JAIMIE VERNON – THE BLURST OF TIMES

I’ve got nothing left. I’m spent. This week has been the tightrope shit-show from hell. As Montgomery Burns found out on ‘The Simpsons’ when he tried to get monkeys to type out the greatest novel of all time: “It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times.”

The blurst of times. It’s a spelling mistake that has more meaning because it underscores the hubris. Like the election of Donald Trump as the President-Elect. It’s a mistake but with a very clear message.

“Your next president is Willy Wonka who has been cross-bred with a genetically engineered Oompa Loompa…” – Stephen Colbert

Biff Tannen will soon be running the most powerful country in the world. Don’t believe me? Watch ‘Back To The Future II’. The Cubs won the World Series. If they got that right then believing that Biff – the High School bully – controls the destiny of a nation that survived Nixon and Reagan isn’t a stretch.

Or maybe he’s Richie Rich and his wife Melania is First Lady Godiva. Maybe she’s his KGB handler and is smarter than everyone at the table. We’re about to find out. Leonard Cohen was so taken aback he promptly died. And he’d already seen everything in his lifetime.

Democracy has taken a hit to the solar plexus. The losing class has taken to the streets demanding….something. How could this have happened? How could our elitist cronie with a 30 year pulse on corporate manipulation and a Century 21 Real Estate agent pant suit not have been the ‘Chosen One’?  The reality of why is sinking in. The DNC backed the wrong horse and assumed they could dismiss Trump’s basket of deplorables. You can’t win voters by telling them you think they’re beneath you.

But the RNC backed the wrong horse as well. They didn’t see Trump taking the Kentucky Derby either. The only person not surprised was Trump. He plays to win and he did it by telling everyone to go fuck themselves. In an ironic twist he was the most inclusive in his vitriol.
It was more than that old trope of “Telling it like it is”. It was the cold water enema shoved so far up America’s ass that the political system was puking up excuses why it couldn’t happen. When the ogre comes at you swinging an axe you better believe he’s going to kill you. Everyone thought they had immunity to the Trump invective. He is the apocalypse writ large.

What comes out of this at the end of four years will either be the end of democracy through Civil War or the final death knell for McCarthyism. How that plays out depends on whether Trump baits and switches to please factions in both camps or if his own party – currently the majority ruling class of Republicans – maintains the status quo. If they undo the entire 8 year of Obama-isms and tilt the table toward corporate interests and the marginalization of minority groups as Trump promised while campaigning then the United States eats its own tail and becomes a pariah to everyone outside its borders. The movie ‘Idiocracy’ has become a reality show.

“Hey, what the fuck do you know. You’re Canadian!” One doesn’t have to be an architect to know that you don’t remove the foundation when you rebuild a house. Trump is Nero. He has the fiddle. He’s just waiting for the country to burn so he can put out the fire by pissing on it while simultaneously performing another song for his people.  He calls the tune “Trust me.”

But can you?
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Jaimie Vernon, 4003 Ellesmere Road, Toronto, ON M1C 1J3 CANADA

=JV=

Jaimie’s column appears every Saturday

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Jaimie “Captain CanCon” Vernon has been president of the on again/off-again Bullseye Records of Canada since 1985. He wrote and published Great White Noise magazine in the ‘90s, has been a musician for 33 years, and recently discovered he’s been happily married for 16 years. He is also the author of the recently released Canadian Pop Music Encyclopedia and a collection of his most popular ‘Don’t Believe A Word I Say’ columns called ‘Life’s A Canadian…BLOG’ is now available at Amazon.com http://gwntertainment.wix.com/jaimievernon