'Holding Out for a Hero'

Trump hanging tarps over the North Portico of the White House with images of columns and trees in place of the real ones he is ‘renovating’, is a perfect metaphor for the state of our democracy under his despotic rule.

A one dimensional illusion of what existed before yet will never be the same again, as he refashions the very architecture and bureaucratic infrastructure of our government in his own image; like some sort of meatloaf Mussolini seeking to claim his place among the emperors.

The ‘People’s House’ belongs to Grandpa Adderall now - and he wants to make sure everyone knows it. Donald Trump should be walking around some cookie cutter cul-de-sac in Paramus bragging to his neighbors about his new paving stones and that he’s springing for the ‘good mulch’ for his flower beds; instead he is sitting in a gold embossed Oval Office, destroying the global economy and starting geopolitical fires he will never be able to extinguish.

The wars POTUS is starting will not be solved in his lifetime.

He must be stopped.

I still believe we can but we better do it soon. This is not the time to wait around: it’s time to take to the streets in steely resolve and righteous urgency.

A nation whose brave soldiers stormed beaches in a bloody summer almost a century ago to protect the free world from fascism now (mostly) sits idly by while a tyrant attempts to snatch our beloved republic right before our very eyes.

We do not have to accept this larceny and criminality, but we must also realize no one is coming to save us - we must save ourselves.

The most dangerous thing about Donald Trump in this perilous moment with Iran is that he may no longer hesitate to send in ground troops. Kharg Island could perhaps be the beginning of a conflagration that will last well beyond his presidency and drag much of the globe along with it.

This is how world wars start, and we must not for a second underestimate both the incompetence and venality of Trump and his minions - and their inability to see the trouble they are both courting and causing.

There was never any real, meaningful peace process. It was a show for the cameras, and much of the mainstream media played along. The cronies in his regime and his own family were making far too much money off of market manipulation and the infrastructure of modern warfare to stop it anytime soon.

If there’s a buck to be made off of this fight, you can bet Trump will happily send someone else’s sons or daughters to fight it, while his own sons make billions off of drone contracts and tungsten mines. It makes the military industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us about look like child’s play.

Don Jr. sits on the board of a Texas company, GrabAGun, that seeks to become the ‘Amazon of firearms’. The new ATF rules proposed by the Trump administration would allow Trump Jr. to profit from weapons being shipped directly to the purchaser’s home - circumventing the current rules which at least make the customer pick up the gun at a federally licensed gun store and submit to an on-site background check.

Think of the ways terrorists organizations could exploit this new insanity.

Not to mention what it will do to our already horrific epidemic of gun violence and firearm-related suicides. Overnight shipping of guns to people’s doors is a death sentence for many Americans.

Having known both Don Jr. and Eric, I am not at all surprised by the enthusiasm with which they have embraced weapons as their latest business venture. They were raised to be as cruel and callous as their father; in Don Jr.’s case in particular, he may surpass his old man someday with his taste for canned trophy hunts and pseudo military machismo.

We are in dangerous times, and we must keep our focus and resolve on speaking truth to power - most especially in the case of this illegal war and the actions of the men who are both promoting and profiting from it.

Trump this week fired the remaining members of the Election Assistance Commission, effectively shuttering the government agency charged with ensuring free and fair elections, monitoring our voting machines and registration processes.

POTUS did this with the full blessing of the conservative Supreme Court thanks to the recent Trump v. Slaughter ruling. They have handed the world’s most infamous election denier the power not just to disenfranchise millions of voters but to tip the scales in his party’s favor in the upcoming midterms.

On Friday, the President refused to sign the bipartisan Housing Bill in a petulant protest against the one piece of legislation his party has passed this year, with a defiant demand for his GOP to end the filibuster and pass the SAVE America Act.

Donald’s fever dream of disenfranchising our citizens from participating in a representative democracy is receiving the full court press. He has no other way to win unless he cheats. This has always been his modus operandi - going back to when his family paid other students to take his tests and he cooked the books in his casinos and real estate properties.

DJT is actively attempting to steal an election in broad daylight, and my fear is by the time the full scale of their treasonous malfeasance is apparent - it may be too late.

Nothing could be more undemocratic than what he is doing along with his coterie of goons and scoundrels, and sadly far too many of our fellow citizens are probably still not aware of the full scope and gravity of the situation. It is our job to change that in every way we can: a conversation with a Trump-leaning voter about his attempts to interfere in our midterm elections may be among the most important you will have this year.

Of course you will be going up against six years of lies concerning the 2020 election and this is no accident. Trump’s projection from the beginning was meant to prepare his audience for his own evil escapades.

It is always projection with Trump; accusing others of the crimes he himself is committing has been a lifelong habit. His insane, novel-length post on Saturday attacking The New York Times’ reporters for not giving him enough kudos for winning the last election ended with the all caps boast that he ‘was the best political athlete of all time!’ - and therein lies the rub.

DJT sees politics as a game, an opportunity for self-aggrandizement and personal enrichment - not an opportunity to serve a nation and protect its citizens.

The renaming of a sun coast airport this week after an octogenarian conman, who used it for decades to fly sex-trafficked teenage girls, with his longtime friend and fellow Palm Beach resident Jeffrey Epstein, is about as ‘Florida’ as it gets - and reflects the split screen reality of American life in this moment.

The wealthiest among us are more than happy to let Trump and his caustic clan continue to pilfer our republic as long as they get a percentage of the proceeds.

They sit idly by as the hardworking immigrants who build their mega mansions and care for their beachfront properties are prosecuted by an ‘America First’ movement that has more in common with Nazi Germany than it does with the values and morals this nation as always prided itself on.

ICE agents are not apprehending illegal immigrants - they are hunting our fellow humans. What is happening now will go down as one of the darkest chapters in the American story.

ICE agents and their assault on our freedoms should have ended after the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, instead they escaped any consequence and have quietly ramped up their efforts; detaining over 10,000 people in the same week this prideful nation, once known throughout the world as a land of hope and dreams, celebrated its own birthday.

DHS assaults on our liberty may have disappeared from the headlines but the injustice lingers on. They are targeting upstanding, tax-paying contributors to our society for doing nothing other than providing for their families and seeking to build a better life.

If you spend 35 years building homes in Houston, and raising three proud and upstanding sons, all U.S. citizens, you are a hero. Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was such a man and he will never get the chance to see them flourish; they in turn were robbed of a father, his wife was robbed of a partner and the man she deserved to grow old with - it is an unbelievable tragedy and a grave injustice. Entirely preventable and utterly unforgivable; the 52 year-old man got up in the morning and went to work and never came home.

Labeling people undocumented immigrants or worse, illegals, is the language of a government which seeks to dehumanize minorities. It is, in and of itself, an act of violence meant to cauterize the natural empathy even Republican leaning voters must feel when confronted with the brutality of this administration.

Lorenzo Salgado Araujo paid with his life this week for successfully participating in the American dream.

The men who murdered him, and then sought to cover it up, did more damage to our country than 1,000 Lorenzos ever would. Going so far as strip him of his identification so the morgue had to process him as a John Doe, adding to the horrific trauma his family was already facing.

Texans in particular should be deeply ashamed - and would do themselves a favor to get out from under the grip of a GOP that has been lethally incompetent. Their myopic vision hardly reflects the changing demographic of the Lone Star State and certainly doesn’t reflect the multiculturalism of a fine city such as Houston.

Any rational citizen already knows - immigrants make this country run.

We are punishing, prosecuting and killing the hard-working souls who not only put food on our table, they build the tables themselves; they put roofs over our heads and repair them in 100° heat with skill and precision.

The U.S.A is quite literally biting the hand that feeds it - and it has to stop.

Trump’s brazen, reverse-Robin Hood tax cuts and crypto deregulations are all the bribes the oligarchs need to look the other way and use their own outsized riches in service of autocracy.

MAGA would not have a leg to stand on without its wealthiest supporters and their borderline monopoly of media companies; this part of the equation is often hidden in Trump’s false pitch of economic populism. The hillbilly still can’t see over the hedgerow but when he finally does it may be all over for the current ruling class.

We need to boycott accordingly, and that means giving up consumer comforts that many have come to rely on. Economic actions raise awareness and get people talking - dialogue is the answer to darkness.

This is a David versus Goliath battle and we must utilize all the rocks in our sling. No pebble is too small in service of slaying an economic ogre.

I implore my fellow Americans to utilize our righteous indignation and mischievous imagination to stir up a storm. They can’t continue with business as usual without your money.

Good trouble only, going forward.

We also need more real grassroots movements over grifting and parasocial engagement farming.

People mistaking large online followings for political experience is dangerous at the candidate level and downright catastrophic at the consultancy level. We saw this play out in the Graham Platner debacle that was all but inevitable to anyone with even a mildly seasoned eye.

The first rule, before rushing in as a party, is to fully vet those you chose to represent you. Platner’s red flags began in high school and only got worse in what could only be called a troubled and rather privileged lifetime.

To fashion him into a working man populist hero was both a mistake and an illusion. His myth grew out of the seat of privilege, not the rugged outsider ethos it was meant to portray. Charisma is no substitute for caution or emotional sobriety and humility.

The ‘oysterman’s’ graceless exit video poisoned the pearls of promise he once carried for the progressive movement.

The same well-paid, but inexperienced political consultants and podcast pundits that overplayed their hands and delivered a disaster at the polls after Biden was pushed out contributed to this current imbroglio.

Playing on genuine feelings and a desire for change to juice an algorithm and making misguided and adolescent choices, over seeking out adult attributes, is always a mistake. We need smart, sane leadership that employs both empathy and vision.

As they say in recovery, ‘righteous anger is the dubious luxury of normal men’; nothing about these times are normal, and anger will only get you so far if not mixed with a pragmatic, even-tempered approach to the political. If you haven’t yet fully faced down your own demons it is hard to slay dragons on another’s behalf. The people of Maine deserved better and I hope they find it soon. My fear is the national hype surrounding Platner may have diluted Democrats’ chances of defeating Susan Collins.

There are plenty of highly qualified minority and women candidates in midterm races right now across this country that are not receiving the attention they deserve from the mainstream media.

Key words are not meant to be cornerstones of a platform. Platner’s resentful reaction to an onslaught of accusations showed his true character - and illuminated how unqualified a candidate he was from the start. His origin story of hardscrabble roots was essentially a hoax (he attended Hotchkiss and after expulsion, another prep school in Bangor, Maine. His father is a wealthy lawyer and his grandfather a famous architect, his mother’s restaurant purchased most of his oysters), and the folks who ate it up are now discovering they were dining on empty calories.

The sauce mignonette was sus AF.

I understood the desire for him to be the real deal, but if wishes were horses then beggars would ride. We need to be much more discerning going forward and cannot afford false hope and fraudulent narratives in such dangerous times. A man who claimed to be unaware of the meaning of a Nazi tattoo he carried on his chest for nearly twenty years does not need to be a U.S. Senator as his first job in public office.

Believe women and make the so-called progressive beard bros prove it, make them walk the walk and give us more than talk before we just hand it to ‘em on a platt(n)er. This episode was a lesson we should not soon forget.

We have to cultivate inner peace before we can truly bring about peace in the world. This feels like a paradox, because so many situations in our current political climate seem to demand our righteous anger and outrage but we need to learn to channel and temper our rage into alchemy and altruism.

This is not about looking away or ignoring the evil and atrocity we are all witnessing; it is about becoming as efficient as possible in our mission to heal and transcend our current calamity.

We are doing work now that will stretch well beyond our own lifetimes. Right here and right now.

These are not normal days we are living through.

They are tumultuous and exhausting - and require endurance, resilience, the sort of strength that needs replenishment and an undergirding of deep faith in our own goodness.

The counterweight to acrimony is joy. We can dance. We can sing. And we damn sure can laugh. These are things they can never take away from us. We can only take them from ourselves and we must never do that, especially now.

If we are to save the world, we must save ourselves from its effects first.

So much seems beyond our control, but the awareness of our own inner being, our own serenity, is well within our grasp.

Become mindful of the present moment. Sometimes it is simply just remembering to breathe.

What we are up against is the absence of peace; the intolerance and violent actions of so many who see ignorance and retribution as a way to consolidate their own power, and achieve their self-serving goals.

We refute this by being of service to others, and sometimes that begins by being kinder to ourselves.

Respond to calamity with compassion and you can’t ever go wrong.

Lock arms with your loved ones in this battle for our nation’s soul and realize you are not alone; no action is in vain when it is performed in service of love.

The hero you seek may be in your own mirror.

*If you enjoy ‘Noel’s Notes’ please consider becoming a paid subscriber. All content is available free but paid support makes it possible. Thanks for reading and sharing.