The Tearful End Of A Climate Warrior - An Environmental Martyr Gives Up The Ghost To Donald J Trump

Bob Arthur, veteran of the social justice wars, old Freedom Rider, inveterate advocate for blackness, women, peace, equal distribution of wealth, and climate change, had just begun to feel himself after the humiliating defeat of Madame at the polls, when he had to watch the cavalcade of whiteness come to the capital for the Trump Inauguration.  

After years promoting racial diversity, gender fluidity, and the rise of the black man to his proper place atop the human pyramid, here he was awash in whiteness, a horrific retro-finish Fifties Leave It To Beaver episode; and then came the Inaugural Address with the words 'Drill, Baby, Drill' loud and clear.  In one fell swoop, all of Bob's caretaker justice, love for the environment and hatred for the capitalist dragoons stealing from the planet, gone in a flash. 

Leaky pipelines would crisscross the nation.  Vast new oilfields and earth crust fracking derricks would appear from the Gulf to the Canadian border.  High-emission gas-powered cars would belch carbon into the atmosphere, and electric cars would go unsold on dealer lots.  The Earth would warm more quickly than ever, turning the planet into a charred wasteland.  It was a vision of Hell. 

The Trumpers were coming into town in their Escalades and Suburbans, heedless of the existential crisis, indifferent to the perils of a warming climate, a tinseled, sequined, ship of fools.  All the images of his youth in Fifties Babylon, Long Island - mothers in the kitchen, dads in fedoras, Kinder, Küche, Kirche and all the self-assured complacency came flooding back.  Time had stopped, sense and sensibility gone, the country victim of a bullying crowd.  

Of course all this was just the product of a febrile mind and a wildly hysterical man who had put all his eggs in one basket, who was immured within an impossibly fantastical world, and who felt that the cycle of history had actually stopped turning.  The progressive utopia was a sure, inevitable, verdant end; not something impermanent and fungible. The wheel of fortune had landed on  a jackpot of victorious environmental favors. 

All night long, in one inaugural party after another, lights blazed, Escalades idled, and décolleté, strapless, backless-gowned blonde beauties danced the night away in overheated ballrooms in a deliberate show of excess, a big fat fuck you to every responsible American who had worked hard to tame the nation's energy appetite to save the planet. 

Everywhere Bob looked there was a revelry unseen in the four years of the Biden Administration, a dour, morose, worried period summarily tossed aside.  Gone were the rainbow coalition, the community of good works, the determined, missionary men and women of The Movement.  

Unused to glee and good times, Bob went inside and huddled with his inner circle in Scientists For Peace, a catch-all non-profit whose final be-all and end-all was climate change, the last and greatest of social challenges.

The group felt they had been making headway - E-car mandates, no more XL pipeline, a curb on off-shore drilling and gas exploration, and a general willingness to turn down of the heat - and so were all the more upset by the horde of climate naysayers marching into town.  On Day One as promised the Trump imprimatur was stamped on one executive order after another undoing all Biden's airy notions.  The United States would finally realize the goal of energy independence, no longer tied to foreign oil, and freeing Europe from the energy fascism of Russia.  Geopolitics would be the first consideration of energy policy, and the United States would no longer be the country of fairy tale environmentalism. 

'Oh, God', moaned Bob as reality set in.  It was really happening.  Madame, a proud black woman was not getting inaugurated today, and the vision of a multi-colored, harmonious, bonded America of black people and riotous gender diversity was gone. 

He loosened his collar, an instinctive, foreboding gesture to the warming climate, shook his head, and moped down K Street.  What's a mother to do?, the old advertising tag line, popped into his head.  What indeed as the rug had been pulled out from under him.  His whole life of social reform swept away in a gully-washer of conservative idiocy. 

'Buck up, Bobby', said his wife, herself a social justice warrior from way back, veteran of Woodstock, the Women's Movement, MeToo, and the Feminist Caucus, who was as dismayed as her husband at the Trump victory but who was a closet realist, a go with the flow ex-hippy who knew that what comes around, goes around in a let it be world.  It was time to hang up the spurs, move to Florida and break out the chaise lounge. 

When Bob barged into the house, steaming with anger, apoplectic about the Trump turn of events, and saw his wife sitting before the fire sipping a pina colada without a seeming care in the world, the day and all its miseries was complete. 

Actually all of Friendship Village, the solidly progressive neighborhood of Bethesda, was no different.  Wives were propping up their feet, getting buzzed, and happy as larks that the years of emotional penury were finally over.  Excess was back again. Having more than one drink, topping off the tank, tossing masks and social distancing out the window, delighting in hot days and warm winters...Ahhh, sheer delight. 

Women, keepers of the hearth, have always known what's what, when the screw was turning and when it was time to fold 'em; and so it was with his wife and her book group.  A collective sigh of relief when Trump was elected - a silent one knowing the rabidness of their husbands' beliefs, but a smiling release nonetheless.  Marriage had been put on hold for years because of their husbands' political fury, and they had gone along with it, played the part of equally committed spouse, marched along side, but biding their time until the phase had ended; and with Donald Trump it surely had. 

Bob, on the other had, was disconsolate, let down, betrayed.  How could she? he spluttered as he stormed up the stairs, the drumbeat of the inaugural marching bands still in his head.  He looked at the pictures of King, Abernathy, and Jackson crossing the Pettis bridge, and smiled.  Ahh, those were the days, he thought; but the howls of a group of MAGA hat wearing goons roaring up and down Wisconsin Avenue broke the reverie, and again, 'What's a mother to do?'

He turned the thermostat down - his wife had deliberately jacked it up - and wandered from room to room, looking at his peacenik, women's march, gay pride, Black Lives Matter memorabilia.  No, he shouted to no one in particular.  No, I will never give up, never; but the shock was simply too much for a man of his age and increasing mental infirmity, and only the glue factory was in his future. Out to pasture for a few years, then headed for home. 

Barbarians At The Gate - The Trump Victory And The Scurrying Of The Lost Left

Bob Arthur, culture warrior and veteran of all social wars, simply couldn't believe the news on election night. 'How...how could that...that ignoramus, that fool, that....', he sputtered trying to find words for the unthinkable, the unconscionable.  A Trump victory was simply not in the cards, a non-starter, and impossibility, but there he was, bloody ear and all, waving to an adoring crowd. 

For Bob and his colleagues, the election was supposed to be a done deal. Good always triumphs over evil, and this was no different.  The American people would see as clearly as a hand before their face the pure, unmitigated nastiness of the man, his unprincipled, arrogant, obsessive persona; and his blatant racism, misogyny, and homophobia.  How could they not?  The man was a blowhard, a fool, and crass, crude idiot out only for his own good without a sensible, compassionate thought in his head.  

'How could they...', and here again Bob spluttered and stumbled. Living for so long in the warm, comforting assumption that right and good would prevail - that the truth spread by the progressive Left would be the truth, the only truth, and nothing but the truth. 

But here he was, standing on the curb of Pennsylvania Avenue watching the preparations for the Trump Inauguration, billed as The Greatest Show on Earth, an extravaganza of whiteness, wealth, and privilege, a cavalcade of bimbos, airheads, and insurrectionists.  He shook his head in dismay. 'No class', he muttered. 'A clown show, a vaudeville act, a shameless, buggering idiotic spectacle'

Bob was not alone in his agonizing grief. No one in the progressive cabals of Washington saw this coming.  There was absolutely no way that this interloper, his crude, outlandish boor could ever make his way back to the Capital.  They had spelled out the danger of his return - the man would seize all reins of power and within months would establish the foundations for autocratic rule.  His storm troopers would be sent into the streets to round up black and gay people.  His paramilitary would set up machine gun nests all along the Southern border and mow down all asylum seekers.  He would turn Wall Street loose and the days of the Robber Barons would return. 

The outgoing President, Joe Biden, looked in the camera a few days before leaving office, and warned people of the spawn of the devil.  Donald Trump and his cadre of billionaire investors, captains of industry, and predatory insurance companies would create an oligarchy of white privilege never before seen.  His accession to office will usher in a dark period of hate, prejudice, and oppression in which only the aristocratic few will benefit. 

 

The Trump advance team howled with delight as they watched the old man tearfully address the nation. Squinting to make out the words on the teleprompter but grappling with the meaning of the words before him, Biden looked as lost and befuddled as ever.  His script-writers and confidants had carefully framed his message to the American people, put in all the 'emphasis...pause...anger...smile' prompts in the text scrolling down the teleprompter in large, oversized letters, but the President bungled the enterprise, paused when he should have shown resoluteness, smiled as he mouthed villainy, and was just the sad spectacle of failed leadership he had always been. 

Worst of all, thought Bob, was not so much the politics of the coming administration- the Left could deal with economic and financial challenges - it was the cultural upheaval that worried and dismayed him.  Trump not only brought with him bimbos and airheads, but the unwashed, backwoods, gun rack, bass boat cracker mentality of the fifty million Americans who were duped by him and voted him in office.  It was not the peaceful revolution Bob hoped for but the coming of the anti-Christ. 

 

Gone were any thoughts of a verdant, peaceful, harmonious community of good; and only images of bare-knuckled, insensate, predatory wolves of Wall Street were left. God help us, he muttered, although quickly retracted his words.  There was no God to call upon.  They, the Left, had been the country's secular salvation, and now they, martyred, tossed aside, and left on the curb were no longer. 

'Barbarians at the gate', his wife Agnes mused, remembering her Roman history.  She had watched Gladiator five times and loved the first, dramatic scene where Maximus leads a Roman army to victory against the barbarians; and although she was against any kind of imperialism and colonialism, she couldn't help cheering when the phalanx of archers shot their flaming arrows into the ranks of the Goths. She felt like a Roman, ready to take on Donald Trump and his savage horde. 

Of course neither she nor any of Bob's colleagues were up to the mark on that score.  They had resorted to backbiting, lawfare, calumny, and an insidious campaign of calumny and hatred, so no frontline heroes were they, so the last recourse - violent opposition - was not in their profile. They hadn't even the strength or will to pull up the drawbridge. 

This misjudgment, this impossibly myopic view of the issue, was the problem.  The country had changed.  The American people had changed.  Rather than accept the progressive woke agenda, they had turned against it.  The arrogant badgering, self-righteous hectoring and demeaning was galling. No mas! was the meme of middle America. We don't want what you're selling.  These were not barbarians but normal, sane, responsible Americans who saw life and country quite differently from the whiny, morose, prophets of doom who came calling. 

 

Bob watched the majorettes who would lead the parade practice on the Mall, high stepping, smiling, as beautiful as the Dallas Cowboys' cheerleaders, twirling their batons with verve and precision.  It was captivating, and Bob smiled; but quicky erased it when he realized that these young women were shills for the cartoon character waiting in the wings.  They didn't belong on Pennsylvania.  They should go back to the fervidly ignorant patriotic towns where they came from. 

As the boom and thumps of the Marine band, also practicing at the west end of the Mall came to Bob on a chill January wind, he shook his head. 'Madame was supposed to be here', he muttered, thinking of Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate, a black woman of intellect, style, and agency who should have been on her way to consolidating the progressive victories recently won.  Instead it was this imposter, this fool, this unreconstructed barbarians about ready to march down the Avenue to the Oval Office. 

Bob shuddered again.  Lines of old Beatles song came into his head, 'Let it be...let it be'; but he had never been one to do so, always an activist, a true believer in right and justice.  One couldn't simply let anything be, so he stood there wondering.  A Trump supporter in Lafayette Square thought he was a bum, just standing there in an overcoat. 

Pomp, Regalia, Beautiful Women, And The Reign Of Donald Trump - Happy Days Are Here Again

The Left are a disassembled, scattered, uncertain lot.  Humiliated at the polls by a resounding Trump victory, they are at sixes and sevens, an uneven consortium of climate activists, social justice reformers, blackness heroes, open door immigrationists, and MeToo enforcers, all bewildered at the rise of Donald Trump and shocked at the country's rejection of the progressive canon. 

The principles of right action, say progressives, are endemic to American society and will eventually be recognized as such - foundational values more basic to the national character than those outdated, archaic ideas of raw individualism, laissez-faire capitalism, and Wild West euphoric expansionism of earlier days.  Diversity, equity, inclusivity, and identity are more salient and essential to the modern secular American state than any so-called divinely inspired notions of Jefferson and his colleagues.

The time might not have been right for the full-bore, take-no-prisoners assault of the Left - but these principles are no less valid than they were before the election.

This is to miss the point entirely.  The Trump victory was no less than an endorsement of Jeffersonian populism, a republic of individuals ordained to promote the commonweal and a rejection of state interventionism.  The Left's agenda of woke reform, communitarianism, and geopolitical realignment is antithetical to this original vision of America; and Make America Great Again is a rallying cry not for wild, presumptive power, but a call for return to basic principles. 

 

Because the point was missed, it is natural that the Left is grieving, saddened by what they see is the demise of polity and hopefulness, and an emotional and psychic loss. 

The pomp, circumstance, and regalia of the incoming Trump cadres violates even more the progressive's personal, inner space.  Every Las Vegas showgirl, every blonde beauty, every single white, straight tuxedoed male, and every rendition of the Star Spangled Banner and American the Beautiful rankles at a very intimate level.  'We have been violated'. 

They are right.  The Inauguration, the balls, the festivities are indeed a symbol of what is to come.  America is through being talked down to, humiliated by talks of universal, systemic racism, badgered and banged for their homophobia and climate ignorance.  Americans have had enough faux idealism, absurd sexual transformations, internationalism, and historical revisionism.  America is a country of note, worthy of recognition and respect, not the dismal, socially deformed, ignorant place described by the Left. 

In America image is everything.  It is no surprise that Hollywood is its cultural center. Beauty, elegance, sex, machismo, and Cary Grant sophistication are all its priceless products.  Advertising is the litany of American cultural populism.  Not only do ads sell things, they convey the real foundational values of America - a middle-brow consuming culture of beautiful people doing beautiful things. 

The Trump Inauguration pageantry is only the beginning.  The White House will be Hollywood East, and will be an extravaganza of showy wealth, glitz, glamour, and prosperity.  The morose, whiny, dour days are over.  No more Bernal Heights tough girl flannel and E-boots, no more people-of-color jamborees, no more bashing, intimidating righteousness.  The Trump phalanx is white, straight, religious, patriotic, and showy.  Wealth is not excess but the product of enterprise.  Tinsel, sequins, and pasties are not cheap frills but symbols of an American basicness that the Left never has and never will understand. 

Donald Trump is a man of Hollywood, Las Vegas, and the bright lights of New York.  He is one of us, more than any other President.  George Bush affected a cowboy persona, Jimmy Carter a down-home farmer, Bill Clinton a black wannabe; but Trump has never acted a part.  He is the genuine article - an ambitious, macho, crude, bar fighter; a lover of women, yachts, and mansions; a straight-shooter, an irrepressible braggadocio, a man of the people.  

 

Progressives also have an image, one that has emerged from the rumpled suit, sensible shoes era of one-with-the-people solidarity to ghetto chic, a black-is-cool ensemble derivative of pimp and ho brazen fuck you strutting, tailored for K Street with a touch of genderness. '

We are the people', they shout with the enthusiasm of a circus tout, 'so come on in'; but that inclusive finery no longer cuts the mustard.  The street gives way to the avenue - Rodeo Drive is the new icon, Anacostia and West Baltimore once again dismissed, ignored, and marginalized. 

The Nation's capital will be alight once again.  The glitterati are back, good times replace hard times, glitz and show are the memes of Pennsylvania Avenue, steak and martinis for lunch instead of oats and groats. 

The revolution is not just political or philosophical, although both are at the heart of the changing of the guard.  The new wave is more than anything cultural - a middle-brow populism, an unabashed wholesome crassness, a joy in beauty, wealth, and ambition.  Fault-finding, generic unhappiness, and hapless reform, the unfortunate character of American liberalism is out, gone, finished. 

The revulsion of liberals at the cavalcade of beautiful people is palpable.  Not only has their cherished agenda been tossed out the window, but that they have to watch these airheads, these bimbos, these assholes and pricks come marching into our town is sickening. 

'Get over it' is the new meme in town, the new DOGE broom sweeps clean, but this time it isn't just a broom but a jackhammer, ball and crane, bulldozer, and Cat - the whole place will be uprooted, rebuilt, and re-arranged.  Even after just four years Washington will retain not one scintilla of the old Biden, whingeing, unhappy Left.  

 

This is what insurrection means - not the cockamamie frat boy party of January 6th, but a true cultural makeover.  Everything will be different, and the atmosphere  of Washington itself will feel, look, and sound different. 

The parade down Pennsylvania Avenue is just the beginning.