Well, if the first week of this new-old presidency is any indication, it's going to be a long four years. I'm a daily listener to Mike Pesca's podcast The Gist, and he was saying that he's not going to cover things Donald Trump says, rather only things that he does. I think this is the right the move, as the former outnumbers the latter by at least an order of magnitude, and this fire hose of logorrhea often distracts and confuses everybody as to the actual policy changes that will actually affect their lives. The thing is, though, even at a say-to-do ratio of 10-to-1, the number of things Trump actually does is still pretty high, and a whole lot of it is terrible -- and not just terrible in the sense that I might not like it -- I mean morally repugnant -- things that not even most Trump voters can easily stomach, such as pardoning January 6 rioters who are on video assaulting police officers with pepper spray and blunt objects. Among Trump's litany of executive orders, this, in my opinion, is his worst... so far. If he follows through with his stated plans to raid and deport communities of well-established, nonviolent, tax-paying immigrants, whose only crime is not leaving the country they love, then I might rethink this.
It's so frustrating too because this past presidential election -- the so-called most important of our lives (and it might have been!) -- was so egregiously botched by the Democrats. Because the election was close and Kamala Harris ran a half-decent campaign (all things considered), not enough is made of how badly Biden and his coterie screwed everybody by staying in the race long after it was clear he couldn't hang. Given Harris's performance in the 2020 primaries, it seems probable that she would not have been the candidate in 2024 had there been a real primary, and if instead it could have been somebody who resonated with swing state voters just a few percentage points better... like I said, frustrating.
And then there's the fact that after we all coalesced and ousted Trump from office four years ago, the hardcore Left has seemingly been doing their damnedest to make allying oneself with them as unattractive as possible to centrist normies (aka, most the country), and the Democratic party has been unable and/or unwilling to distance themselves from their unpopular positions. Jeffrey Mauer has a great Substack piece* about how dismaying it is to see Trump score political points by taking about things like free speech, color blindness, and merit -- things that are widely supported by the general public (across identity groups) and used to be championed by Democrats -- especially given that he clearly doesn't give a damn about any of them. He's just savvy enough to step into the void created by lefties' abandonment of these issues.
*He also has one about how the Left antagonizes guys like Mark Zuckerberg and then act indignant when they move rightward. The article is too over-the-top for me, but I take his point. People go where they feel love. As it turns out, constantly telling people how problematic they are is not a great way to build a coalition and advance your agenda. And it's not like I'm a Zuck fan. I've always found him very unimpressive, and I was an early Facebook canceller. I just think it's a major self-own by liberals to lose support, almost gleefully, from so many of the tech-bro types who used to support them.
The good news, such as it is, is that the Republicans aren't that much more popular, and there is a decent chance people quickly remember why they rejected Trump the first time around. "Look how nuts the Democrats are -- come join our cult instead!" isn't actually that appealing a proposition. And so swings the pendulum...
Alright, hopefully I got my quota of politics out of the way for a bit, so I can go back to talking about what I really care about: The mundanities of present-day life and pointless anecdotes from my childhood. Both the kids had school dances yesterday, and it was super cute. Lil' S2 wore his Cowboys jersey and hung with this bros because he's only 9. Lil' S1, however, wore a shirt and tie and invited one of his female friends to attend with him (strictly platonically). I had to help him put his outfit together a little bit, but that's understandable. Initially, his shirt was half tucked-in and half out, and he was wearing his collar popped with his tie around his bare neck (not under the collar). I had to do my fatherly duties and show him how it was actually supposed to be worn. He said he had a great time at the dance, which is music to my ears. It hasn't been super easy for him to integrate socially at his new school, so it's great to hear about little wins.
In other news, Ichiro got elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame this week. He's one of my favorite players of all time, which is saying something being that I was 23 when he joined the Mariners. There is a critical age of sports fandom, right around 15 or so, after which it is difficult to truly become a fan of a team or a player. If you were a fan before that, you will likely be a die-hard fan for life, for better or worse. It's why I will probably always love the Mariners and my favorite players will probably always be Ken Griffey Jr. and Edgar Martinez. They were my favorites when I was 11.
After this critical age, you can still become a new fan of someone or some team, but it's hard to be a fan fan of them. It's like how I'm a fan of the Sounders or the Storm or the Kraken. I root for them, and I try to watch their big games, but I'm not living and dying by them. I'm not devastated when they lose -- I often forget to even check how they did. But, every now and then, somebody comes along who is so amazing to watch and brings so much joy to your life, that it's impossible not to feel that unbridled little-kid fandom once again. That was Ichiro. He was like nothing I'd ever seen before and haven't seen since. He would turn routine ground balls into singles; he would fire frozen ropes to third base from the right field warning track; and every now and then he'd turn on one and hit it into the Safeco bleachers, just to keep everybody on their toes. He was pure awesomeness, man.
Alright, that's all for this post. Until next time...
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