In at least two other alternate realities, a lot of people are counting down the hours to better versions of #POTUS45: President Sanders and President Hillary Clinton.

In the former, in which someone more competent than Jeff Weaver was campaign manager, Sanders is planning a rousing speech harkening to the ghost of FDR, wondering whether or not this country is ready for positive mentions of “democratic socialism” in this inauguration speech.

In the latter, in which she campaigned harder in Midwestern states, Clinton is planning to celebrate the shattering of a glass ceiling, promote a theme of responsibility and extend an olive branch to those who hate her existence. And Bill would have worked out by now how he’ll use Twitter as First Gentleman of the United States.

Thirst for Purging

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Antoine de Saint-Exupery once said: “Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”

So the GOP have the perfect, most on-message political party in 2017. They cut out most of the voters who don’t fit their ideas, cowed the ones who remained, and now carry the nation on a narrow path which will benefit a smaller, privileged portion of the population.

The Tea Party and its predecessors defined themselves by how much they drove away White moderates from the GOP through purity tests. The result of their zealotry, combined with massive gerrymandering, is the incoming dominant status quo.

Being “better/more inclusive than the Tea Party”, combined with being massively distracted from gerrymandering, left us with a terrible Democratic Party. We screwed ourselves. The Obama-Clinton coalition is dying.

Meanwhile, born-again Berniecrats like Nina Turner are preaching fire and brimstone at progressive tent revivals. Berniecrats, now drunk with schadenfreude and motivated by revenge, threaten to make it exciting, thrilling and headline-grabbing to be a progressive in opposition. What they lack in respectability, they replenish with ideological consistency and bombast. In the age of Trump, the American people crave both, and those who want stability are in the minority.

So I’m OK with the progressive sentiment of purging/cowing the centrists and neoliberals from the Democratic Party. I look forward to it.

As I Begin My 30s…

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8 years ago, I was living with Mom in Warner Robins and attending my freshman year (spring quarter) at Macon State College for IT. Obama was about to be sworn into office as the 44th president. Connie still lived off Armour Road next to the North Columbus Library. We drove back and forth to take care of her two kids when she was at work. It wasn’t a banner year for me, but I was adapting to Macon State and enjoying a lot of the classes. Computers were big in my life. Net neutrality was a major topic on forums. Bittorrent was my primary means of watching movies.

4 years later, I was in my final semester of college. Obama was about to be sworn in for the next half of his presidency. While I was driving back and forth from Macon to Fort Benning to help take care of my sister Connie, I didn’t know what I was going to do with my degree. I was serving as president of the MGSU GSA, hustling my business cards to people in order to do some paid web design work, organizing LGBT awareness on campus, connecting to other GSAs in Macon. I wasn’t prepared for Connie dying of cancer in November, or for living full-time in the Columbus area.

Fast forward to now. I’ve worked as a political activist and web designer for a variety of clients. LGBT peoples’ freedoms have increased by quite a bit and technology has come to envelope more of our homes and bodies, while African Americans have seen police brutality exposed on web video to a mind-numbing extent and trans people are murdered and harassed by lawmakers. I saw an election which sought the participation of a weary nation, and I worked for the more progressive candidates (Bernie, then Hillary and Jim). They lost, and now a man who is sought by his followers for excitement and free-market nationalism about their country will come into office.

But I don’t know how much I’ve grown. I’ve gained much more non-collegiate experience than I could have ever gained in Macon/Warner Robins, but I’m still asked if I’m a CSU student by Columbus residents. 4 years after graduation, I still feel like I’m on extended work-study in college. 4 years later, I’m still not able to capture that feeling of “tech is making us better people” that I felt when taking on the Communications degree in college. I bought deeply into the

In 4 years, I’ll be in my mid-30s. I honestly don’t know where or what I’ll be by then. I don’t know if social media will be more weaponized than it is now. I don’t know if this incoming president will resign in favor of his VP by then. I hazard to think that this Congress will do a lot of damage by then, worse than under Bush Junior when I was in high school. And our tech seems to be moving in a dystopic direction.

No one has an idea as to how to unfuck this trajectory. Everything is supposedly inevitable. Unions will continue to die, global warming will continue, martial law will be declared in Black urban neighborhoods like Chicago, mass murders by gun will get worse, more anti-LGBT and anti-minimum wage increase laws will be enacted at the state level.

And I don’t know where I’ll be by then, in this dystopia.

Maybe I should take on some more student debt and go back to school. Maybe I left college at the wrong time.

Worthless “Black Privilege”

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My eyes roll into the back of my head….

I’d trade my “athletic ability for survival and also for reward” in for trans-oceanic economic and military power and the lack of a 2nd Amendment.

I’d trade in my “overall and general privilege to put blame elsewhere and be rewarded for playing the victim” in for a time machine to go back in time and find a way to stop European businessmen from buying our ancestors in West Africa.

I’d trade in “regional and national organizations for the advancement of Black People” for reparations.

I’d trade in “Black President” for a new U.S. Constitution which creates a parliamentary republic, a social contract that is much more empathetic to the less-advantaged classes of our society, and features contributions by (and for the equities of) people of color, women, LGBT people and the working class.

Unlike better-minded Euro-Americans, this person wants these things that we “have”. Please, let’s trade.

That “#Ni**erNavy” Meme

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That hashtag based on a mistake by Yahoo Finance was saved by Black Twitter, but only Black Twitter can touch it with humorous pincers, like it’s a radioactive substance.

I think we’re damaged enough by our past exposure that it doesn’t hurt us as much when we hold it and treat it this way. In the hands of non-Black people, it’s either a nuclear fallout waiting to happen or a weapon of mass destruction to be used with extreme prejudice.

Most of the stuff under that hashtag are cultural references which relate specifically to the Black Southern-descended ex-slave working class experience. I volunteer that they are cultural references which non-Black people with more privilege would find objectionable or distasteful when done by their own people (e.g., “redneck culture” and it’s distaste among more privileged, urbane White people).

There are references to chitlins and collard greens as MREs! Why would non-Black Southern-descended ex-slave working class people celebrate that (IMHO) nasty-ass shit? That’s as real as it gets!

This is why the hashtag is heavily self-policed. For classist reasons, nobody really wants to esteem or positively support any of the contents of this hashtag in another culture.

Nnedi Okorafor’s Lagoon Buries the Queer Folk

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So, Nnedi Okorafor’s “Lagoon” was a good read. Extraterrestrials coming onto the beaches of Lagos, blending in with fantasy creatures and superpowers of West African legend, human characters carving their own pathways in a changing Nigeria.

The one sticking point I have with the novel is the tragic fate of LGBT and gender-nonconforming characters in the novel. If you’ve read it, you know who and what I’m talking about.

I don’t know if anyone has brought it up yet with Ms Okorafor. But basically, ALL of the Nigerian LGBT characters met tragic fates or disappeared for some inexplicable reason at some point in the novel. The cross-dresser Jacobs, the LGBT activists Rome and Seven of the Black Nexus, every gender-nonconforming character.

Yes, Jacobs was unfortunately tied up with trigger-happy 419-scamming types like Moziz, but his entire experience in the novel feels like he played no further role than a dream deferred, a tragic sideshow who would needlessly die at the hands of his homophobic colleague Moziz in order to justify Moziz’s brutal death by extraterrestrial intervention. And the Black Nexus LGBT organization disappears as quickly as it appears.

If there was anything more that I wished from this novel in finishing it, I wish that queer African folks could survive and play a larger role in the unfolding drama.

I think Ms Okorafor made an unfortunate choice in burying her queer folk in the rubble of homophobia rather than letting them see the new day in Nigeria.

I’m reading about the “Concert of Democracies” idea put forward by neocons back during the Bush 43 administration. It would hypothetically be an alternative to the United Nations which would only allow democracies to become members.

In light of anti-United Nations sentiment among Trump and the GOP majority, two questions:
1. Would this Council of Democracies be a good alternative to the U.N.?
2. In our current conditions, and in light of our favorite admonition that “America is not a democracy”, would we even pass the necessary criteria for membership in this “Concert of Democracies”?

Clash of Civilizations with a Side of Trade War

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You know how difficult it is to be atheist, secularist and pro-migration right now?

The Euro-American Christian far-right are having their long-awaited post-9/11 moment against the general Muslim population in this heavily-unemployed majority-Christian country while the Muslim far-right are having their long-running moment against Christians and other religious minorities in heavily-unemployed majority-Muslim countries.

The Christian far-right wants to lower themselves to the Muslim far-right’s standards, and by whatever means necessary. Fears of sharia law, ISIS and the Muslim Brotherhood run rampant in the Christian far-right at the same time as fears of “Zionists” and “Crusaders” are trumpeted by the Muslim far-right in North Africa, West Asia and parts of Southeast Asia.

Meanwhile, they’re running roughshod over the lives and rights of both co-religionists and minorities, but mostly co-religionists who don’t follow their doctrines to a T.

I just wonder: are we going to do a clash of civilizations AND a trade war at the same time?

Between Milo Yiannopoulos and Kim Burrell

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Between Milo Yiannopoulos and Kim Burrell, similarities:

* They have something attractive about them (Milo is a twink who styles himself as the epitome of White gayness, Kim has an amazing jazzy voice for gospel music which makes her a sought-after “friend” for singers of the urban milieu);
* They cash in on others’ social advances (Milo likes Black penis in bed “so he can’t be racist”, Kim cashed a check from openly-bisexual singer Frank Ocean to guest on his album);
* They are otherwise reactionary personalities (Milo is openly disdainful against Black people protesting police brutality, Kim is apparently disdainful against gay and bisexual people);
* They preach to their respective choirs (Milo to reactionary nationalists, Kim to social conservatives in the Black church).

Neither individuals share my headspace much. They’re not even shames or disappointments.

And yes, Tariq Nasheed, Milo has been protested greatly for his unoriginal anti-Black and anti-Trans screeds. Pay attention.

Kerry Throws Parting Shade at Netanyahu

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John Kerry went *in* today on Benjamin Netanyahu.

Trump’s actions toward Netanyahu’s right-wing after January 20 will be interesting to watch in how they compare and contrast to how Dubya (during his presidency) interacted with then-PM Ariel Sharon, a former Likudnik who formed his own center-right party because he was opposed by most Likudniks for his unilateral disengagement of settlers and IDF from Gaza.

Trump is likely to be very protective to Israel and West Bank settlers at the UNSC. But I speculate that the two egos at stake here – Trump and Netanyahu – will clash nastily at some point.

And I wonder about Netanyahu’s ego in particular. He’s the Prime Minister who owes, listens and connects the least to the Jewish diaspora – he is the first Prime Minister to be born in Israeli territory after independence in 1948.

Trump + Netanyahu should make for an interesting dynamic