Esoteric Meandering Shouting Into the Void

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

The American media circus is in town again, and as always, the clowns are working overtime. A shooting in Minnesota should spark conversations about the insanity of our gun laws, but no, that would be too real, too uncomfortable, too close to the bone. Instead, the headlines scream: the shooter was trans. Ah yes, of course—because identity is more important than the fact that bullets were flying in yet another public space where families should’ve been safe. Forget gun reform. Forget the endless body count. Let’s reduce a human tragedy into a culture war sideshow, complete with talking heads foaming at the mouth, because nothing distracts quite like a fight about gender. It’s red meat for the audience, and they’ll chew it right up.

And then, as if the distraction wasn’t theatrical enough, we get RFK Jr. making the rounds with his science fair word salad. He drops “mitochondria” into a speech like he’s auditioning for Jeopardy!—as though the word itself proves he’s smarter than every virologist, epidemiologist, and doctor who ever walked the Earth. His followers nod in awe, dazzled by the syllables, convinced that if you can pronounce “mitochondria,” you must be the rightful steward of their health decisions. Never mind the years of debunked nonsense trailing behind him like toilet paper stuck to a shoe. He’s figured out the trick: sound smart to people who don’t know better, and you’re suddenly a prophet. It’s not education; it’s manipulation. He’s basically the guy at the bar who says “quantum physics” three times and walks out with your wallet.

This is nothing new. Dickens would laugh himself sick at how familiar it all looks. In David Copperfield, the street urchins dance and sing, pulling focus while the real theft happens quietly in your coat pocket. Fast forward a couple hundred years, and the same act is playing on every screen in America. Only instead of scrappy kids, we’ve got cable news producers and politicians running the con, making sure your outrage is pointed anywhere except at them. While you’re yelling about bathrooms or “cancel culture,” your paycheck, your healthcare, and your democracy are being siphoned away, drip by drip.

And in the middle of it all, there’s Donald Trump, stumbling through speeches, forgetting names, mistaking countries, and clearly showing signs of decline. But God forbid anyone in the media actually call it what it is. No, they’re already rehearsing the spin. When he finally keels over, some sycophantic “doctor” will emerge from Mar-a-Lago with a press release claiming he was healthier than an Olympic decathlete, destined to live until the year 3000, and therefore his demise must have been murder most foul. Cue the conspiracy theories, cue the martyrdom, cue the endless distraction machine grinding into overdrive.

Meanwhile, the real crises—climate collapse, wealth inequality, corruption so thick you could bottle it—get buried under the noise. And that’s the whole point. We’re the dupes in the carnival, dazzled by the flashing lights while our pockets are being emptied. If Dickens were alive, he’d recognize the scam in an instant. The difference is that his marks eventually figured it out. We? We’re still staring at the shiny distraction, swearing it’s the main event.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

What kind of grotesque nation have we become when children are gunned down in their classrooms and our leaders respond with “thoughts and prayers” as if platitudes were bulletproof vests? This is not Gaza. This is not Falluja. These are not war zones, yet America tolerates daily carnage on its streets, in its churches, in its schools. We tolerate it because cowards in suits—politicians bought and paid for by the gun lobby—decided long ago that campaign donations matter more than children’s lives.

Let’s say it clearly: the United States is the only developed country where mass shootings are routine. Not occasional. Routine. Our children practice active shooter drills as often as fire drills. Imagine telling a child in France or Japan or Australia to duck under their desk because a gunman might storm their classroom at any moment. They’d look at you like you were insane. And they’d be right. Other countries have mental illness. Other countries have violent media. Other countries even have guns. But only America has leaders so spineless, so morally bankrupt, that they let an entire generation grow up with the expectation that they may die at school.

The excuse-makers are relentless. “It’s a mental health crisis.” “It’s video games.” “It’s broken families.” Wrong. This is a gun crisis, engineered and sustained by politicians who cower before the NRA and its blood-soaked checkbook. They wring their hands, weep crocodile tears on camera, and then turn around and block even the mildest reforms—background checks, red flag laws, limits on weapons of war—because doing the right thing would cost them their next campaign ad buy.

Every mass shooting is not just a tragedy; it is a political choice. It is the choice of senators who block legislation. It is the choice of representatives who parrot gun lobby talking points. It is the choice of governors who sign laws making it easier, not harder, for unstable individuals to carry assault rifles in public. When they stand in front of cameras after the next massacre and say, “This is not the time to talk about policy,” what they mean is: “This is not the time to threaten my donor pipeline.”

And while they posture, parents bury children. Survivors carry scars you cannot see. Teachers prepare to throw themselves in front of bullets because adults in charge refuse to do their jobs. America is not exceptional in this. America is deranged.

We must stop pretending this is some unsolvable riddle. Australia acted after one mass shooting. New Zealand acted. Britain acted. Meanwhile, America buries its dead and shrugs. The Second Amendment was not intended as a suicide pact, but that’s exactly how our leaders interpret it—every gun sale sacred, every coffin of a child expendable.

This isn’t freedom. It’s a moral collapse. It’s national rot. Until we decide that the lives of children matter more than the profits of gun manufacturers and the cowardice of politicians, we will continue to live in a country where schools resemble combat zones. And the blood on the floor isn’t just from the bullets—it’s on the hands of every lawmaker who looked at this epidemic and chose money over life.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

I am sorry that I keep venting about the Orange Menace but his BS has taken up residence in my rage meter.

Mango Mussolini fancies himself a dictator, but let’s be honest — if he’s a dictator, then Chuck E. Cheese is fine dining. This is not a man with the discipline of a Stalin or the cunning of a Putin; he’s more like a bloated mascot in a polyester suit, waddling around screaming “Respect my authority!” while his handlers frantically swap out cue cards. The only iron fist he has is the one he uses to clutch a Big Mac.

He signs executive orders with the flourish of a monarch, convinced his Sharpie is a royal scepter. Every signature becomes, in his mind, a commandment etched in gold: “Thou shalt not burn the flag. Thou shalt praise Dear Leader. Thou shalt watch Fox News or face eternal damnation.” Of course, the Supreme Court already settled the flag issue decades ago, but why let precedent stand in the way of Mango Mussolini’s royal decrees? He doesn’t read court rulings; he barely reads menus.

And yet, for all his cosplay as America’s Mussolini, one has to ask: who’s actually in charge here? The Heritage Foundation writes policy binders thicker than his skull, Putin whispers sweet kompromat from Moscow, and Stephen Miller slithers out of his crypt each night to draft fresh xenophobic talking points. Mango Mussolini thinks he’s the puppeteer, when in reality he’s the orange sock puppet flopping around on stage. Picture him dangling on strings: “Build the wall!” says Miller. “Sanctions? What sanctions?” says Putin. “Destroy the EPA!” says Heritage. And there he goes, signing whatever lands in front of him like a toddler scribbling with crayons.

His idea of leadership is firing off tweets that ruin lives, demanding people be sacked simply for disagreeing with him. Dictators jail dissidents; Mango Mussolini rage-tweets them into unemployment. He mistakes petty cruelty for strength, tantrums for policy, and applause at rallies for global legitimacy. He is, at best, a dictator LARPing in a poorly fitted suit. At worst, he’s a hollow marionette who thinks the strings yanking him around are actually his own muscles.

But here’s the problem: even a bad actor can burn the stage down. Every executive order he scribbles, every unconstitutional stunt he attempts, every hissy fit disguised as policy leaves dents in the foundation of democracy. He doesn’t need competence to cause chaos; chaos is his brand. Mango Mussolini is like a wrecking ball that thinks it’s Michelangelo.

So no, he’s not a dictator. He’s not even capable of being one. Real dictators are terrifying; Mango Mussolini is absurd. But absurdity with power is still dangerous. He’s the carnival barker who stumbled into the Oval Office, the marionette who thinks he’s Caesar, the orange-tinted Mussolini knockoff whose ego is bigger than his IQ. And yet, through sheer volume, vanity, and venom, he’s managed to drag the country into his sideshow act.

The tragedy? The world is forced to sit through it — a dictator cosplay gone horribly, stupidly, dangerously wrong.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

Every summer, people flood Comic-Con, proudly cosplaying as the heroes they admire. They strap on foam muscles, put on capes, maybe even add LED lights to make their lightsabers glow. And here’s the crucial part: they know it’s pretend. They don’t leave San Diego believing they can now leap tall buildings in a single bound. They don’t write their landlord a check signed “Tony Stark” and expect it to clear. The beauty of cosplay is the honesty: they admire, they emulate, they enjoy—but they don’t confuse fantasy with reality.

Donald J. Trump, on the other hand, is living in a never-ending convention where he really thinks the badge he Sharpies onto his chest is genuine. He doesn’t cosplay the strongman—he believes he is the strongman. Forget the emperor with no clothes; this is the emperor who thinks his spray tan counts as Kevlar. While Comic-Con fans line up to pose as Superman, Trump is demanding a congressional Medal of Honor for his daring service in the Battle of Twitter.

Let’s go ahead and read his “citations”:

For gallantry in the face of mortal danger, Donald J. Trump heroically withstood the brutal crossfire of Jim Acosta’s questions without fainting more than twice.

For wounds sustained in combat, he deserves the Purple Heart, having bravely suffered paper cuts from legal subpoenas and the unspeakable trauma of seeing his crowd sizes fact-checked.

For extraordinary valor under fire, he stood tall (well, slouched) as Saturday Night Live unleashed the savage weaponry of Alec Baldwin impressions—an assault so devastating, future generations may never fully grasp the suffering.

Meanwhile, at Comic-Con, fans of Captain America know they’ll never get a real shield. Fans of Wonder Woman understand the Lasso of Truth is plastic. Fans of Deadpool accept they don’t regenerate. But Trump? He’s still out here insisting his golf score is real, his bone spurs were fatal, and his “genius IQ” could make Einstein blush.

Cosplayers remove their costumes at the end of the weekend. Trump? He’s permanently zipped into his bug suit from Men in Black, stomping around as if “King of the Cockroaches” were a legitimate title of nobility. He struts naked while insisting he’s wearing the finest golden robes—and then demands a Nobel Prize for “fashion excellence.”

At least the cosplayers understand the joke. Trump? He’s the joke—and somehow still demanding a standing ovation.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

Ladies and gentlemen, gather round, because our dear Donald has once again blessed us with another galaxy-brain idea. Apparently, the Department of Defense just isn’t cutting it anymore—it’s too soft, too defensive, too… un-Trump-like. Defense, after all, suggests that you’re minding your own business, protecting your people, maybe even prioritizing peace. And what fun is that when you could rebrand the whole thing as the Department of War? Yes, WAR—big, bold, capital letters, probably with a gold-plated logo slapped on the Pentagon. Because nothing says “peace-loving Nobel Prize candidate” like renaming your military to sound like it’s itching to invade the nearest neighbor.

And let’s pause for a second on that part: the Nobel Peace Prize. This is the same man who practically begged for one after shaking Kim Jong-un’s hand like he was brokering world peace instead of trading love letters with a dictator. He still pouts about Obama getting one, as if the committee should just hand him a medal for existing. Yet here he is, demanding that our military stop “defending” and start “warring.” Kind of counterintuitive, don’t you think? Hard to pose for the Peace Prize glamour shot when you’re simultaneously scribbling down a shopping list of countries to invade. Greenland? Still salty about being laughed at. Panama? Why not, it’s been a while. Canada? Maybe just to shut up Carney. Because when you’re Donald Trump, war isn’t a last resort—it’s Tuesday.

This is classic Trump branding: defense sounds boring, but war sounds sexy. Defense implies responsibility, strategy, and patience. War implies action, explosions, parades with tanks rolling past the reviewing stand while Dear Leader salutes. And of course, the merchandising opportunities are endless: Trump Missiles, Trump Tanks, maybe even a line of MAGA camouflage made in China.

The irony, of course, is that Donald himself wouldn’t last five minutes in uniform. “Bone spurs” kept him from Vietnam, but hey—why should that stop him from sending someone else’s kid to die in his glorious rebranded wars? He’ll just sit back at Mar-a-Lago, live-tweet the carnage, and remind everyone that if it weren’t for him, we’d be speaking Canadian by now.

So yes, let’s rename the Department of Defense. Let’s call it the Department of War. Let’s embrace the madness of a man who wants a Nobel Peace Prize in one hand and a flamethrower in the other. Because nothing screams “peace” like endless war—at least in Trump’s upside-down universe.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

Corporations Are People? Sure, and I’m Best Friends With ExxonMobil

Back in 2010, five Supreme Court justices decided to cosplay as corporate lobbyists and handed us Citizens United v. FEC. The ruling? Corporations are basically people, and money is basically speech. Cue the champagne popping in boardrooms and the collective groan from the rest of us. Ever since, our elections have looked less like democratic contests and more like an open-air auction where Goldman Sachs shows up with a black card and buys the whole tent.

Of course, Mitt Romney captured the spirit of this nonsense perfectly with his unforgettable declaration: “Corporations are people, my friends.” Oh, really, Mitt? Then let’s play this out. If corporations are people, does Walmart get to vote twice because it’s technically incorporated in Delaware and headquartered in Arkansas? Does Chevron get jury duty? Does Amazon send its kids to the local public school, or just buy the entire school board outright?

Picture it: ExxonMobil out mowing the lawn on a Saturday morning, GE paying alimony, Pfizer waiting in line at the DMV. I can’t wait for JPMorgan Chase to show up at Thanksgiving dinner and ruin it for everyone. Because nothing says “the spirit of democracy” like Uncle Bank of America giving a drunken speech about tax loopholes.

But here’s the kicker—these “people” don’t have lungs to breathe, hearts to break, or bills they can’t pay at the end of the month. They don’t bleed, they don’t die, and they sure as hell don’t show up at the ballot box like you or me. They exist for one reason: profit. By giving corporations the same political rights as individuals, Citizens United basically put dollar signs in charge of the megaphone and shoved the rest of us into the cheap seats.

The ruling’s defenders insist that money is speech. Which, fine, but if money is speech, then Jeff Bezos is Shakespeare, Elon Musk is Winston Churchill, and the rest of us are mumbling into soup cans tied to string. Your $20 donation? That’s not speech, that’s whispering into a hurricane funded by billionaire vanity projects.

And Super PACs? Oh yes, they’re “independent,” the Court said. Right. Independent the same way your dog is independent when he’s sitting under the table drooling for scraps. The coordination between candidates and their billionaire backers is so blatant it deserves an Emmy.

Let’s be clear: individuals already had free speech. Nothing stopped Mitt Romney, Jeff Bezos, or your Uncle Larry from writing letters to the editor or standing in a park with a bullhorn. What Citizens United did was grant corporations—fictional entities designed to shield liability—political rights they never earned. It’s like giving your toaster voting rights just because you plug it into the wall.

If we ever want democracy to mean “one person, one vote” again instead of “one corporation, one dump truck of cash,” Citizens United has to go. Congress and the states need to take back the ability to limit outside money, to make space for reforms like public financing and transparency laws that aren’t immediately drowned in billionaire pocket change.

Because here’s the truth: corporations are not people. They don’t tuck their kids into bed, they don’t cry at funerals, and they sure as hell don’t care if your town’s drinking water is poisoned—unless, of course, it hurts the stock price.

So no, Mitt. Corporations aren’t people. They’re not our friends. They’re the guy at the party who shows up, drinks all the beer, calls an Uber, and then sends you the bill for the house.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

We are Generation X—the forgotten middle children of history. No draft notices ever landed in our mailboxes, no national crusades demanded our sacrifice. Instead, we were handed a latchkey, a Pop-Tart, and a half-functioning TV remote, told to raise ourselves while our parents figured out their “second marriages.” We grew up feral, with sarcasm as our native tongue, MTV as our babysitter, and cynicism as our religion.

And let’s face it—we swore we’d never grow up. Never. We were the slackers in thrift-store flannel, the mixtape philosophers, the mall rats, the garage-band prophets of whatever, man. We promised ourselves we’d never sell out, never become our parents, never sit around lecturing kids about “the good old days.” Guess what? We lied.

Now we’re the ones telling endless stories that start with “When I was a kid…”—and we have a thousand of them. We drank straight from the garden hose, we rode in the back of pickup trucks without seat belts, and we played outside until the streetlights came on while no adult cared if we were alive or not. We tell these stories like holy scripture, conveniently forgetting our parents didn’t bother us with half as many “back in my day” lectures. Nope—we invented the nostalgia monologue and perfected it into an Olympic sport.

But here’s the kicker: we never actually stopped being kids. We just got mortgages, creaky knees, and bifocals while still secretly blasting the same songs we thought would “change the world.” We sneer at TikTok while doomscrolling under the covers at 2 a.m., telling our kids to log off while we fall down YouTube rabbit holes about 80s commercials. We’re running PTA meetings with the same half-hearted effort we once applied to passing high school algebra.

And let’s be honest—we feel like impostors. Every time we’re told we’re the adults now, we laugh nervously and wonder who let us be in charge. We’ve been pretending since 1991, and the world still hasn’t caught on. The truth is, the kids’ table never really ended—it just got rebranded as the HOA meeting, complete with worse snacks.

So here we are: the generation that never grew up, trying to play grown-up, clinging to our sarcasm like it’s life support. And the most poetic twist of all? Our kids roll their eyes at our stories exactly the way we once rolled ours. Congratulations, Gen X—we became the thing we mocked. And of course, we’re going to complain about it.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

Ah yes, the trusty old “both sides do it” line—the universal remote control of political excuses. It doesn’t matter if one side commits full-blown arson and the other side forgets to blow out a candle, because hey, technically both involve fire. This is the rhetorical equivalent of saying jaywalking and armed robbery are the same thing because, you know, laws were technically broken.

Let’s start with the Trump lie machine. The man produces falsehoods with the efficiency of a TikTok feed—lies per minute are off the charts. But if Joe Biden stumbles once over the word “statistics”? Oh, that’s clearly equivalent to a thousand Trump fabrications about, say, injecting bleach or Mexico paying for a wall. It’s the same, folks. Biden mangled a syllable, Trump mangled democracy—balance achieved.

Immigration? Even better. Suggest that detaining migrants in conditions resembling concentration camps might be problematic, and suddenly the Both Sides Police come running: “Well, FDR interned Japanese Americans during World War II!” Right, because if someone drives their car off a cliff in 1942, we’re supposed to shrug when someone else does it today. That’s like saying, “Why get mad about your neighbor stealing your lawnmower? Genghis Khan stole whole countries. Perspective, people!”

And oh, the Clintons. Bill Clinton lied about sex—taboo, scandal, endless impeachment. According to both-sides logic, that’s exactly the same as Trump egging on an insurrection. Because, really, what’s the difference between misleading America about a consensual affair and encouraging a mob to literally hunt the Vice President? Apples and oranges? No, more like apples and nuclear warheads—but sure, both are fruit, so we’re good.

Want more examples? If a Democrat spills their coffee, it’s a full-on caffeine coup against the republic. If a Republican torches the Constitution, well, that’s just passionate patriotism. If AOC rolls her eyes too hard during a hearing, it’s disrespect bordering on treason. If Marjorie Taylor Greene talks about Jewish space lasers? Oh, that’s just “colorful rhetoric.” See? Balance.

And nothing illustrates this sham better than January 6th. We watched a mob beat cops with flagpoles, break into the Capitol, and chant about hanging elected officials—all while being told it was just “legitimate political discourse.” Meanwhile, if a progressive protester sneezes near a government building, it’s branded domestic terrorism. One side builds gallows; the other side builds cardboard signs. Totally the same thing.

This is the sleight of hand of both-sides-ism: it flattens everything into a bland mush where genuine crimes are no worse than trivial gaffes. It’s like comparing accidentally stepping on someone’s foot to deliberately amputating their leg. Or treating spilling milk in the kitchen as equal to burning the entire neighborhood down while screaming “FREEDOM!”

So next time someone puffs out their chest and says, “Well, both sides do it,” just nod politely and remember: one side occasionally forgets to take out the trash. The other side has set the garbage truck on fire and is driving it into the town square. But hey—trash is trash, right?

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

Ah yes, Texas—the land where everything is bigger, including the audacity of its GOP leaders. These stalwart defenders of “election integrity” (translation: making sure only the right people’s votes count) may soon need more than a cowboy hat and a pickup truck to get around safely. After all, when you’ve spent years fine-tuning the art of gerrymandering, suppressing voter turnout, and inventing rules that would make Kafka blush, your constituents might not exactly be lining up to send you homemade casseroles. No, they might just be sharpening their side-eye and whispering, “We didn’t vote for you, buddy, because you made sure we couldn’t.”

So what’s a Texas GOP leader to do? Easy: call in the cavalry—literally. Forget your average security detail; these folks may want the National Guard patrolling their gated communities like it’s the Alamo 2.0. Why settle for a couple of burly bodyguards when you can have Humvees and helicopters circling overhead every time you step out for brisket? Because let’s face it: if you’ve successfully redefined democracy into a choose-your-own-winner adventure, you’re not exactly going to want to stand alone in the Whataburger parking lot without some backup.

Of course, the irony is delicious. These same leaders who scream about “small government” and “fiscal responsibility” would be the first to demand taxpayer-funded battalions just to keep their own neighbors from side-eyeing them too hard at Sunday service. Nothing says “man of the people” like needing a platoon of camo-clad twenty-year-olds to hold back the very voters whose voices you worked so hard to muffle.

And it’s not paranoia if you’ve actually built the system this way. Deep down, even these politicians know you can only gaslight democracy for so long before democracy starts giving you the stink eye back. That’s why every press conference is delivered from behind a fortress of flags, podiums, and carefully screened “supporters” who mysteriously all look like they just walked out of central casting for a campaign ad.

So yes, Texas GOP leaders may very well require the National Guard—not because the people are rioting in the streets (yet), but because nothing screams guilty conscience quite like needing a tank to pick up your dry cleaning. If you have to rule by fear of your own electorate, maybe, just maybe, it’s because you know you didn’t actually win their votes—you just confiscated them.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

BREAKING: Nation in Crisis as Gavin Newsom Steals Trump’s Caps Lock

In a shocking turn of events that experts are already calling “worse than Watergate, Benghazi, and low shower pressure combined,” California Governor Gavin Newsom mocked Donald J. Trump using—brace yourselves—Trump’s own writing style.

The reaction from Trump-world was immediate and hysterical.

“This is an ATTACK on the Presidency, on the English language, and frankly on CAPS LOCK itself,” declared Congressman Jim Jordan, while sweating through his eighth shirt of the morning. “Democrats should stick to boring paragraphs nobody understands. That’s their brand!”

Sean Hannity opened his show with a dramatic monologue, whispering: “If Gavin Newsom can use Trump’s style, what’s next? Will he also stand awkwardly with his tie too long? Will he eat McDonald’s in bed? Will he hold a Bible upside down? America, we must stop this.”

Even Trump himself was reportedly enraged. According to aides, he stormed into the Mar-a-Lago ballroom, demanded a Sharpie, and screamed:

“EVERYBODY SAYS I WRITE THE BEST TWEETS. The BEST tweets. Newsom is copying me—poorly. Very poorly. Sad imitation. People are saying—many people—that he should be locked up for this.”

Rudy Giuliani, calling in from what appeared to be the back of a liquor store, added: “This is clearly illegal. Somewhere. Probably in the Constitution. Maybe the Articles of Confederation. I’ll find it.”

But perhaps the most dramatic reaction came from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who posted in all caps: “NEWSOM STOLE TRUMP’S VOICE. THIS IS LIKE WHEN DISNEY TRIED TO REPLACE MICKEY MOUSE WITH A FAKE MOUSE. UNAMERICAN!!!”

Critics note that Trump supporters have never before objected to childish name-calling, incoherent rants, or social media meltdowns. In fact, many of them own T-shirts, coffee mugs, and decorative throw pillows emblazoned with Trump’s “classic insults.” But now, faced with a Democrat throwing shade in the same tone, they are describing it as “the greatest act of political terrorism in U.S. history.”

Meanwhile, Gavin Newsom simply shrugged and tweeted, “Thanks for your attention to this matter.”

Analysts say Trump-world is unlikely to recover. As one Republican strategist put it: “We were fine with a leader acting like a toddler. But the moment Democrats joined in? That was just TOO FAR.”