My thoughts exactly.

We’ve seen too much of violence already in the past twelve months, and there’s potentially even more to come. The Navy Seals / Viking raider cosplayers that waved the flag of slavery, secession, and treason in the Capitol are eager to repeat the act at government buildings around the country - but at least someone has finally started paying attention.

While the rest of us wait to see if there will be an effective response from the government, I wanted to explore the role of violence in my own life - inspired not just by current events, but also by an impulsive action of mine while moving my garbage bin back into position. Rather than use the wheels, I lifted it up and slammed it back down. It was easily the most aggressive physical movement I’ve made since the start of the pandemic, which cut off my access to things like punching bags. It felt surprisingly satisfying.

I regularly had violence used against me by other children as a kid. There were a bunch of incidents that I no longer remember in detail, simply because they weren’t all that sinister, but a couple were more memorable. There was a group of loud, obnoxious boys who picked on me constantly at my first school after we moved to California, who restrained my arms and stole a cupcake out of my hand in the classroom. At another school in the next town over, a short, skinny boy - easily shorter than me by a head and a half - punched me in the face and knocked off my glasses. Fortunately, by the time of this second memory, I finally had a group of friends, one of whom immediately retrieved the glasses for me. At no time did I actually try to get back at these kids with violence of my own, though I certainly wanted to. My parents made it clear that this would not be acceptable, and anyway, there was little danger of being really damaged by kids that age. However, it was at about this time that I received the first rudiments of training in violence.

One of the professors at my mom’s college had heard something about my situation and seemed outraged on my behalf. He offered a few lessons on how to throw a punch without injuring myself, and I vividly remember sitting in on a class where he used film of Muhammad Ali taking a punch from Joe Frazier to illustrate the serape effect’s devastating potential. It was the first time I was given a physical outlet for the incredible frustration of simply accepting the verbal and physical cruelty of other children, and it was fantastic. Even without being allowed to use this elementary training, it gave me a greater sense of self-determination.

Since that time, every time I’ve dabbled in a form of physical activity that derives from combat, I’ve noticed a little extra edge that is enjoyable - the knowledge that this activity would be dangerous if done in anger and at full speed (or, in the case of football, unarmored). It’s instructive as well - even simulated violence, with rules, teaches you something about your own capabilities. On one occasion I sparred a bit with a much smaller, quicker guy, in a drill involving fish-shaped plastic implements meant to simulate knife fighting. I expected to have the advantage due to size and reach - and certainly I “killed” him many more times than he got to a vital spot on me - but it very effectively disabused me of any fantastic ideas about tangling with a live edge. I still enjoy the chance to test my strength and capabilities, though usually with weights rather than weapons.

I’m not someone who thinks that violence is never necessary, so the recent exposure of just how widespread the white-supremacy problem is within our armed forces and police has really forced some difficult thinking for me about what kind of policy to advocate for. I grew up proud to know that my grandfather had fought in the deadliest conflict in human history in order to protect the values of democracy and freedom from the destructive combination of weaponized divinity, nationalism, and fascism. I found myself ashamed to see the complete lack of judgment that led to the failures of Jan 6th, and am darkly amused that some of the proposed remedies include additional anti-terrorism laws and surveillance. The insurrectionists on the right don’t have to conceal their plans; they put them on Parler and Gab and other filth-pits where anyone could see them. The failure is not one that can be fixed with new technologies or new laws. We need an entirely new group of people leading these organizations, one with the will to eliminate racist treachery from the inside out. We also need to get over the idea, which I’ve seen expressed more than once, that the way to “come together” or achieve “unity” is to avoid provoking those who regret missing out on the treasons committed on Jan. 6. Some have even written that we shouldn’t try to disarm these violent extremists because it would validate their fears about gun control. These concerns are foolish. We cannot cede initiative to these groups, wondering whether their internet boasts will lead to actual violence, when we could be exposing them, shaming them, and ultimately disarming them before they decide to act.

There’s a final anecdote I have to share that informs my perspective on violence, especially when bullies are involved. When I reentered Apple Valley High School, I knew no one. My family had just been recently and radically altered, and I had no money to join in on classmates’ usual recreational activities. This left me unprepared on many levels to cope with the constant comments from one of my classmates: "F****t.” Over and over again, every day of gym class. When I had absolutely reached my limit, I grabbed him after we had come in from cross-country skiing and shoved him against a row of lockers, holding him there with my forearm across his throat. “Don’t ever call me that again,” I told him. He responded by threatening me with an after-school beating involving him and his friends, but I kept that appointment - afraid the whole time - and he never showed. He also never insulted me again.

The guiding philosophy of today’s mainstream Republican party shows all the sophistication of my adolescent antagonist, and is equally contemptuous of its opposition’s request to be treated with respect. One of the conclusions of Aleksandar Heman’s portentous essay on fascism is this:

The idea that we’re all in this together and that we must keep talking is dangerous, just as my commitment to friendship was, because we might find ourselves wasting time and anger on a fundamentally unbalanced dialogue, where one side is armed with ideas, and the other is armed with weapons.

Like that idiot high-schooler, today’s Republican party can’t be reasoned with. Its lies have to be choked off and its political power destroyed. I can only hope that my occasional experimentation with violence remains recreational.

As the first light of dawn broke over the primordial Blogosphere of the early 2000’s, one of my favorite reads was Bob Somerby’s Daily Howler. In that city-state period of the internet, independent writers were able to capture enormous audiences with blogs. In the absence of the Facebook share or the retweet, the currency of admiration was links, and the blogroll of a talented writer was a great reference for further reading. The Daily Howler was linked by most of the best blogs.

The Howler’s style was an agreeable blend of curmudgeonly sarcasm, acidic commentary on the habits of the political media. At the time, the previous Worst President Ever was in the process of fabricating a justification for an invasion of Iraq, assisted greatly by the credulous reporting of much of the mainstream media. Still stung by the realization of what could have been, Somerby returned again and again to the “war on Gore,” and how so many voters believed things about Gore that simply weren’t true. He also justly skewered the “both-sidesism” that pervades political commentary, and the infuriating tendency to report that some new fact “raises questions” without stating the questions or why they need to be answered.

I would love to believe that our leading media outlets have elevated themselves to a new standard of public service. There’s plenty of good examples of diligent, detailed, long-form articles during the Trump era that brought critical information to the public. They even (belatedly) shook off their aversion to calling lies lies, at least where Trump is concerned - though the NYT still prefers the flimsier “stated without evidence” or similar. I am encouraged that in this period where the entire Republican leadership has embraced denial of Biden’s growing margin of victory, most news organizations state the plain truth: Biden is president-elect, beyond any doubt, and will rightfully take power on January 20.

What is most disturbing is how many right-wing media continue to sell the lie that Biden's win is fraudulent, and will continue to do so in order to delegitimize the upcoming administration. The hermetically sealed Earth 2 of the conservative media bears little resemblance to our world, but tens of millions of people find its narratives more convincing. Any discussion of Democrats’ messaging difficulties, or of the gap between polling expectations and election results, is incomplete without acknowledging that there is now a large share of Americans that literally cannot acknowledge reality - and a significant fringe of those that are willing to kill in service of their preferred illusion.

We cannot possibly have a functioning democracy when the very facts we need in order to govern ourselves are in dispute. I will not be putting my energy over the next four years into any outreach to the so-called “heartland” voters that selected Trump to lead them deeper into their dangerous hall of mirrors. Trump voters are all adults. They own all responsibility for their consumption and perpetuation of falsehood and hatred. While their supreme leader continues his shit-flinging tantrum over his embarrassing defeat, let’s advocate for the fullest use of Biden’s presidential powers to strengthen democracy, help our country recover from the pandemic and its economic effects, and lead in the right direction on climate and racial justice. That’s to everyone’s benefit, whether they acknowledge it or not.

Photon-based political graffiti: one of my favorite innovations to come out of the Trump era. Thanks Vox.

Any attempt to catalog the failures of the Trump administration risks an unceremonious burial under the sheer quantity, banality, and stupidity of the available examples. However, there’s one that cries out for immediate remedy - aside from the obvious COVID-19 effort.

The US effort against climate change has, for the last four years, gone in the opposite direction from where our global allies and rivals are heading. Even in the absence of any federal guidance, there are major US companies in carbon-intensive sectors getting in front of the transition - for example, automakers are making huge commitments to electric vehicles. As if the risk of losing the biosphere that nurtured human civilization were not enough, our policy malfeasance creates additional risks that apply specifically to the US. To name just two: we continue to lose global influence to players that are in a position to take rapid climate action (hello China!) and remain vulnerable economically to the sector’s volatility the longer we continue to rely on fossil fuels.

The Biden climate agenda is the most ambitious propounded by any incoming administration. Even without control of the Senate, there are a number of executive actions he will likely take. However, even his complete package of policies is completely insufficient to actually solve the problem. There’s a vast difference between what scientists are saying is necessary and how mainstream news sources report on the issue. This NYT article, for example, is an excellent overview of the political obstacles to Biden’s climate actions, but it never properly establishes what’s at stake should they fail.

We should simply accept at this point that there will be no major climate legislation during the first half of Biden’s term in office. There will be no crossover support from Republican senators under McConnell’s leadership, and while I certainly hope to be proven wrong, I can’t imagine that both of the available Senate seats in Georgia will go to Democrats. I also suspect that the deference of the federal judiciary to the power of the executive will vanish on January 20.

What remains, then? Perhaps the most influential means Biden will have to move in the right direction is foreign policy: he can reenter the Paris accords, and negotiate for additional commitments from other nations - who, after all, represent over 80% of all carbon emissions. I hope there will also be a concerted effort to extract voluntary commitments from the most carbon-intensive industries to make a rapid transition, an effort where cooperation between governments could be especially powerful. Most of all, I want the Biden administration to be steadfast in confronting their opposition with the planetary scale of this ongoing tragedy. Perhaps the words of Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell, spoken from within America’s golden age of leadership in science and exploration, might help:

You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, “Look at that, you son of a bitch.”

I feel compelled to close on a hopeful note, so here are the Biden administration’s first ten executive actions on climate, as compiled by Vox. It’s already worlds better than what we’ve witnessed over the last four years.

What would you add to this list?

Facebook made me do it.

I saw people that I knew and admired dropping off the platform, mostly out of sheer self-preservation, and I wondered: How will I keep in touch with these delightful homo sapiens? If you’re here, you likely saw my proposal to start a blog, and perhaps you even encouraged me to follow through…in which case, you are now implicated in what comes next (I mean this in a good way!).

This is perhaps the first cracking-open of a chrysalis containing my life to date. I’ve titled it Hyphenated, because this is a term that celebrates those who have more than one identity, professional, avocational, or otherwise, all of which are essential parts of their whole. I’d love for all my visitors not to feel forced to choose a specialization, but to bring their whole selves here to enrich one another.

In the shapelessness of this COVID-marked interregnum, I feel more relief than excitement. This election of 2020 was a reminder, just the latest in a long series of warning signs, that the normative “American way of life” is irreversibly changing, and that there is a very real chance of turning toward ignorance and darkness. When same-sex marriage was still in dispute here in the US, I recall seeing the lever that moved those few Republicans who turned on their party’s bigotry. They did so, without exception, because real people that worked with them or shared family connections would continue to be harmed if they stayed the course - and eventually they decided that they could not look these human beings in the face and tell them that they did not deserve to have marriage built on the truth of their love. To me, this suggests that what we really need is to bring more different people into meaningful contact with one another. People as hardened in their perspective as the Parler-dwelling trolls won’t respond to argumentation nor appeals to emotion; they’ll only be convinced that there’s a larger truth when they convince themselves, based on their own personal experiences.

How can we do this without further burdening the people who have had to stand at the focus of this relentless hatred? What else should we be doing? What does it look like when this effort succeeds?