I want to prepare delicious food for those I love. I want to write heartfelt music and poetry to share with the people I care about. I want to study the physics of philosophy and the philosophy of physics. I want to look for meaning in my existence. But, I cannot write or study with the constant distraction of fascism nor quiet the overwhelming despair that so many people around me cannot yet see it (“we’re not there yet”, “you’re over-reacting”).

No one has forced their way into our home… yet. But, they are coming. They are coming because they are emboldened, empowered, brutally incompetent and strategically ignorant. And when they come, it may not be my house they were ordered to enter. It may not be me they have been ordered to abduct… until I protest. Then I will be told (as so many others have already been told) that I have no right to question their authority nor interfere in their activities. I shall be whisked away for having the temerity to expect humane treatment.

If you are waiting for the next step, it is this: we have not yet seen widespread use of deadly force as an alternative for detention, but we are on the path.

Yet, the unlawful abduction of people from their homes, schools and jobs is only a symptom of a greater tragedy.

My country is gone [WHOOSH] and I see no way back. At least, not in my lifetime (which is likely a lot shorter now given the systematic neglect of our healthcare system.)

In some sense, I now stand where MAGA stood ten years ago. I have no faith in my country because I have no faith in its government. I have no faith in this government because it does not even pretend to represent us. I want nothing from this administration because everything that it touches is poisonous to me. Traitors, rapists, insurrectionists, torturers, thieves, liars, conmen…all pardoned, exonerated, lauded; and not just walking among us, but celebrated by the ruling régime or even gifted power beyond their previous stations.

Looking back, my mistake was not in underestimating this D-list sociopath.
My mistake was not in underestimating the administration surrounding him.
I did underestimate the allure and resulting cultural momentum of willful ignorance, but that was not my biggest mistake.

No, my biggest mistake was expecting the (purportedly) co-equal branches of the US government to assert their Constitutional powers to stop and reverse clear violations of law immediately & en masse. I expected this because that’s what they all pledged to do in their oath to serve the people and our Constitution. I expected this because that’s what we were taught in public school. But, there is no past reckoning that cannot be undone. There is no ‘red line’, no ‘line in the sand’. There is no ultimatum nor unequivocal boundary. There is only the futile effort at preserving privilege masquerading as consideration, capitulation, and decorum.

Tim Cook did it.
Jeff Bezos did it.
Elon Musk did it.
Ted Cruz did it.
Marco Rubio did it.
Mitch McConnell did it.
Clarence Thomas did it.
John Roberts did it.
Mark Zuckerberg did it.
ABC did it.
CBS did it.
The Smithsonian did it.
Columbia University did it.
Even Harvard did it
and many, many more. But, I cannot.

I cannot and I will not bend a knee in the naïve hope that this brutal regime can be placated. I cannot make a deal with the devil. I cannot trust the demonstrably untrustworthy.

Angry? Fuck yeah I’m angry!

But mostly I feel sorrow. Deepest sorrow at how easily the United States gave up and how much shittier our children’s lives will be. How little the rhetoric of ‘freedom’ really meant to us. How weakly we protested the lies. How rosy our spectacles.

I can see the changes happening every day. The softening focus of news stories and the mass resignation of writers, reporters, editors and producers. And then there is the censorship of our universities and museums. Censorship to a degree none of us have experienced at home before. The growing desperation of the marginalized. The daily mass-shootings.

The US is a ghostship. No one is at the helm. No one is tending the rigging. No one is mending our tattered sails. And no one is pumping out the bilge. She will continue to drift until pirates come to plunder what the admiralty has abandoned. After that, I’m not sure it matters whether they scuttle our ship or sail her away under a new flag.

I am an unrepentant globalist because I understand that we are all downwind.

I have professional peers all over the world who have become dear friends, but I will probably never see them again.

America, love it or leave it.

I did try to leave the US… I am a failed ex-pat. Now, it is probably too late to leave; besides, I have friends here who have no means of escape and I’m not emotionally equipped to be ‘that guy’ living among strangers while my friends languish here without me. I am here. I will die here just as my ancestors did for the last four centuries, but I am not at home. I am not at ease.

To my friends & colleagues outside the US; carefully consider whether your next trip to the US is essential. The people are warm and welcoming, but the government is not. Maybe things will get better, but I doubt it.