(This is not really a poem.)

20 Jan 2025

Today Donald Trump was inaugurated.
Again.
After bragging about “grabbing them [girls] by the pussy.”
After being convicted of 34 felonies.
After being indicted for treason.
After saying several times that he would be “a dictator on day 1.”

How did this happen?
I feel compelled to try to understand.

I think it began with the Internet,
which liberated us all from Authority:
the great democratization of information,
that allowed each person to declare individual autonomy —
the right (nay, the duty) to trust our own instincts
and make up our own mind what is true, what is false,
what matters, what doesn’t,
what is necessary, what is not,
what must be done and what must not be done.

That is gratifying, but it is also a burden —
especially when applied to what we must all do or not do.
That’s not how it works.
Getting anything done collectively requires cooperation.
Cooperation requires negotiation,
and sometimes compromise: sometimes you have to have faith
in others’ good faith and the collective wisdom.
We no longer have that.

And so, both to get things done
and to escape the oppression of choice,
the people of the United States elected a dictator.