Hard, Fast and Fascist

Children Of Israel Are Never Alone

Hey, beloved tribe.

Are any of you ocean swimmers? If so, you’ve more than likely been nailed by a wave. The kind that knocks you down and drags you, churning you like a sock in the washing machine, scraping your back along the sand.

I’m guessing all of us know the best thing to do when confronted with a gathering wave that’s threatening to break in a place that’s dangerous to us. There’s an impulse to turn and swim away as fast as possible, but of course that strategy is worse than useless. As counter-intuitive as it feels, the best thing to do is swim toward it, not away, and then to dive beneath it, as deep down as we can.

I’ve had that experience countless times. When it works, you feel the terrifying whoosh and crash as it breaks above you. You feel the most immense force brush by you, just overhead, without taking you along.

The worst feeling, then, is to swim back up and surface, only to see another monster wave right behind the one you just weathered.

This week has been like that for me. The release of Shiri Bibas and her precious children, Ariel and baby Kfir, was dangled like a carrot before us and then snatched away. Now only husband and father Yarden is slated for return tomorrow. It’s impossible not to fear the worst.

The hostages who were released have been forced to participate in a grotesque pageantry, walking a gauntlet of terror and hatred on their way to transport provided by the Red Cross, which has not visited a single hostage in captivity even once and which seems fully complicit with Hamas’ sociopathy.

More than one hostage has reported that there are no innocent civilians in Gaza, which I don’t believe, but I readily see how scenes like the ones we’ve witnessed this week, and the indoctrination of children as young as toddlers with murderous hatred, could create that impression.

Then there are the absolutely horrific developments proceeding apace at home. Along with a game show host in the Oval Office, we have an MTV star as Transportation Secretary and a gutted aviation safety department. We have a drunk Fox News host running the Department of Defense. We have a Russian asset up for director of national intelligence, a brain-worm-addled anti-vax nut job up for leading the Department of Health, and Trump flunky Kash Patel — a Qanon cult member who posted an animated video of himself dismembering political opponents with a chain saw, and who pledged to use his post to “come after the people in the media who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections” — as head of the FBI.

The entire GOP seems poised to confirm all these disastrous nominees. Not a soul or a spine among them, it would seem. As far as I can tell, only Tulsi Gabbard may face some opposition for her refusal to call Edward Snowden a traitor. But there seems to be no disqualifying qualms about the rest of them from any Republican. I devoutly hope to be wrong about this but it’s not looking good. Senator Bill Cassidy is wavering over his desire to protect vaccines — but his opposition, even if it lasts, is not enough to sink Batshit Bobby.

There is absolutely no way to overstate how dangerous all this is. Ridding these departments of all expertise and competence and installing ridiculous, unfit, deranged yes-men leaves us weak, weak, weak. How on earth will a country of over 300,000,000 fail to implode with no adult at the helm of any federal agency?

Every single day, I have to consciously renew my resolve to not let this make me crazy with fear and rage. And yet, on a purely emotional level, Trump’s insane press conference in response to the Black Hawk / American Airlines plane crash nearly drove me over the edge.

As our dumpster-fire-in-chief took the podium and called for a moment of silence for the victims of the tragedy, it briefly seemed that he might actually bother to feign respect and decency for 30 seconds.

Then he began reading a sympathetic statement in a robotic monotone. He kept his eyes focused downward and you could actually see him trailing a finger along the paper in front of him like a child. The man who has absolutely no problem presiding over huge rallies without a single note, riffing and ad-libbing with gleeful abandon, turned into a stick of wood dependent on words written by someone else when he had to project some semblance of presidential humanity for half a minute.

Then the man who fired the leaders of the TSA, the FAA, and the Coast Guard — and gutted the aviation safety advisory committee — stood there and blamed DEI for this debacle.

When asked by a reporter how he could blame DEI when no investigation had yet taken place, he said, “Because I have common sense and unfortunately a lot of people don’t.”

A few hours later, the orange buffoon signed another executive order for the cameras, one which stated that Biden was to blame for the crash. “For your signature, we have a presidential memorandum titled Immediate Assessment of Aviation Safety… in light of the damage done to aviation safety by the Biden administration’s DEI and woke policies… to basically ensure that we are undoing all of that damage,” said the suited clown shoving the papers under his face.

DEI is the new N-word. DEI is the new Jews. To blame for every single thing unfolding under the sun.

Because I don’t like to go into Shabbat on a note of doom, let me leave you with the sources of hope I’m holding onto the hardest right now.

Trump’s handiwork will very soon speak for itself. We haven’t had an aviation disaster like this one in more than 16 years. Chaos and catastrophe will keep unfolding on his watch. The price of eggs will only continue to explode upward. Especially after all his revenge tariffs are in place and all the immigrants harvesting our produce are rounded up and taken away. Countless Trump voters have already had their faces eaten by the leopard in the White House. Dearborn is horrified by his actions in the Middle East. Hispanics are aghast that their family members are being deported. The police union was furious over his pardon of cop-manglers. And the freeze of Congressionally-approved federal funds, which he was forced to reverse, caused panic and outrage in every corner and crevice of the nation.

Even the most Christian nationalist and whitest swaths of the country, who feel smug and safe, won’t remain that way for long. As cossetted as they feel, we are all connected. Plane crashes and pandemics and wildfires and healthcare inaccessibility and the skyrocketing cost of living and apocalyptic unrest will find and affect them too.

We have to stay sane and strong and committed to the opposition. We have to take shelter in our communities and our unity.

I’ll be back with you on Monday with details of some exciting new events on the horizon.

In the meantime, I’m sending you all heartfelt love, strength and light.

Shabbat shalom.

Am Yisrael Chai.