A Few Words in Defense of Our Country

I was just rambling on and on when I initially started this post, about the way social media has degraded human discourse and turned far too many of us into attention-seeking pieces of sh*t. Which is true.

But really, the political events of the past few days have put something into focus that a great many of us do not seem to understand.

When cancel culture was going full-tilt a few years ago, a segment of this country objected to it through a fundamental misunderstanding of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. They argued that people's right to free speech was being violated if they were fired for making statements deemed objectionable by their employers. And that is not what the First Amendment protects. Your employer has every right to decide that your public-facing social-media bullsh*t reflects poorly on the company and that maybe you should find a job elsewhere.

The First Amendment protects you from retaliation by THE GOVERNMENT. And make no mistake, that is what is happening now with Trump targeting late-night television hosts for making jokes about him and suing the New York Times for $15 billion, a case I'm 100% confident he will lose if the Times is willing to sink enough money into it to fight the inevitable tsunami of appeals.

Traditionally speaking in political history, one of the litmus tests for a free country is the ability to criticize the government without retaliation. 

We are currently failing that test.

Republicans spent the entire Biden administration saying vile things about Joe Biden, his family, his dead son. Not jokes. Just mean, horrible sh*t. And yet can you EVEN IMAGINE if Joe Biden had tried to get Fox News shut down over Greg Gutfeld's jokes? All of the people cheering over Jimmy Kimmel's suspension would have been screaming themselves deaf about our First Amendment rights. Some of the same people who are tearing their hair out over posts denigrating Charlie Kirk, were also posting about how we may need an armed revolution to "take the country back" under the Biden administration. 

That is where I truly don't understand how a lot of us seem unable to see the larger picture, which is the continuation of these policies under a presidential administration that you DON'T agree with. It's all fine and dandy when he's going after "the left," but what happens if it gets enough people motivated to put a Democrat in the Oval Office?

Try as he (probably) might, Trump is not going to be president forever. Someone else is going to get into that office. And I think a significant cross-section of Americans has not taken the time to ask themselves — do they want THAT person to have all of the same power that Trump has tried to grab for himself, especially if it turns out to be a Democrat? Because that's the way it works — what's good for the goose is good for the gander. Trump is setting a precedent for the future of the presidency, and I don't think it's one that either party should get to utilize.

It would be truly wild to see Republicans twist themselves into pretzel knots trying to say that a Democrat president can't do the same things Trump has done, when they just spent four years letting him do it. It's not as though this is like the Republican Revolution in Congress in the '90s, when the president and Congress worked in concert to enact the GOP agenda. This is the president usurping power from the other branches of government, deliberately defying the checks and balances in the U.S. Constitution that people claim to hold so high and holy. But only when it suits them specifically, I guess.

I used to think it was borderline-hilarious the way that Trump just constantly lied in a way that seemed almost designed to get himself caught. It's not funny now. Now it seems like more of a definite strategy of purposely muddying the water at every opportunity. Because we're now reaching a point where so many people are lying so often (on both sides of the political fence) that it's nearly impossible to determine what is the actual truth.

No one of any political stripe should be happy about that.

I see a president who is teaching a generation of children that it's OK to be a rude d*ckhead in any situation. I see elected officials posting blatantly-fabricated "breaking news" horsesh*t. We're all screaming at one another on social media and then going to high school softball games with some of the same people we demonize all day on Twitter. Massive corporations have figured out how to harness and monetize our rage, and while we yell ourselves hoarse into the digital void, they spend their days reverse-funneling more money to the top.

In the immortal words of George Carlin, "They don't care about you. They DON'T care about you. THEY DON'T CARE ABOUT YOU."

My ability to write this should be a mark of pride in my country. But honestly, in September 2025, that really depends on who ends up reading it.

And that should frighten you, whether you agree or not.