2021 - 2025: The Great Hangover

Folks, we're witnessing the dawn of a new period in American history. The post-Donald Trump period. And while Joe Biden is now the 46th president of the United States, and he rightfully deserves it, I am not going to refer to this period - the years 2021 - 2025 as "the Biden Administration". Instead, I am going to refer to this as "The Great Hangover". In fact, let's use the 2008 film "The Hangover" as a reference for this piece. You know the plot of the movie - it's where a group of yahoos take their best friend to Las Vegas for a night of drunken debauchery before his wedding and the next day they wake up to find him missing, their hotel room completely destroyed, there's a tiger in the bathroom, a baby in the closet, and they can't remember a thing!

And yes we're slowly waking up to the nightmare that was Donald Trump and Republican imperialism. But we didn't get here just plain overnight. Instead, it was a long, slow boil brought to its' absolute peak in 2016 by nearly 45 years of AM radio McCarthyism. Yes, for four long-ass decades, conservatives have been using the power of the AM dial to brutalize, demonize, and demean Democrats to the point where liberalism is considered a dirty word! Despite the fact that in those 40 years, we had 2 terms of Clinton, 2 terms of Obama, and now a term of Biden, hopefully 2.

Then along comes Donald Trump - a man who is promising to "Make America Great Again" by capitalizing on AM radio's greatest fears which include but certainly not limited to "illegal immigrants coming to take your jobs" and "the government coming to take your guns away" Campaign promises included building a laughable wall along the Mexican border (that's currently ruining landscapes and cities across the country) and deporting those they deemed "illegal". Then in a huge upset, he inexplicably (though not surprisingly) defeats Hillary Clinton in the Electoral College - a heavily outdated system that needs to be changed. It's at this point in the movie where we're introduced to the characters, and they get the shiny, fancy car that's used for the backdrop of the night-lit Vegas skyline and some Kanye West playing in the background.

Now we're at the point in the movie where our friendly characters start having shots of Jagermeister on the roof. This is when things start going off the rails. Protest groups literally turn into fight clubs. Children start getting locked away in camps and separated from their parents. There's a new mass shooting every single week and each one is far more horrifying than the one before it. But you wouldn't know it if you were in the MAGA cult because you'd say they were false flags. Even our biggest Hollywood stars are getting outed as the sex offenders and perverts that they are and getting sent to prison and/or exiled from society where they belong. Our fabled institutions start unraveling. And yes I'm well aware that the movie I'm referencing was written and directed by noted sex offender Brett Rattner.

Let's fast forward to the present day. We're in the luxury villa at Caesar's Palace - which they don't even refer to the movie if you try to book that room because they don't want to encourage that behavior. The room is destroyed, there's beer bottles everywhere, we're completely hungover and we don't remember anything that happened the last four years. The photo album that we retrieved from our camera that was lodged in between the seats of our car has pretty frightening and also hilarious stuff on it. Like Trump staring at the sun or him touching the orb with Prince Alwaweed bin Talal, or Angela Merkel staring him down like he was in a gun duel in a spaghetti western, or him boarding Air Force One with a piece of toilet paper stuck to his shoe.

But underneath all the funny stuff lies something horrifying. The truth is that the Trump administration was part of an experiment that is seeing fascism and totalitarian dictators rise all over the globe, partly thanks to Facebook, which conservatives have demonized because they banned when they say racist things and came up with a theory called "shadow banning". Which is what happens when you say stupid shit. But it's given us leaders like Turkey's Erdogan, India's Modi, Italy's Burlusconi, the UK's Boris Johnson, the Philippines' Duterte, and is responsible for the Brexit movement. Trump is just another piece of the fascist, anti-globalist puzzle.

The MAGA movement - an offshoot of the Obama-era Tea Party, morphed into something bizarre and sinister called Q Anon. A group that believes in carrying out martial law, executing their opponents, and totalitarian rule. They also believe that the other side are a bunch of Satan worshiping pedophiles who practice cannibalism. And groups that were once known as "militias" like the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and III%ers, became full blown paramiltary terrorist units. Which all cultivated and resulted in the insane attack on the Capitol on January 6th, 2021.

Now we're in the post night-before phase. We're waking up to what's really going on. There's a virus that's killed nearly 500,000 people because Trump called it a hoax and doesn't show signs of disappearing. The Capitol attack was commenced by some of the dumbest criminals alive. People who went in with their cell phones on, with location trackers enabled, took selfies with location data, destroyed and looted the place, literally flung their feces at the walls, screamed "treason", posted to far right social media sites, and then went home like nothing happened. 5 people died during this thing, and they literally beat a police officer to death with a Blue Lives Matter flag. But it wasn't their fault, it was the other guy's fault! Ha ha ha, right.

Hell you probably personally know people who were there, or you know people who've fallen under the spell of the MAGA / Q Anon cult. I've personally lost close friends and family to the MAGA virus, and variant Q.Batshit.01 is particularly contagious. But if Trump gets acquitted - in this part of the movie he escapes from the trunk of the Mercedes and beats the guys with a crowbar, he will come back for his revenge. In the movie, this is the part where there's a mob boss - his character was hilariously played by real life doctor Ken Jeong - who's trying again to take what he thinks is rightfully his. And he has minions.

But we're at a crossroads. While we're trying to figure out to to deal with a mob boss - don't pay him back. The mob boss can't get away with his crimes. Sure, he may have a hostage that is America. And you can't just go on and act like nothing happened, we have to trace back the roots and make sure that it doesn't happen again.

We can make it better though. Instead of repeating the same thing, and being predictable, let's change it for the better. Let's convict Trump and send a message that it's not OK to do what he did. Because if you're given the tools to commit this kind of debauchery again, the sequel is going to be worse. And the third time, you'll find the missing piece of the puzzle from the first time, while dodging something even more dangerous. And trust me, if this movie is given a sequel, it will be worse than the first.