Dearest Donald, you got shot. Sorry. Yesterday’s papers. Does anyone remember how many people of all shades and persuasions wished you a speedy return to health? Various factors propelled their words. Differentiating their reasons matters.

First, there was a humane and sincere propensity to not wish ill on others. That’s something you, Donald, would not understand. Closely related there was an affirmative desire to avoid the swamp of hate which once you step in ensnares with ties that bind. You, Donald, are already long since swamp-bound. Also, there was a less benign desire to not appear uncaring, despite, well, not caring. You, Donald, get that. Then there was a desire to be or at least to appear to be civil and mature. Again, Donald, that’s beyond your ken. And alas, there was also a defensive desire to avoid criticism. That, Donald, you routinely exploit. And finally, there was an understandable fear of what a bulleted Trump might unleash. Only you, Donald, know for sure. And beyond all those sentiments, who knows? Maybe there was even a paper-thin layer of sincere caring concern for your actual self. You think so, Donald? I doubt it. 

I have been screeding of late. I’d apologize except that it seems appropriate. it is hard to refrain. And so, why refrain? And so, just one last time, what do I feel about you Donald? It’s a little complicated. I see you as a creature lodged many levels beneath contemptible. You appear to me, that is, as a rampaging beast. You just do what comes naturally. You spew hate, but without an iota of choice involved. You are a living reflex. You are a 100% product of your own inner drives. A walking, talking, hating reflex.

You growl and claw outside any realm of morality. I can’t hate a spider for poisoning, a boa constrictor for squeezing, a lion for ripping, nor even a tiny little super virus speck for reproducing. They are what they are. You are what you are. So why hate you? I should forget about it. You are Donald just being Donald. And hate isn’t healthy.

But, no. I’d rather dwell a bit on it. Because the overriding fact is that you are not just another beast. You are a person. You make choices. You are not a speck unto yourself. You have had and you even retain real power, and you seek massively more power. You cavort with others of your ilk although thankfully not everyone who cavorts with you, or who likes you, or even everyone who adores you is remotely like you. So what is the attraction?

The power brokers who sing your praises. They strike me as utterly horrible self centered greed machines. But as to their being like you, I suspect they are mostly pretenders to that level of beastliness. They are certainly seriously dangerous, yes, but not beastly. Not like you, and not like your late, great Hannibal Lector. 

But what about those who matter more, your voters? To my eyes, multiple factors push and pull them into your orbit. For most of them, I suspect their attachment to you is highly mutable. Their escape might even be relatively quick and painless. In fact, I think we may be seeing that starting to happen even as I write this. Trump voters escaping Trump.

Sadly, others who vote Trump are so deeply embedded in your orbit, so tightly tied to your beastly self, that their escape will require a stupendously hard climb. To provide them ladders is a worthy act. To withhold ladders from them is cruel and also self defeating. But to wish you well so you can ensnare them more tightly—that is unworthy. 

So, back to you Donald, and of course, everything anywhere around you always returns to you. You are not just a beast, but also a beast rider, a beast provoker, the Beast in Chief, and unlike lots of your critics, I have to admit that you are scarily good at beastliness. It is your undeniable bit of genius. You are a sure fire-first round unanimous inductee into the Beast Hall of Fame. Congratulations. 

You are at once as stupid as a turnip yet as effective as an idiot savant. You may yet make the best of having sickened yourself and having sickened even those guarding you, even those praising you, and of course so many millions of others by your anti-science, self-seeking, power-grabbing, endlessly lying, deaf, dumb, and blind wizardry. You may even get to strut and sputter on the biggest stage again, though I very much doubt that will happen. Surging sanity is forming up in your way.

You gleefully scream your mantra: “Thank me, praise me, follow me” even at the corpses of your victims. Last time you had the helm, you told us to skip the masks, skip the social distancing, and go back to business as usual. Body bags burst forth. Next time? Full on fascism! So, Donald, there cannot be a next time. Humanity’s first big step toward many many more steps to follow: You must be defeated. 

And yet, love Biden? Love Harris? Distaste for them will not interfere with stopping you. We know without any doubt that a lesser evil is still evil. We know that sometimes a lesser evil is a lot lesser evil. And we know this is one of those times.

Remember the Sixties, Donald? You were alive yet somehow you missed it, didn’t you? Part of those days was love and kindness. Part of those days was dignity and respect. But Donald, back then there was also a commitment to seek justice that even a half century later remains vastly more timely than today’s votes for you. Also, truth be told, that commitment remains vastly more appropriate even than most of today’s too timid votes against you. 

Coming from then, I can understand, acknowledge, admit the justification for, and respect the pain, alienation, desires for dignity, and desire to hit upward that fuels a great many of your voters—indeed, that I think fuels most of them. I can even understand the greed and deep-rooted misogyny and racism that fuels some of the rest of your voters. Not to mention the fear that hogties many of your opponents. You reward greed, nurture misogyny and racism, and instill fear right up there with history’s most vile classist, sexist, racist fear-mongers. Fear monger medals for you, for sure.

And you know what Donald, I think your voters whose pain, alienation, desire for dignity, and desire to hit upward fuels their votes for you may soon defect from you. For them to see through you and to shake off their support for you may soon become admirable to their friends and their families who will in turn follow suit. Many million MAGA hats recycled. Many million Trump lawn signs X-ed out. Your wild shenanigans felt fun and friendly for awhile for those voters, but real fascism, Project 2025, that is a step way too far.

So here’s to you Dearest Donald, you who are the foremost master of mayhem against all of humanity. Has anyone ever so gleefully welcomed doom as you welcome it? You are a big, bad, dumb, welcomer of death. It is probably only my idiosyncratic wish but I hope someone turns on a stereo near your head and plays the young Bobby Dylan singing his song to you, his song that so aptly applies to you. I hope it plays for you, over and over, just out of your reach, until you finally actually hear it. Until you cry. Can you do that?

And then I might weep for your soul, but you don’t have one. I might bemoan the loss of your human intelligence, but you don’t have any of that either. You only have beast intelligence and of that you have a massive over supply. I would lament the loss of your sly and slippery talent for self preservation, but the end of that would be the end of you, and the end of you would be a blessing without disguise.

And while I am at it, these wishes extend as well to everyone who feasts like you on futility and violence. So it is for you, too, Bibi. Of course it is for you too. And Joe, yes, I gotta add that despite some relatively nice moves, it’s for you as well. To bank roll genocide qualifies. And surprise, it is likely even for Kamala, despite that she may wind up a Fascism slayer. She may even redeem herself. We will see. But in any event, still more so, way more so, it is for the institutions behind all of you. 

My message is really pretty simple. Business as usual in the United States of domination is now and has been incredibly vile. Those who run that business tend to reflect its true colors. But there are gradations. Even rare exceptions. And on the road forward, the gradations sometimes matter. So I want Kamala to win and even to win very big. But once that is done, and it better get done—then unless by some miracle Kamala becomes Rosa’s sister, Noam’s daughter, and from deep within herself a patient and proud purveyor of revolution—she too will become someone to dissent from and not dissent’s daughter.

So, here’s to you dearest Donald. And here’s to all who abet genocide in all its capitalist, racist, sexist, and authoritarian forms. Here’s to those who are worst and those who are less worst. And not only in the U.S. but wherever you may reside. Until injustice’s end and humanity’s rebirth.

Donald and Bibi and the rest too, trailing well behind but nonetheless Masters of War and not of peace—here’s to you a bit of an exit song from Bobby. Heard it before? Good. Hear it again:

Like Judas of old

You lie and deceive

You’ve thrown the worst fear

That can ever be hurled

Fear to bring children

Into the world

For my baby

Unborn and unnamed

You ain’t worth the blood

That runs in your veins

Let me ask you one question

Is your money that good?

Will it buy you forgiveness?

Do you think that it could?

I think you will find

When your death takes its toll

All the money you made

Will never buy back your soul

And I hope that you die

And your death will come soon

I’ll follow your casket

On a pale afternoon

And I’ll watch while you’re lowered

Down to your deathbed

And I’ll stand over your grave

’Til I’m sure that you’re dead

Step one, Donald loses because Kamala wins. 

Step two, talk with Trumpers. Welcome Trumpers. 

Step three, new vision, new strategy. 

Step four, organize, organize, and yes, fight, fight—but for peace and justice. For a new world. 

These times feel for so many like the worst of times. 

But these times can become for so many the best of times. 

These times are changing. If not now, when? 

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