The Chair is a loyal family member and friend, a devoted educator and a writer who tries, though does not always succeed, to see all sides of an issue in his work.
But the Chair is tired of being nice and taking the high road.
Aren’t you?
I know many of you are because I received countless (Note: Okay, more than a dozen) gleeful, hopeful and prayerful messages this week that the indictment of Donald Trump means that he is finally going to be held responsible for his countless crimes against — HUMANITY!
Oh, of course not humanity.
It’s just for things like falsifying his business records while paying hush money to a porn star and then lying about it everywhere he saw fit.
My friends worry that this case isn’t important enough or strong enough to get him. They call me to assuage their worries about things like that, though I can’t imagine why.
But I tell them to think of this indictment as an appetizer to a four or five course meal.
Or maybe simply a palate cleanser before the real meal begins.
There is so much to look forward to: vote tampering, perjury, illegal possession of government documents, inciting an insurrection against the US government, cooking the books of your real estate business and pilfering multimillions of dollars to bolster a fortune you overestimate or underestimate to the IRS, depending on the day and what benefits you – though not necessarily in that order.
One supposes crimes against humanity could eventually be on that much longer list once the last rock is turned over and the last orange-hued cockroach is forced from its hiding place. But who knows? By that time we might be onto something else and he just might not be available for us to kick around anymore.
And no, I’m not suggesting or threatening anyone! And if I were, I certainly wouldn’t do it in writing. And I definitely wouldn’t do it in public.
Unlike some people.
This is more than I can say for scores of the friends, relatives, acquaintances and strangers that have crossed my path over the last eight years.
Ever since Trump floated the idea of running for president, and right around the time he spread the false story that Pres. Obama, our first Black president, wasn’t born in this country, the seemingly nicest people in the world I’ve known and/or never met until that moment, have wished him death and fates worse than that.
And quite often, they’ve felt a bit guilty about it.
I might not have learned a lot in therapy but one thing I’ve realized is that guilt is a wasted emotion unless it serves to suppress some abhorrent action.
Meaning that wishing someone a slow and painful torturous existence, or even death, is not the same as killing him/her/them or spending your time making sure they suffer in all kinds of imaginable and unimaginable ways.
In fact, it might even be healthy to wish all of those things on someone you loathe in the midst of a bile-filled tantrum of your choice, provided you don’t act on it.
Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me…after all.
Despite the fact that name-calling is a well-known, and guiltless, international Trumpian pastime.
This is why I also tell everyone that crosses my path who feels the need to confess that they have never wished any one person this much particular evil to… have at it!!
I do this because I know it’s healthy to vent but mostly due to the fact that after all these years I get they are far, far, FAR from ALONE.
I would include myself on this list of people.
In my entire life, which is at this point is much longer than hypochondriacal me ever thought it would be in my younger years, I have never encountered a single public or private figure who has ever elicited so much bile from me and from so many others on such an unrelenting, and almost daily, basis.
It rivals the meanest mean girl (or guy) I knew in high school and brings to mind what came out of the mouth of the angriest and most egregious middle school complainer in the world.
Okay, the latter could even be me on certain days. But still –
Rather than squash the instinct and provoke self-induced heart attacks or binge drinking, I want to let everyone know, and all those I don’t know, that — IT’S OKAY.
Yell, gloat and say what you will in the privacy of your own home (Note: Or in selected public places to pre-screened selected audiences).
It doesn’t make you a bad person.
Not to mention, whatever you are thinking or saying, we’ve all likely thought worse. And in my case, A LOT worse.
This begs the question of what he’s likely thinking and saying in regards to the likes of you and your kind – presently or in the past. Or even future.
But the difference between him and us is that we don’t act out or act on those thoughts. We’re in no danger of getting indicted for them because they’re not crimes.
Most certainly, they’re not crimes against humanity.
Which is more than I can say for….
Well, now I don’t even really need to say it.
“Bad Things” – Machine Gun Kelly & Camila Cabello
notes from a chair 