Left Jabs

  I try not to write the word ‘fuck’ too often. This is not from any prudishness or discomfort — I use it regularly in everyday speech — but seeing it in writing quickly gets old and tired. I do use it occasionally for effect, but the effect is usually minimal. In this post, however, I can’t get around it. This one is about the ironic, unintended meanings of the redneck t-shirt slogan “Fuck Around and Find Out.” A masterpiece of trashy thought, trashily expressed, I can’t talk about it without throwing a few F-bombs of my own. And while I suspect most of my readers are familiar with the word, they might not be familiar with the slogan. “Fuck Around and Find Out” is a macho challenge to you wussy liberals whose woke nanny-state ideas don’t comport with the second-amendment values of real Americans. It’s another way of saying, “Don’t fuck with me, I’m white, Christian, straight, and toxically masculine. And if you look at me sideways, I’ll shoot you.” Equal pa...

I was in physical therapy the other day (hamstring, no big deal), when I realized that the vibrant facility I was in, part of a large orthopedic surgery practice, is one of those thousands of healthcare-related businesses that were made possible by the Affordable Care Act. It brought to mind the ongoing fragility — the sheer precariousness — of these businesses, as the bullies ride into town. Obamacare is surely in their sights. We’ve always assumed Trump and his rubber-stamp Congress were still determined to repeal the ACA, but it occurred to me that with Elon Musk and his cyber-vandals screwing around with government computers, repeal is hardly necessary. All they need to do is cut off the funding, which, they would have you believe, is a matter of a few lines of code. If Musk can actually pull that off — and make it stick — it would quickly kill off PT centers like the one now stretching my hamstring, and wreak havoc on the ecosystem of surgery centers, spe...

  L et’s not sugar-coat it. Let’s call it what it is: a coup. It’s not a policy shift, a government shake-up, or a peaceful transfer of power. It’s not something Americans know much about, or are prepared to deal with. We’re witnessing a full-on fascist takeover. It would be right out of the Hitler playbook, except Hitler had nothing like the computer skills and gargantuan financial resources of the “tech bros,” Elon Musk and Peter Thiel. These two immigrants are, quite ironically, riding a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment to launch a hostile takeover of the federal government. It’s hard to know what to do about it, and better minds than mine are now pondering it full-time. But one way to start is to get over this ridiculous notion that Democrats are somehow responsible, or asleep at the switch, or should have seen this coming. A lot of them did indeed see it coming, long ago. Elizabeth Warren, Adam Schiff, Jamie Raskin, and dozens of other elected Democra...

  For me, the biggest shocker of the election was to see just how thoroughly the biggest and wildest MAGA lies have permeated the culture. Large parts of the electorate truly believe Democrats are the spawn of Satan. I mean that literally. There is a rabid religious component to this demonization that is both sickening and frightening. We’re witnessing utterly heinous acts being billed as what God wants, and there are few things scarier than zealots with power. And now they’ve got what they’ve wanted for half a century. This is the return on the right’s massive investment, first in dumbing down the American electorate, then in filling it with multiple layers of elaborate lies, pumped out through a closed media ecosystem that serves their audience a steady dose of alternative reality. Much money and thought has gone into those lies, many of which were repeated so often they replaced the truth. This long-term investment has been far more effective than I, for ...