a hideous monster that the equally reactionary Pat Sajak somehow looks classy by comparison.

by Edward Champion

The One Way to Hurt the MAGA Cult: Cut the Bastards Off

There is one guaranteed way to inflict a lot of damage to the MAGA Cult right now and it involves cutting the bastards off. Start doing it today. They don’t deserve to break bread with you during the holidays.

After four days of being hit with death threats, pledges of violence directed towards me, one incident of doxxing, and outright hate from hundreds of MAGA cultists, I’ve noticed that they have started to make attempts to cozy up with me this weekend — as if telling me only a few days ago “Why don’t you kill yourself, you bald Commie?” (one of dozens of threats) never happened. These monsters are trying to squirm their way into our good graces and pretend as if everything is normal.

Well, I am here to say: FUCK NO.

We live in a new nation. A nation in which there is now a permanent divide between those who support democracy and those who want to kill off the rest of us.

Cut the bastards off.

Cut the bastards off. Even family and close friends who voted for Trump. Cut them off. All of these evil motherfuckers. Cut them off even if they share your blood. Do not go home for the holidays. That’s one thing you can do this month. Say no to Thanksgiving. Have a fun time with your true friends and family. (If you need Thanksgiving recipes, I’m happy to share. Email me.) Say no to FOX News-Watching Uncle Harry’s Turkey Day fiesta and Aunt Matilda’s covertly misogynistic Xmas party. Leave the fascists off your invite lists. Cut them out of your life. Tell them that they are not welcome because they do not stand for basic humanity. Cut them off because they stand for hate, violence, and intimidation.

Cut the bastards off.

Let them suffer the crippling loneliness of social isolation and of not having your majestic presence in their life. Because it will hurt them. It will hurt them when they are not invited to your wedding or your baby shower. It will hurt them when they fully understand that they are missing out on the most amazing moments of your life. They are not deserving of that. So cut the bastards off.

Cut the bastards off. Let them know that you fully understand that they do not love you. Because if they did love you, they would never have voted for a maniac who has made everything extremely unsafe for you and so many others. Let them understand that their vote had far more of a consequence than they understood.

This is one real act of protest you can do right now. The MAGA cultists may be full of bluster and arrogance as they take their weirdly spiteful victory lap, but they will feel pain if you ostracize and condemn them and you tell them that they are no longer a part of your life. I mean, remember the pain you felt when you came out to your right-wing parents and they told you that you were no longer welcome? Well, payback’s a bitch, isn’t it? Cut the bastards off. Because their only purpose in life is to cause pain and spawn hate. They literally have nothing else. So cut the bastards off.

Do not socialize with them. Do not be friends with them. If you have doubts, remember that they will soon sell you out to save their skin. So cut the bastards off.

Do not get into a relationship with them. Close your legs if they want to take you home. Before you go on a date with them, ask them who they voted for (along with some followup questions to determine if they are lying through their teeth) and if they say Trump, immediately block them and do not associate with them. Let them suffer in the same way that they are making us suffer. Cut them off and watch them from afar on social media as they are reduced to a puling and braying mess. In the same way that you are probably quietly feeling right now.

Cut the bastards off. These mouthbreathing motherfuckers are unworthy of you. You’re special. They’re not. They mindlessly bob their heads up and down and sputter a 24/7 froth of dehumanizing hate. So cut the bastards off.

A bartender cuts off a drunk who has one too many at a bar, right? Well, why should fascism any different? Cut the bastards off. They’ve had too much of Trump’s repugnant swill and I’m telling you that they are never ever coming back.

Cut these evil fuckwits off. Tell them that they no longer exist in your universe.

Cut the bastards off. Let them feel the wincing pain of standing on the side of hate. Let them know that they signed up for a new world in which high school boys are now telling high school girls, “Your body, my choice.” That’s unacceptable and unthinkable to anyone with a moral compass. So why would you want these sociopaths in your life? Cut the bastards off.

Let them know that suicide hotlines for LGBTQIA people have hit unprecedented levels and that they made this happen. And there is no coming back from that. It shows that your moral values and theirs do not align, even if they profess to be Christian.

Cut the bastards off. They stood against human rights. They signed up for unhinged harassment and violence, even after they won everything. Would we have done that? Fuck no. So cut the bastards off. Cut the bastards off because make no mistake: win or lose, the MAGA cult will always call for our dehumanization. So cut the bastards off.

Boycott their businesses. Why should they get to profit in any way when they have just ensured that prices next year will be higher than any inflation falsely ascribed to Biden? Cut them off before the tariffs and the boycotts from other nations kick in. Don’t buy any book written by a fascist. Do not support them. Do not show up to their events. Cancel your subscriptions to the Washington Post and The New York Times. Delete your X account. Cut the bastards off.

Cut the bastards off. By cutting them off, you will condemn them to a life in which they will only hear the tedious mantras of fascism and white supremacy. You will deny them the very civility that we believe in, but that is completely beyond them. And they will not have our humor, our kindness, our creativity, or our smarts. They will lose access to all of that and it will slowly destroy them. And they deserve it. So cut the bastards off. If they voted for Trump after being “on the fence,” they will swiftly understand that they are dead to us and that they are doomed and that they crossed a line which is unforgivable.

Cut the bastards off.

Unfortunately, you will have to consort with some of them. Particularly the fascists at your workplace. Well, give them nothing but the bare minimum. Cut the bastards off. Say nothing about your lives. Because they will use any and all details as weapons against you. But you can also cut them off without them actually knowing that you have cut them off by significantly reducing how much you are willing to share about yourself. Because they’re not very bright.

Cut the bastards off.

You do not need this drama in your life right now. You do not need additional people who will prevent you from being who you are. Because being authentic is going to be very difficult starting next year — especially when the arrests start. So why should they get even a second of what makes you special?

Cut the bastards off. I know it’s going to be difficult. I know you’re going to have to say no to a lot of people you presently love. But if you do this now, you’ll save yourself a lot of hurt in the long run when they start ratting you out. If you cut them off right now — while we have ten weeks until the Orange Monster becomes President — then you’ll get the pain out of the way now and save yourself a truly unsettling plot twist of Cousin Jim reporting you to the New Gestapo.

Cut the bastards off. Because we need you strong so that we can all fight and resist. We need you to be you. We need you to be authentic. And we will listen to you and provide a supportive ear. Because we’ve also cut the bastards off. It wasn’t easy for us either and we know how awful this is. But unfortunately this is what American life has come down to.

So cut the bastards off. Because we need you alive. And cutting them off will improve your probability of survival.

by Edward Champion

Journal: A Nation Without Accountability

In this journal entry, I contemplate a future nation without accountability and how this will radically alter everything we have known American life to be.

One of the truly unsettling paradigm shifts here in America is anticipating a diabolical world in which redress will be responded to with retaliation. Can you call the police if you know that your name will be added to a list if you aren’t white, male, and fascist? Can you settle a dispute with your neighbor if there is even the slightest possibility that the neighbor in question will rat you out to the New Gestapo? Can you legitimately defend yourself in court if all notions of jurisprudence have been permanently corrupted from the top down? If you are being exploited at your job, can you really do anything other than say yes to all overtime, throw all notions of an ideal work-life balance out the window, and not complain when you don’t get your annual raise? And if the fascists fritter away our social security or possibly seize our dutiful payments over the years to serve their own selfish ends, do you have a nest egg or a prodigious 401k to offset the robbery? (78% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, according to a 2023 study. National credit card debt hit $1.14 trillion back in August. The obvious answer to this question is a heartbreaking no.)

The new way will involve looking the other way — even when horrors we cannot possibly imagine right now will happen just outside our doors. Screams in the street without a community coming together to help the victim. Based on what I have observed so far, I think the majority of Americans are going to suffer through this in silence and allow the vile tendrils of unfettered authoritarianism to wrap scaly ringlets around every facet of American life. I do hope that I’m wrong. Before all this, I often joked with friends about what it would take for Americans to drag the plutocrats out into the streets. The answer, of course, is nothing. Americans are ultimately quite conformist. They do not remember the Wobblies, Shays’ Rebellion, or even the Boston Tea Party. It started with the book bans, but the fascists truly want the American public to be stupid, illiterate, and not possess a basic understanding of history. We are essentially malleable livestock to them. And they are eager for women to pump out babies, whether they like it or not. The hell of it is that it’s all going to be a primitive mimicry of all that has happened before. Recall the Mother’s Cross that Hitler established on December 16, 1938 to encourage “pure” German women to reproduce. Remember that Hitler established Muttertag as a national holiday not long after he became Chancellor in 1933. We will see a similar motherhood cult here. And there will be no accountability.

The spirit of rebellion practiced by our ancestors has been whacked out of us over generations and replaced with a dutiful commitment to corrupt leaders in power. And, as we saw from the 53% of Gen Xers and the 57% of white women college graduates who voted for Trump, there are many obdurate authoritarians around us. Not only do we now live in a nation without checks and balances, but it is clear that the people would rather bob their heads up and down and accept the most callous policies of this new status quo, even as everything — particularly accountability — is taken away from them.

Our spirit of resistance has been crushed and I see no immediate signs that it will be revived. It is as if the great labor movements of the last few years — the longshoremen, UPS, the train workers, SAG-AFTRA, et al. — never happened. There really should be rebellion in every city over what is going on, but nothing has really been organized, save for the good people behind the Women’s March planning several events. (I note that they haven’t planned anything after January 20th. Possibly because nobody knows if Trump will weaponize the National Guard and other military branches to retaliate with mass arrests and bullets against those who peacefully protest — a legitimately horrifying possibility.)

Trump and his fascists won’t just go after the more vulnerable members of our society. They are actively working right now to make all of us more vulnerable. Some truly monstrous people are being considered for his new Cabinet, including Susan Wiles as his Chief of Staff, John Paulson and Larry Kudlow as Treasury Secretary, and Marco Rubio as Secretary of State. The common quality of all of these proposed candidates is that they are sycophants who will always say yes. They have all been quite nimble about retaliating against perceived enemies without saying anything publicly. They don’t need to say anything publicly. Because they have their MAGA Cult doing everything they can to flood our feeds with deranged counterfactuals and insane conspiracy theories. Just three days after the election results, there have been crude and unsettling efforts on TikTok by the fascists to paint me as an unhinged maniac.

Even those teetering within some precarious middle-class tax bracket are going to see their purchasing power erode and their options for any shred of upward mobility dry up. I have to laugh over vital battles for a living wage and affordable housing becoming nullified overnight. It strikes me as absurd that vital efforts to improve everyone’s lot in life will no longer be in play. It’s as if these discussions never happened. And as we regroup and try to fight another day for some shred of accountability, the question now is what topics will be allowed into the national dialogue within the next year. We are going to see a vast and burgeoning underclass and all this could very well outdo the suffering we experienced during the Great Depression. As climate change spawns more disasters, we could very well be living under a federal government that offers nothing to help its people. One of Trump’s ideological innovations was to falsely align FEMA aid with xenophobia. And the cowardly jackals who voted for him absolutely believe this.

And I see that Netanyahu has gleefully leaned into more genocidal efforts, knowing very well that he will continue to collect his paycheck from the States for more arms to massacre Palestinians and knowing that he can manipulate Trump with ease. No difference between the two candidates, my ass.

We really should have paid greater attention to the September polls showing us that the majority of Americans support mass deportation — including 25% of professed Democrats. Goddamn, that was a huge mistake. But, hey, there was a whole lot going on. (And what’s the Venn diagram like between this xenophobic bunch and the 16 million registered Democrats who stayed home on Tuesday? Christ, I know Republicans who voted for Kamala because they understood the dire threat better than these pusillanimous weasels.). Instead of actively organizing to fight the ruling class, most Americans are looking for a scapegoat and they are quite happy to buy into illusions. They would prefer to be victims rather than fighters and thinkers and decent people. They voted to obliterate this nation and take away security and possibility from everyone.

Senator Bernie Sanders was right to observe that the Democratic Party abandoned working class Americans, that “the American people are angry and want change.” And while it’s unsettling that a vote from an uneducated nihilistic chowderhead without empathy or commiseration was on the same level as anyone considering the long game, it cannot be gainsaid that the working-class was so angry and so impatient that they were willing to destroy accountability. The ruling class won this week. They pitted us all against each other and now there is no way back.

We have ten weeks to figure this out. Ten weeks before the Orange Menace becomes the 47th President. Ten weeks to figure out a strategy. Ten weeks to figure out who we can trust and how we can outwit the vast majority of Americans who smile at us in the hall just before they inform on us to the new authoritarians. I am starting to see neoliberals blame progressives for what went down on Tuesday, but honestly it’s these sanctimonious Karens I worry about the most. They will prove just as zealous in casually ruining lives as the MAGA Cult. Sure, “Susie from Accounting” smiles at you, asks how your day was, and comes into the office with a homemade fruitcake to share with everyone. But Susie from Accounting is also going to be the one reporting anyone who is “disloyal” or who sticks out. And Susie from Accounting will love this new power she has to rat anyone who she perceives as distasteful. Accountability, predicated on a fair and neutral weighing of the grievances, has been replaced by a new evil accounting culture that will outdo McCarthyism and the Christian zealots who accused women of being witches in 17th century Salem.

The fascists are already well ahead of us. We are going to have to act and think fast. Hopefully my William Shrirer-inspired “journal” here can be of some solace to those who are on the good side. Any ideas are welcome. Thank you for reading.

by Edward Champion

Journal: Early Signs of Fascism in America

It has been two days since the election results and the early signs of conformity can be seen from every vantage point.

It has been only two days since the horrific election results were announced and, even in a “safe” blue spot like New York City, I have noticed an increased conformity. Everyone is now on their best behavior. Which, of course, is exactly what the Republicans want. This is why Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerburg showed great pusillanimity in praising Donald Trump after his victory. They fear being punished by Trump’s new tariffs, which are estimated to remove $78 billion of spending power each year from Americans. I have already heard sussurations among international friends about boycotts being organized against America. There is talk of other countries punishing us much in the manner in which we froze assets in Russia. We are about to be dropped into the worst economic quagmire since the Great Depression. And frankly we deserve it. I’m deeply ashamed to be an American right now.

Out of morbid curiosity, I listened to Bill Burr’s podcast and he made no mention of Trump. He, like Bezos and Zuckerburg, knows where his bread is buttered. And he has become a gutless and timid shell of his former self. His jokes were remarkably inauthentic and he desperately tried to pad out his show with laughter. Presumably he — like many other prominent entertainers — has been informed by his manager to not talk politics. Only two days in and the more robust truth tellers are already turning into Trump sycophants. I’m sure we will see many more disappointments. My money is on Jon Stewart to be one of the first to sell out. He did, after all, defend that vile racist Tony Hinchcliffe.

Now I was already a polite fellow, but even I have found myself doubling and even tripling down on courtesy, adding a few more thank yous even when I have already effusively expressed gratitude. After all, we have no idea who will start ratting us out once Trump’s version of a Gestapo becomes a reality. People don’t really trust each other anymore and there is an increased nervous edge to people’s laughter. I have attempted to crack jokes, but my comedic instincts seem to have desiccated. Because the thought of what is about to come is just too chilling. The thought of having to tone down my exuberant loudmouth qualities for four years in order to increase my probability of not being shot under a fascist regime is a complete affront to who I am as a human being. I am also getting my passport renewed while it is still possible.

The streets have become lonelier and emptier. People are hiding in their apartments. The liquor store in my neighborhood seems the only place where you can listen to the ribald honesty and goodhearted camaraderie that flowed like limitless wine at the start of this week, but that is now as rare as plutonium deposits. The frightening thing is that we are all falling into these new routines with a distressing ease. It seems we’re fated to accept our new fascist world faster than the Germans did after Hitler became Chancellor in 1933. In 2016, there were protests against Trump the next day. But not this time. Everyone walks with a forlorn face and an unshakable fear. Nobody is having a good time and you can feel a palpable anxiety exuding from nearly everyone. It’s much stronger than the dread I recall in November 2004, when George W. Bush was re-elected.

I have to hand it to Donald Trump. He has destroyed the spirit of life in America overnight. He has turned us all into people trying to save their own skin. And his incorrigible cult has continued to lie and gaslight and fabricate reality in the comments on my TikTok posts — this even when I was reporting nothing but objective facts. I did make a good faith effort to try and get through to one such MAGA cultist today, only to be received by a corpulent and pustulant face of unrepentant rage, screaming at me for “fearmongering,” despite the fact that I had quoted from Project 2025 and directly from the Orange Menace himself.

I spent much of the last two days working the phones, calling two dozen friends to remind them that I love them and that I have their backs. A few were reluctant to talk altogether, but they did text me back. The bravest among my coterie broached the question of personal retaliation. Nobody’s ever going to say this on social media, but it seems to be on everyone’s minds. My friends all agreed with me that, if it comes to it, they would rather be shot in the head than capitulate to Trump and his fascism. That’s how I knew I could trust them. But then I’ve known all these amazing people a very long time.

I have found it impossible to read or write new pages of my audio drama. Yesterday, I slipped and succumbed to binge drinking for the first time in two and a half years. But I am now sober and thankfully my worst solecism was calling a friend and not remembering the conversation we had. She was extremely kind and understanding. Yeah, I need to stay off the sauce. But I am human and deeply worried and frightened about the future.

Living seemed so easy only a few days ago. I had a happy life and a creative routine in which I pumped out five good clean pages each day. But I have been plagued by the worst depression I have felt in ten years: in large part because I cannot determine how I can possibly be myself or be social with others in this hideous new order. I have no idea what “living” is going to be like once that monster takes office again. If I can’t be lively and outspoken, then how can I be me? Will I have to flee this country? Will I have to hide people in my apartment? How quickly will they detain me? Is there a single woman in Canada who can pluck me from this nightmare, whisk me away to Toronto, and marry me? I mean, the girl I was seeing just broke up with me: amicable, no hard feelings between us. So I’m now available again. Are these pragmatic considerations or paranoia?

It is a deeply soul-destroying time to be a thinker. I’ve never really considered myself an intellectual, but I feel that the very bedrock of ideas has been permanently sullied by a populace that would rather hear the sweet white supremacist lies that Donny whispers into their ears. I fear for the intelligentsia, the academics, the librarians, and all the other guardians of thought and knowledge. I can imagine books being burned. I can imagine professors being beaten to death by MAGA thugs in classrooms. This has all happened before. Just read any book about the Holocaust. What’s particularly sickening is that Trump has silenced nearly everyone and created a system where sycophancy is the only way to make it to tomorrow. The fascists have the White House, the Supreme Court, the Senate, and, unless there is a miracle, the House of Representatives. For the first time in a long time, I truly have no idea what our future will be. I am a solitary stranger in a nation that I once loved with all my heart. Contrary to President Biden’s speech today, I cannot see the great American experiment continuing. We are a nation lost, with a spirit that feels as if has been permanently asphyxiated.