This Texas mom illuminates the extremely delusional, dangerous, and breathtaking madness, insanity, and psychotic evil of the current President and his pathological enablers. — Molly
I was making pancakes.
That's what I was doing when I saw it. Standing at the stove, still in my robe, Jake's got cartoons on too loud, Lily's fighting with her brother about God knows what, and I've got my phone propped against the coffee maker like I always do, just scrolling, just checking in on the world.
And I read it three times.
Three times, because I'm a former history teacher and I know how to read a primary source carefully and I wanted to make absolutely sure I was understanding what I was looking at.
Power Plant Day. Bridge Day. Open the Fuckin' Strait. Just Watch. Praise be to Allah.
I stood there with the spatula in my hand and the pancakes started burning and I just. Didn't move.
My youngest looked up and said "Mommy the pancakes are burning" and I said "I know baby" and I still didn't move.
Because I'm trying to figure out how to explain to my three kids, one of whom is doing a civics project right now, an actual school assignment about how the executive branch works and why it matters, how to explain to him that the President of the United States posted a war threat to 90 million people that read like a voice message from a drunk guy who just got eliminated in the first round of a video game tournament.
I taught the Geneva Conventions. I taught them. To sixteen year olds. Who understood them. Who could tell you that deliberately targeting civilian power infrastructure during a conflict isn't a bold strategic move, it's a war crime. Sixteen year olds in a public school in Texas got that. First read.
And I keep thinking about Jennifer.
Jennifer has a "God Bless the USA" sticker and a "No Sharia Law" bumper sticker right next to each other on the back of her Tahoe. I have seen that Tahoe. I have stood behind it in the school pickup line for three years. Jennifer forwarded me seventeen emails between 2012 and 2016 about how Obama was secretly Muslim and why that was terrifying and disqualifying and basically the end of Western civilisation.
Jennifer liked this post.
I checked. 2.63 thousand likes and Jennifer was in there, I'd bet my good casserole dish on it, absolutely unbothered, probably already telling her group chat that Trump is playing 4D chess.
He ended a bombing announcement with Praise be to Allah, Jennifer.
He named the air strikes like a school sports day, Jennifer.
He told a country to open a strategically critical international waterway or else, at 8 o'clock on a Sunday morning, on a social media platform he owns, like he was leaving a voicemail for someone who owes him twenty bucks, Jennifer.
I scraped the pancakes into the bin.
Made a new batch.
Helped Jake with his spelling words.
Smiled at the right moments.
And I thought about the fact that this is the man with the nuclear codes and I thought about my civics kid's project and I thought about what I'm supposed to tell him when he asks me if the President is supposed to sound like this.
And I've got nothing.
1 comment:
Where is Representative Mike Johnson, R, LA, House Leader, RepublicanCaucus...Third in Succession Line For The Presidency.... WHERE THE HELL IS HE? WHAT DOES HE HAVE TO SAY TO THE SUPPOSED LEADER OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA? OR AS USUAL IS HE HIS USUAL LITTLE COWARD SELF HIDING? Because I don't HEAR OR SEE HIM!!
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