Patton Oswalt, “You Will Hate Your President” in Those Public Entries

”Anyone you vote for, into the White House, will eventually, during their presidency, do something that will make you, as a supporter, go ‘Eeeehhhhh…’ [noise of “how the actual fuck do I justify/rationalize this?!].”

His examples: Bush and torturing inmates at Guantanamo Bay, Obama and drone warfare.

Orange Shitgibbon: … COVID, maybe? January 6th? (Did his supporters turn on him for anything? It’s not like there weren’t a billion and a half reasons, every goddamned day.)

And Biden, who wasn’t anyone’s first choice? The Palestinian genocide.

Yeah, that’s… Not good. Nothing about this is good. It’s all terrible.

Still, I feel like this idea that “at some point, you will hate the president you voted for, no matter how steadfast your support for them,” is an important reminder, especially right now. Especially with an election coming up. As horribly as Biden is handling the Palestinian genocide, the Orange Shitgibbon a has lit’rally said he’ll give Israel as many nukes as they want, to ”finish the problem.” The two sides are not the same.

You don’t have to stan the POTUS. You shouldn’t stan the president. It’s not a goddamned K-pop group. It’s a civil servant position. The person occupying it has a difficult job, and in a lot of ways, it’s a job that cannot possibly be done correctly. That’s the inherent problem with putting the fate of 333 million people in the hands of, functionally, one person: Those 333 million people can’t agree on what they want, at least 100 million will hate you no matter what you do, most of the other 233 million don’t care and won’t pay attention until someone tells them what to think, and you also have to consider the rest of the world and what’s best for them, or at least what kills the lowest number of people.

None of which means, by the way, that the president is above criticism. Absolutely not. We should criticize the president and tell them when we’re unhappy with the job they’re doing. Like, Biden and Palestine: There is not one single reason he can’t just say, “Fuck you, Ben, we’re pulling American troops from Israel and we’re not sending any more weapons. You’re on your own.” He can’t control Bibi or make him and Haniyeh (head of Hamas) sit down and talk out a peace agreement (and there’s a real question of whether these two actually would agree to talk with each other in the first place), but he can take the military support away from him, he can say “The US will have no part in this conflict,” or he could issue a directive for American troops to fight against the IDF and defend Palestine (unlikely, but he could do it). But he’s not doing any of that. And to me, that’s unacceptable. I’m extremely pissed off at him for continuing to support Israel.

Not only that, I’m absolutely fucking furious that he’s running for re-election. I really had hoped that he’d be smart enough to step aside and let either Kamala Harris or Elizabeth Warren, or even Bernie Sanders, or another candidate that appeals broadly to the largest voting bloc -Millennials and Gen Z- run. To me, it’s a mark of how out of touch and deluded he is, that he genuinely thinks he is the best candidate for the country right now. He is not. I am no happier with his politics and the way he’s handled things than I expected to be when I voted for him in 2020.

But… I haven’t forgotten what it was like to have Donald Trump as president. I haven’t forgotten what an absolute clusterfuck those years were. I haven’t forgotten how he crammed SCOTUS with far-right “justices” who were completely unqualified for the job, but got it because they promised to turn this country into a far-right KKKristian theocracy. I haven’t forgotten the way he crammed children into prison camps for having the gall to be brought to this country by their parents. I haven’t forgotten the absolute shitstorm that was COVID. I haven’t forgotten how he spent all of 2020 denying COVID, downplaying it, refusing to acknowledge how serious it was even when he got it and, by some accounts, nearly died from it. I haven’t forgotten how he refused, and still refuses, to concede defeat in the 2020 election. I haven’t forgotten January 6th. I haven’t forgotten how completely shit-awful his supporters are. I haven’t forgotten the absolute schizophrenic horror of those years. I refuse to forget it.

So yes: In the primaries, I wrote in Jon Stewart as my Democratic candidate. That won’t happen, however awesome I think it might be. (And think about it: Could Jon Stewart possibly be a worse president than either Trump or Biden?) So, come November, I will schlep to my polling place, take my ballot, close my eyes, make the sign of the cross, say a Hail Mary or ten, and vote “Straight Democrat”, just like I did in 2020. I will be unhappy about it, just like I was in 2020. But I will realize that I’m choosing between “absolute theocratic dictatorship led by the biggest useful idiot the world has ever seen” and “Kamala, because let’s be real, Grampa Joe is gonna die before the end of his second term, and I’d rather have her take over the presidency than any Republican right now.”

You’re free to disagree with me. You’re free to throw a tantrum about the choice I’m making. You’re free to call me a shitlib or a fascist or a hypocrite or a coward, or some combination of those things, or some other name that implies that I’m a shitlib, fascist, hypocritical, cowardly bootlicker. I don’t control you or make your choices. I control myself and I make the choice for myself. I know what my choice is. I will not go gently into that good night, but I’m also not going to cut off my nose to spite my face.

Now, before anyone comes in and says it: Yes, We The People deserve better than this shit-tastic two-party system. Yes, we deserve better than late-stage capitalism. Yes, we deserve better than choosing between the president who will turn a blind eye to a genocide and a president who will destroy the entire world, just to prove he can. Yes, we deserve better than all of that.

So… How do we get these things? How do we end capitalism? How do we start a revolution when -and I cannot stress this enough- most Americans are not, in fact, on our side politically?

To quote ContraPoints, “Capitalism is an epochal world economic order. When you say end capitalism, you’re talking about a tectonic shift in global politics that is so much bigger than all of us, that I don’t really understand what course of action you’re recommending. Like, before capitalism there was feudalism. And feudalism ended over hundreds of years of complex shifts in population and production, not because people just decided it was time to end feudalism. So won’t capitalism end just whenever a new economic system overtakes it? I don’t think that’s the kind of thing that can be accomplished by a small group of activists.”

Not only that, but as one of the commenters, dudemerico, pointed out, “I wish people would stop thinking that revolutions are reset buttons. Governments are not routers. You can’t fix them by unplugging and plugging them back in.” Even if a second American civil war happens, it will take years, if not decades, for the fighting to end, to pick up the pieces, put a new system of government into place, write a new constitution and bill of rights, re-establish national trust between the people and the government… And that’s assuming that the Trumpets and the Everyone Elses patch up our differences over the course of the war. If we split into smaller nations, then we’ll have to establish multiple constitutions, multiple bills of rights, multiple systems of government, a passport system, international trade within the continent, currency, exchange rates… And even all of that is assuming that the right side wins. If you want to know what happens when the wrong side wins a civil war, take a gander at Spain.¹

Y’all, I’ma level with you here: If we are indeed headed for the Second Civil War, the Trumpets will win. They have literally been preparing to go to war for years. January 6th was a taste of what they’re prepared and willing to do. They have been amassing weapons and ammunition. They have been training for guerilla warfare. They have well-trained, well-equipped civilian militias. They have no qualms about killing people, especially those they consider “The Enemy,” which is, just to be clear about this, everyone who even mildly disagrees with them. “You’re either with me or you’re my enemy” is their motto and their MO. And above all that, they have plans. They have coherent, cohesive plans to overtake this country and any opposition they might encounter, and they carry out those plans.

What do leftists have? …Terminally Online theory. Marxist analysis from people who’ve never read Das Kapital, even though it’s only about thirty pages long. Anti-capitalist shitposts. Where are the leftist civilian militias? Where are our stocks of weapons and ammo? Where are our bunkers? Where’s our blood lust? Most importantly, what the hell is our plan, and how do we enact it?

This is where I, as a leftist, get so incredibly frustrated with other leftists, especially the Terminally Online ones. As one of my favorite meme pages, Cheerful Nihilism, put it, “Talking about stuff all the time is a great way to feel like you accomplished something without actually doing anything.” And leftists talk. Holy fuck, do we talk. It’s at the point where all we fuckin’ do is talk, and I’m actually questioning if we can do, if it comes down to a real-life “do or die” situation. Like a civil war. Like having to mount a violent revolution and overthrow the government. Like having to kill or be killed. Like literally having to fight for your life, your neighbor’s life, and the future. Are leftists actually capable of doing any of this, or are we just chasing our tails?

Again, Trumpets and the far right have no qualms about any of this. They will kill. They will do anything to keep and gain power. They will burn, rape, pillage, plunder, and murder, and they will do it without conscience or mercy. They are not interested in political philosophy or theory, and they have no concept of “the greater good” or “investing in the future.” That stuff is for pussy libturds like me, who believe in things and think humanity deserves better than to scratch out a meager living and especially deserves better than ugly-ass Tesla trucks. (I finally saw one in person on Tuesday, and seriously, they look like worse versions of the motorcycles from Tron.)

And for those of you about to say, “Well, look at the EU! World War II tore Europe apart, and the EU helped put it back together, now those countries are thriving!” I am looking at the EU! And as it turns out, a lot of this stuff I’m talking about took decades for them to resolve and settle, too! You can make a very easily supported argument that a lot of this stuff is still not settled, and may never be truly settled! The EU was founded in 1993 (Today I Learned that I am older than the EU), and now, 31 years later, the countries involved are still conflicted over things like politics and national debts and how far should austerity politics be carried, and how do we deal with a rising tide of far-right politicians, and who gets to be part of the EU and why.

Also, most people either forget or don’t know that WWII did not end fascism in Europe. Not even close; WWII ended the Nazi regime in Germany. If anything, Europe became more fascist after WWII: Think of the Warsaw Pact. The division of East Germany and West Germany. Spain and the Franco years (which were themselves preceded by the Spanish Civil War). Czechoslovakia and the Prague Spring in 1968. Romania under Ceaușescu. Russia… Well, just Russia, which has literally never been a democracy or had any real political freedom in its 1000+ year history. All of that had to run its course before the EU could even work in concept, never mind in practice. I think there’s an argument to be made that if the USSR hadn’t fallen in 1991, if it still existed, the EU wouldn’t and couldn’t exist.

The problem we’re facing right now is that there are fleetingly few people in the world who are old enough to have coherent, lived memories of Nazi Germany, WWII, the oppression of Eastern Europe, and how all of those things came to be. It’s one of the problems I’m seeing with Zionists’ (not Jews in general, Zionists; there are more Christian Zionists in the USA (100 million) than there are Jews in the entire world (15 million), and not all Jews are Zionists, either) continued defense of Israel’s war crimes: We’ve lost nearly every member of the Greatest Generation, so there aren’t enough lived memories of how, exactly, Nazis took over Germany and the rhetorical and political tactics they used to convince everyday Germans that eliminating Jews from Europe and the world was necessary. As long as we keep focusing on the fact that the Holocaust happened, without understanding why it happened, we’re going to keep doing genocide and finding excuses for it.²

As George Santayana said, “Those who cannot remember history are doomed to repeat it.” And because it’s not possible, yet, to time travel and see firsthand how history happened, we have to rely on the narratives from the people who did live through those times. This is why people study history, and why it’s so important to preserve the stories of those who lived through it.

I know the election this year sucks worse than any election in history. From my own experience, the only election I can think of that even comes close to matching how shitty this one is, is the 2004 election, which laid the groundwork for the overflowing, Orange Shitgibbon’s used diaper-filled septic tank we’re in right now. Things are bad, and there’s no point in asking how much worse they can get, because if the last eight years have shown us anything, it’s that the answer to “could things possibly get any worse?” is “hold my beer.”

And as tempted as I am to just not vote in protest, I also realize that that isn’t going to work. Unless every single registered voter in the country sits out this election, and I do mean every single one, not voting in protest can’t work. According to this 2016 article from Vice, if every single registered voter, every elector, and every member of the Electoral College refused to vote, the incumbent Secretary of State would become president. At the moment, that’s Anthony Blinken, who is pro-Israel. But that won’t happen, because the candidates will still vote for themselves, the people who are deeply invested in the outcome of the election will vote (both MAGA and anti-MAGA), and this country doesn’t see high voter turnout compared to other countries with free elections anyway, so even in the elections with the highest voter turnout, it’s still essentially a small number of voters deciding the election. So that “solution” is DOA.

“Okily-dokily, then I’ll just vote third-party!” I hear you say. “I’ve heard that a lot of people are going to vote third-party or write in candidates this year. If enough people do that, maybe we’ll finally break the two-party system!” Un-fuckin’-likely, according to the Hill! “No one gets to 270 [the minimum number of votes needed by the Electoral College to declare a candidate the winner of the presidential election] and the House of Representatives, voting on behalf of the 50 states, is entrusted to pick the next president. What could possibly go wrong with that constitutionally mandated solution?”

…Our Republican-majority House would vote Trump back in. That’s what will happen. They’re not making a secret of it, either.

Y’all, I don’t have the answer. I don’t even have an answer, good or bad. I don’t think there’s a good, satisfying, or even sufficient answer, here. I don’t know what to do to save this country. I’m not even sure if this country is worth saving, at this point. I’m not thinking about the future, because I just started on sertraline, and I don’t need any suicidal thoughts that medication might cause to be amplified by existential horror and despair.

All I can do is what I’ve promised myself I’d do. And as freeing as it probably should be to know that I can only take responsibility for what I do or don’t do, that whatever happens in the world wasn’t my fault or problem to begin with, I don’t think I’m alone in feeling crushed by that knowledge instead of freed by it. Like, if I had a magic wand and was told I could use it to fix the world and right all its wrongs, I know exactly what I’d do. But that’s not going to happen. Life isn’t a Disney movie, there’s no happy ending that works for everyone, and there’s no way to stop history from repeating itself.

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¹And bitty dubs, Spain is still trying to reconcile its national narrative, trying to figure out how to tell the story as it actually happened instead of the Franco line, and considering that Franco held power from 1936 to 1975, that’s at least two generations that grew up with his story, instead of the correct one. Think of how long it took the US to accept that Christopher Columbus was actually a genocidal maniac, instead of a hero; that should give you a clue as to how difficult it is to undo an established national narrative.

² I also strongly oppose the Zionist narrative that only Jews have ever faced genocide. As someone who is Jewish-ish, opposes Zionism, and studies history, not only does this narrative piss me off, it is just obviously, blatantly, patently untrue. The Armenian genocide happened in 1915, almost thirty years before the Holocaust; even the Holocaust Museum acknowledges this, and the fact that this is why we have the word “genocide” at all. Before Armenia, there was the Herero and Namaqua genocide of 1904, the Selk’nam genocide of 1880, the Circassian genocide of 1864, the genocide of the Yuki people of California in 1846, and the genocide of the Taíno people in 1492, among others.