A Holiday Message for MAGA

The first woman President is coming. The first Asian President is coming. You just delayed it a few years.

Image via Instagram

by Rich Herschlag

Seasons greetings. You finally pushed the nation to the brink with your ignorant, myopic allegiance to a criminal who strokes your shortcomings in return for your stroking his. You have a deal going. He tells you you're okay if you tell him he's okay, and you both take turns defecating on others. Blaming others for problems you either brought on yourselves or toward which you failed to take a rational, proactive approach. There is no introspection either in him or in you. There is laziness in both him and in you—physical, intellectual, emotional, spiritual. He has set the bar so low you can feel good about yourselves where you should be embarrassed.

Merry Christmas. You coddled a psychopath. He gaslit you. You are not at heart a citizen but in essence a consumer who demands more satellite channels, cheaper Buffalo wings, faster internet. You have traded your most basic civic responsibilities for some sort of unseemly tangible ill-gotten material gain to be named later. The price of beef jerky went up, so you voted for Hitler. Kudos, MAGA wage earners, on your next billionaires' tax cut. Don't spend it all in one skeet shooting range.

Happy holidays. Many of you would have voted for Hulk Hogan or Ted Nugent if you had the chance. Many of you would have voted for John Gotti if he were alive. Or in his current condition. I wish for one day I could elect a pedophile to be your kid's babysitter. A sociopath to be your proctologist. A member of the Taliban to be your mohel. A kleptomaniac to be your accountant. A rapist to be your marriage counselor. Then you'd know, for that one day, how I feel.

Happy Kwanzaa. The disingenuous folks on your side and the self-loathing on mine say there is equivalence between these two parties, these two forces, these two movements. There is no equivalence. You didn’t see our side making absurd election conspiracy and voter fraud accusations. You don’t see us flocking to the dark web to validate our own grievances with lies. You won't see us take weapons of deadly force, storm the Capitol, assault police officers, and enter the building violently.

Let your heart be light. You won't see us threatening the lives of Republican members of Congress inside the Capitol building, defecating on the Speaker's carpet, and looking to hang the Vice President. You won't find us drawing up fake electoral ballots, intimidating state election officials, and threatening the lives of average volunteer and low wage poll workers. You won't find us bitching and moaning for years on end about being rightfully arrested by the FBI and prosecuted by the DOJ. You won't see us sucking up to the President and angling for a pardon.

Fa-la-la. The self-righteous folks on your side and the insecure on mine say the onus is on me. That I must spend the coming weeks, months, years reflecting, analyzing what went wrong, dissecting my own motives and self-worth, taking a bottomless dive into the depths of your vacuous souls to achieve basic human and political literacy.

Happy Hanukkah. Well, I did what you asked. I took the deep dive. And here’s what I came up with. Following the March 1933 Nazi election victory in Germany with 43.9 percent of the vote, the trade unionists, Centre Party, and Social Democratic Party failed to learn more about the voters' concerns and preferences. They failed to accommodate the nuances of the typical Nazi voter. They failed to perform campaign autopsies, organize effective think tanks, and tweak their message. So, if you think about it, it's really the trade unionists, Centre Party, and Social Democratic Party who should have been tried at Nuremberg.

Here comes Santa Claus. You are absolutely correct that I must assume responsibility. I have a responsibility to what remains of this country in a sense that is too lofty for you to comprehend. But I have no responsibility toward you in particular. Hey, why don’t you analyze whom I voted for and why, what I ate for breakfast this morning, and the stupid games I play with my cat? At least I put some thought into it.

Sleigh bells ring. When my wounds begin to scab over and flake off, to your dismay I will get on my feet again. I will join forces with millions of others who have not succumbed to a bizarrely disarming gibberish and an infantile solipsistic view of the universe.

Best wishes for a festive season. This will not be my father's resistance. Unlike prior generations, I’ve lost fundamental respect for your ilk, and I lost it well after you lost respect for both me and the country my family fought for. And now that, against long internally driven odds, I have finally abandoned that respect, you no longer possess the marked advantage of sadism, conceit, and utter disregard for decency you enjoyed for the better part of a decade.

Deck the halls. Yes, the joke’s on me. My life is soon going to be run by someone who named his kids X Æ A-Xii, Exa Dark Sideræl, and Techno Mechanicus. But the joke’s on you, too. I understand you were all dressed up for the next insurrection.

‘Tis the season. As difficult a cyanide pill as it is for me to swallow today, it turns out this is also my liberation day. I won't be cleaning up your mess anymore. I won't be telling you what you want to hear. I'll be telling you the truth—or even more likely nothing at all—because arguably you are not worth my time.

Hark now hear the angels sing. I have "free choice," too. You'll learn what it is and what it entails when you least expect it. And then you'll tell yourself whatever is most convenient to your thin skin, just as you did this past November 5. I really don't care. I am looking well above and beyond your reactionary, deceitful trench warfare.

Glory to the newborn King. I’m going to have a great four years, enjoying my family, friends, artistic pursuits and resources, and most of all having cut loose the dead weight that is you. When the next wave of inflation comes—and it surely will—get an extra job and lay off the bath salts. Do not call. Do not complain. But if you do, I won’t be listening. You are unsalvageable.

Silent night. Holy night. My friends and I have more strength in both numbers and motivation than you ever imagined—because we are real patriots, not spoiled traitors with delusions of grandeur and daddy issues. Go ahead, get complacent with your cynical, ephemeral achievement. Pat yourselves on your own crusader cross tattooed back for tossing away 248 years of sacrifice in the name of elevating false pride, prejudice, and callous disregard for principle. Newsflash—the next Black President is coming. The first woman President is coming. The first Asian President is coming. You just delayed it a few years. Democracy is coming back with a vengeance.

Joy to the world.