My uncle, to his credit, is someone with whom I can discuss political and religious topics that his sister just ignores. We respect each other's differences, and I try not to get into arguments. Still, I get frustrated that he identifies as a libertarian and still makes excuses for every illegal, unconstitutional, and blatantly authoritarian thing the orange jackass does. I thought we should, at a minimum, agree that it's unacceptable for the Trump regime to execute a protester in broad daylight, lie its ass off about what happened as if we didn't have eyes, and then backtrack and claim that he brought it on himself by legally carrying a firearm at a protest. I swear to God I wasn't trying to start an argument when I texted him. I thought this was the most obvious common ground in the history of the world. Even Republicans are pissed. Do you know how evil you have to be for people who take free school lunches away from children to decide you've crossed a line?

He said that yes, he was concerned about it, but we need to look at both sides of the story and not jump to conclusions. He sent me a Facebook post that, in contrast with his own typically nuanced remarks, was a deranged partisan screed about how yes, Alex Pretti's death was unfortunate, but he brought it on himself by being an activist and "illegally" interfering with law enforcement officers who are just trying to protect us, and the media is doing a propaganda campaign to make him look good because of Trump Derangement Syndrome. I skimmed after that, but I'd lost interest after reading that stupid cliche that morons to dismiss any criticism of their cult leader by people who know right from wrong. There was also some fearmongering about the minuscule fraction of a percent of undocumented immigrants who have murdered people and some condescending crap about how Alex Pretti and Laken Riley (whose parents hate it when right-wingers politicize her death) were both made in the image of God.

I told my uncle that this guy had lost me at "Trump Derangement Syndrome." My uncle said that the left loses him whenever they say "fascist" or "Nazi" (which I hadn't done yet). At that point, I got a little frustrated at his inability to see what's right in front of him despite ostensibly not trusting the government in the first place, and a bit of snark may have crept into my tone as I agreed that ICE agents aren't Nazis because the Nazis didn't hide their faces. I mean, where is the lie? And how the flaming French filigreed fuck is a libertarian okay with government agents hiding their faces? Of course, it would be unfair to single him out because most people in the comments sections of Reason magazine are more than okay with it, and they can't all be bots.

He sent me another Facebook post, and he hasn't responded to my response to it, which is fine as long as he's thinking about it, which is unlikely. I feel like discussing that post here because I enjoy dissecting other people's words, and the first post isn't worth my time. This is from someone named Rabbi Mark N. Wildes.

Now I will dissect some of his words, mainly the ones I didn't like. I know some people will think it's anti-Semitic for me to argue with a Jew about Nazis, but those are mainly the same people who think it's anti-Semitic to criticize Israel for intentionally starving and shooting children, so I don't much care what they think. It's natural for Rabbi Wildes to have strong feelings about this topic, but that doesn't make his actual argument immune to criticism. He doesn't speak for all Jews, anyway.

Since when does the government get to determine what's moral or not? It's moot, though, because the Trump regime is blocking those investigations. I wonder why. He's not a fascist, and he has nothing to hide.

Yeah, the word "Holocaust" is probably overkill at this point, I can see why Rabbi Wildes would find it deeply troubling, and I have no desire to be insensitive about that. If his post ended here, I wouldn't have bothered to write my own post about it. But...

Oh, I'm sorry, is it deeply troubling to compare racist secret police who profile people, demand to see their papers, and detain them in inhumane conditions without due process to the Gestapo? Respectfully, are you shitting me?

The systematic genocide was preceded by years of propaganda and legal restrictions to dehumanize Jews and other minorities, not unlike what the Trump regime is constantly doing. The first example that comes to mind is the Department of Homeland Security's dystopian (and infantile) ICE recruitment ads about "dangerous illegals." The second example that comes to mind is all the other right-wing assholes who have been calling undocumented immigrants "illegals" for a long time, not to mention confidently and incorrectly asserting that constitutional rights like free speech and due process don't apply to non-citizens. The third example that comes to mind is Trump claiming multiple times that undocumented immigrants are "poisoning the blood of this country," which sounds like something straight from Hitler's mouth and would have disqualified him from office for life in any sane country, though in fairness, so would thousands of other things he's said and done. Honorable mention: his absurd fearmongering lie about legal Black immigrants eating people's pets in Ohio. Of course, right now I'm just focusing on his rabid xenophobia, not all his other fascist and authoritarian rhetoric that appealed so much to my small-government family.

Also, his DHS has already sent people to concentration camps, both abroad (El Salvador's Terrorism Confinement Centre) and at home (Alligator Alcatraz). The right wing's response to that is to argue over the exact definition of a concentration camp, which, as an Onion headline pointed out, is a sign of a healthy society. And far be it from me to claim more knowledge about the Holocaust than a Jew, but I'm not sure Rabbi Wildes is aware that genocide was Plan B. The Nazis' original strategy was mass deportations, but then they decided that was too hard. Huh. For no particular reason, I just remembered how the Trump regime has already said out loud that it's too hard to give everyone their constitutionally mandated due process before deporting them.

I regret having to make this personal, but I would be remiss not to point out that Rabbi Wildes is either inexcusably ignorant or intentionally deceitful, because it's very common knowledge at this point that many of the people harassed, abused, and detained by ICE and the DHS didn't violate the law either. Trump's fascist goons profile people based on skin color, accent, and/or location. The conservatives on the Supreme Court literally gave them permission to do that last year. Those who did violate the law are still entitled to be treated like human beings, and normal people - even my uncle, if memory serves me - overwhelmingly agree that those who violated the law to come here once upon a time but have contributed to the economy and not hurt anyone since then should be left alone. If ICE agents actually went after "the worst of the worst" instead of terrorizing communities and tearing families apart, nobody would hate them. But then I guess they'd have to arrest the president.

That reminds me of how the Trump regime prematurely rescinded the temporary protected status of refugees who were in the US legally and told them to get out. And how ICE agents kidnap people at their immigration hearings while they're in the process of immigrating legally. And how the Jackass-in-Chief is trying to ban birthright citizenship by overturning a constitutional amendment with an executive order.

I'm sorry, I don't understand why this part is in here. Is Rabbi Wildes implying that if the Nazis had just told Anne Frank's family to leave the country and given them a chance to leave the country, that would have been fine?

Why the hell do bootlickers think that putting the word "law" in proximity to some variant of the word "enforce" is a slam dunk argument? The Gestapo was tasked with enforcing the law too. This statement does not differentiate ICE from the Gestapo in any way. The law does not now and never has determined morality, and normal people whose moral compasses didn't stop developing when they were toddlers don't kiss law enforcement's ass just because it exists. Anyway, we all know that the convicted felon and adjudicated rapist who pardons violent insurrectionists and drug lords isn't interested in "enforcing the law" for its own sake. He just wants a private militia to terrorize "the enemy within" (or as most people call them, Americans) into submission, and promising to protect idiots who are scared of brown people is an effective way to get away with that. Until the private militia starts shooting white people, anyway.

This was the point where Rabbi Wildes really pissed me off. We know they're doing so inappropriately. We know their enforcement of the law has gone beyond their authority. We knew this for some time before they murdered Keith Porter, Renee Good, and Alex Pretti. Rabbi Wildes is not pressing the government to reign them in, and spoiler alert, he has no intention of doing so.

Gotta love it when conservatives shrug off human rights violations as "policy and implementation of policy." Surely he's aware that this attitude is a prerequisite to genocide? Again, I agree that what we're seeing right now isn't on par with the Holocaust, but genocide doesn't just pop up out of nowhere one day.

It sure isn't a condemnation, either. I read it as, "I actually have no problem with ICE's brutality, but I know I'll get torn to shreds if I admit that." Maybe it's unfair for me to cast such an aspersion on his character, but I don't know why else he'd go to such lengths to avoid saying that things we all know are wrong are wrong. And this is a guy who also seems on board with Israel's war crimes in Gaza, after all.

Like hell it is. A defense of moral clarity would have clearly explained that ICE's brutality is wrong, even though it's not the Holocaust.

I looked through Rabbi Wildes' post history. He hasn't done this, and I predict that he'll continue to not do this. He just wants to look like he has the moral high ground without having to do or say anything that makes him uncomfortable. But hey, at least he acknowledged that something happened, which is more than the leaders of my former religion have done. I thought Dallin Oaks had the courage to speak out on controversial issues and not care if he took heat for it, but it turns out that only applies to being a dick to gay people. As much as I detest Brigham Young, at least he would have had the correct response to the federal government sending secret police to Utah.

Now, to be clear, despite my initial snarky response, there isn't a 1:1 comparison between the original Nazis and the only administration in American history that had Nazi salutes at its inauguration. Hitler was more competent and more popular than Trump. Hitler understood that he needed to maintain the people's support by actually improving the economy, not making it worse and then gaslighting them that prices were going down and they weren't suffering. Trump faces far more resistance from his own people, and even with Congress and the Supreme Court sucking him off, the US system of government has more safeguards in place to prevent him from doing everything he wants. Also - and this is cold comfort, but also, I don't think Trump is really committed to his rabid xenophobia, because his only deep and abiding principle is to make himself as wealthy and powerful as he can. If he could have gotten elected by extolling diversity and praising the contributions of hard-working immigrants to our nation, he would have done that. He's a bigot, yes, but he's a narcissist first and a grifter just after that. And the backlash against his fascist goons' recent murders has already forced him to de-escalate just a little bit.

So I don't think the United States is actually going to have another Holocaust, and I wouldn't use the word "Holocaust" to describe what's going on now. I respect Rabbi Wildes' sentiment on that. However, I'm not interested in becoming complacent and seeing how far down that path we end up before these motherfuckers are voted out and prosecuted. Everything is not fine. We're not overreacting, we're underreacting. And whatever attitude you have now is most likely the same attitude you would have had in the early days of the Third Reich. If you make excuses for ICE, you would have done the same for the Gestapo. With the benefit of hindsight, you're sure you would have shown wisdom and moral courage in that moment, but now that you're in a similar moment, you tell yourself it's completely different so you don't have to do that. You're failing an open-book test with one true-or-false question. When this is over - and it will be - you may, with the benefit of hindsight that should be superfluous, try to pretend you were always against it. But you can't get away with that in the twenty-first century. So maybe just choose to do the right thing right now because you're a decent person.

P.S. As I mentioned to my uncle, who hasn't responded, the right wing's fearmongering bullshit about queer people being predators and "groomers," besides being a load of projection (I see a Trump supporter getting arrested for child porn every week), is also directly copied from the Nazi playbook.

I don't expect anyone is using my blog as their primary source of political news, so I don't expect I need to go into a lot of detail about the things I want to get off my chest. First, the bad news. Democrats lost their balls and caved on the shutdown. I don't think it's the apocalyptic failure that some people are worried about, though. Maybe it will even be for the best in the long run. Republicunts were probably never going to negotiate on the healthcare subsidies, which would have expired in December anyway. Republicunts were willing to starve children to avoid negotiating on the healthcare subsidies. They. Are. Not. Good. People. And as the party controlling every branch of government and refusing to work with the opposition, they were responsible for the shutdown, and most Americans know it.

The worse news, for me, is that the funding bill to end the shutdown includes an entirely unrelated provision to close the loophole in the 2018 farm bill that allows me to legally purchase gummies with THC in them. I know my accounts of being high mean very little to the people who didn't experience them, but Kush Kubes have changed my life. I daresay they've permanently rewired my brain in good ways. I laugh a lot more often, I'm more introspective, and my depression is almost gone. After hearing this news, I thought I was depressed, but then I realized that I actually felt nothing, and I was just telling myself I was depressed because feeling nothing feels bad compared to feeling good, but as soon as I recognized and excised that thought pattern, I felt fine. This is the first time that the orange taint's presidency has had a substantial negative effect on me personally, but I didn't wait that long to start protesting because I care about people who aren't me. Anyway, there's still a year for the hemp industry to try to get this provision changed, and all drugs will be legal someday, and in the worst-case scenario, I'll just have to use real weed like most of my friends.

Good news: the Supreme Court paused its wholesale destruction of democracy and social progress to tell Kim Davis to fuck off. To me, nothing represents modern Christianity more than a woman who's been married four times trying to ban other people's marriages because they're against her beliefs. Because I don't believe in mocking people's physical appearances, I won't joke about how strange it is for such an ugly woman to be married four times. I was in college when the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. I should have been thrilled about it, like other people my age. Instead, I felt sick and depressed because Mormonism had taught me that same-sex marriage would destroy society, and now it had definitively lost that fight, and society would label me as a bigot. I tried to tiptoe around LGBTQ issues on my blog because my religion's positions on them were embarrassing and clashed with my own conscience, but I couldn't admit that to the world. I will never forgive Mormonism for doing that to me. Let me be unambiguous now, much too late: I support same-sex marriage, I support this decision, and any sorry excuse for a god who creates gay people and then tells them not to do what makes them happy can go to hell. Of course, there's nothing brave about making this statement now. Most Americans support same-sex marriage now because none of the bullshit we were warned would happen has happened.

More good news: the Democrats released some emails they subpoenaed from Epstein's estate, which make his former best friend and current US president look even worse than he already did. The orange taint is crapping his pants. More than usual, I mean. As much as I wish he would die already, it gives me satisfaction to know that every waking moment of his existence is miserable. And I'm optimistic that this issue will destroy his presidency, despite his inhuman immunity to consequences for his actions, simply because of how very hard he's trying to keep those files hidden. This is the guy who said, accurately, ""I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters," so whatever's in the files must be... wow. The fact that the world's most notorious sex trafficker called him "evil beyond belief" in one of these emails could be a bit of foreshadowing. And of course, because I'm not in a cult, I want every Democrat who's implicated in these crimes to go to prison for life too. Dear MAGA cultists, in the unlikely event that any of you are reading this: the best time to abandon your orange Messiah was ten years ago, but the second best time is now. You will always be remembered for your mindless, unwavering support of the worst person in the world - sorry, nothing can change that now - but you can at least redeem yourselves a tiny little bit by drawing the line somewhere.

Or you can keep saying the emails are fake, like the dipshits you are. Whatever.

The 2024 election made me suicidal for a few days because I didn't want to live in a country so fundamentally rotten that it would choose someone like the orange taint as its leader, let alone twice. (My mother's response to this was, and I quote, "You could move to Costa Rica.") I still don't, and the destruction that the orange taint has wrought on crucial government institutions, human rights, human quality of life, and the economy has more than validated my futile warnings to the dipshits who voted for him. (I predict that in a few years, most of them will mysteriously forget that they ever supported him, but fortunately their Facebook and Twitter posts will set the record straight.) Even though his human rights abuses haven't affected me yet, and I can cope with him making everything more expensive because I've spent my entire adult life in poverty and have a semi-ascetic lifestyle, the last year has been hard because I suffer from a disorder called "empathy." I don't know why. It's not hereditary, that's for damn sure.

But at the same time, I've really enjoyed protesting and connecting with people who share my values and don't support Nazis, and my cautious optimism has grown as it's become clear that the orange taint and the ass-kissers he surrounds himself with are far too stupid to win in the long term. I've wanted to be optimistic all along, but I didn't want to delude myself. I don't subscribe to the delusion that the United States can't become a dictatorship because it's inherently superior to other countries. Naturally, I had a much more positive response to the 2025 elections, in which the orange taint's preferred candidates got hammered like Pete Hegseth at a 10 AM meeting. I believe this proves that Americans are finally done with his shit, and I believe it foreshadows a blue tsunami in 2026. Democrats obviously suck in their own ways, but because they meet the very low bar of not supporting Nazis, I'm rooting for them to curb-stomp Republicunts back into the 1950s, which is where they want to be anyway. Republicunts will, of course, try every voter suppression and gerrymandering tactic they can think of, and it will take hard work to overcome that, but they don't have the power to rig or cancel elections altogether. We now have proof.

I also believe Zohram Mamdani, the new democratic socialist mayor of New York City, foreshadows the Democrat Party being dragged kicking and screaming to the left and forced to actually fight for normal people and address the rot that runs through this country. Voters chose Mamdani over a mainstream Democrat, Andew Cuomo, first in the primaries and then in the general election when the latter ran as an independent and got endorsed by Trump and Musk because they knew the Republicunt didn't have a chance in hell. Cuomo previously served thrice as governor of New York even though I've never heard of anyone who likes him, he forced nursing homes to admit COVID-positive patients and then intenionally undercounted the resulting deaths, and he resigned in 2021 over sexual misconduct allegations, which probably helped Trump and Musk accept him. ​On the other hand, Mamdani is a socialist with scary socialist ideas like checks notes free public transportation. You know, I experienced free public transportation for over a decade in the socialist hellhole of Logan, Utah. I don't know how I ever survived. The buses were always exploding, and people who owned cars were always complaining about having to pay taxes so that lazy freeloaders could get to work. Just kidding, Logan is very proud of its free public transportation, and when the city council considered charging fares, they dropped the idea after an overwhelmingly negative response.

Anyway, yeah, I know nothing is "free." I'm not stupid. I have to pay taxes regardless, so I'd much rather pay for socialist programs like free public transportation than for bombs that are used to murder Palestinian children. Most conservatives, excepting the most extreme nutcases who want to defund everything, have a double standard between existing programs and proposed programs. I don't hear them complaining about paying taxes so that other people can borrow library books for free, but if someone suggested that idea today, they'd lose their shit. But the narrative has shifted a lot within my short lifetime. When Obama (who's center-right by the standards of normal countries) was accused of being a socialist, it was an attack that he had to defend against. Now people come out and identify as socialists, and young people who are tired of being raped by our current system love them. I don't identify as a socialist, but I'm tired of being raped by our current system too. I'll take a socialist over a fascist every time.

The only position I got to cast a vote for was the mayor of Midvale. To my delight, Salt Lake County has ranked-choice voting, which should be the standard everywhere. Brandee Boyer was my first choice because of her focus on the needs of renters. Incumbent Dustin Gettel, a gay man who defied a bullshit state law and refused to remove a Pride flag from his office, was my second choice, and I wasn't upset when he won (though I was a little irked that all the incumbents won, which suggests to me that people didn't take this election seriously). David Fair was not a choice. With the option to vote for multiple candidates, I took pleasure in not filling in a bubble for him at all. At the very beginning of the candidates' town hall, it was a red flag that he wanted to expand the police force, and later, he was the only candidate for any position who said that he would have the police cooperate with ICE. Fuck ICE. The other six people basically said "Fuck ICE" in polite, professional ways. Anyway, I'm sure 2026 will continue to suck, and democracy will not have an uninterrupted string of victories, but there is hope. I believe I came to this Earth at this time to help at this critical juncture. I'm doing my best, dang it.

At this point, I've deconstructed so much from the LDS Church that I barely remembered General Conference was going on this weekend, and I wasn't interested enough to put much effort into finding out what happened. I put on a recap of the first session during lunch yesterday and promptly zoned out for most of it. I'm so proud of me. Three years ago, I was still so entrenched in my Mormon upbringing that I watched General Conference to keep up with the church even though I'd already resigned from it.

I've only heard three things about this one. First, that Ronald Rasband gave an awful talk about the Family Proclamation where he doubled down on gender roles and heteronormativity - you know, the things that Mormon God is concerned about instead of real problems like climate change, fascism, school shootings, and genocide. This is the Family Proclamation's thirtieth anniversary. The church still peddles the fiction that it was prophetic about the social changes that have happened since 1995, when in reality, it was not only reactionary to the social changes that were already well underway, but also clearly inspired by the right-wing evangelical "Family Manifesto" published in 1988. The LDS Church has really painted itself into a corner with its myopic social views, but since the Family Proclamation hasn't been canonized, future prophets and apostles can still quietly phase it out and hire scholars to quietly publish an anonymous essay explaining that it was never doctrine. Doubling down on it now just because the US is temporarily going backward on women's rights and queer rights is very unwise.

Second, I heard that there was increased security and a veiled reference to the shooting at a Mormon chapel in Michigan last week by an evangelical Trump supporter. In case it doesn't go without saying, I am appalled and disgusted by violence against people in any place of worship except the Westboro Baptist Church. Some Mormons are blaming "anti-Mormon" podcasters for inciting the hate that led to this act. Baloney. I've watched several podcasters who are critical of the LDS Church, and not one of them has said anything that would lend support to a violent act like this. Beliefs are not people. Just because you feel personally threatened when someone criticizes your beliefs doesn't mean that person wants you dead. Anyway, if "anti-Mormon" podcasters are responsible for this violent act, then Mormons are responsible for every anti-LGBTQ hate crime.

Third, I heard that prophet-in-waiting Dallin Oaks - who, by the way, is not the kind of person I have the slightest interest in emulating or spending eternity with - didn't announce any new temples. No surprise there. I used to get so excited about temple announcements because they were a tangible measure of the church's global growth. Then Russell Nelson came along and started announcing temples in random places where the membership is too small to even staff them, let alone use them on a regular basis, just because he had a grudge against Gordon Hinckley and wanted to beat his temple announcement record. Congratulations, Nelson, you won your pissing match, and Mormons who don't do any research outside of what they hear from you probably believe that the church is growing and really needs a temple in Belgium. Oaks, at least, seems to be more pragmatic and less concerned about appearances. Oh yeah, Nelson died a week ago, in case that wasn't clear. I think he was a self-absorbed tool, but I didn't hate him, but I'm not sad that a 101-year-old man died in his sleep. It was just a thing that happened and wasn't important enough for me to mention at the time.

And that's all I know about General Conference, and I'm not going to learn anything else about it on purpose. I'm so proud of me.

​Anyway, I'm not sure if I'm okay or if I have repressed trauma from being so close to the incident and thinking an active shooter was on the loose for the next several minutes. I felt pretty bummed out over the waste of life, especially after I learned that it was an accident facilitated by Utah's gun laws (or lack thereof). I coped by taking two Kush Kubes, sitting under a tree in my backyard, and trying to communicate telepathically with it while I listened to this great track I recently discovered by accident because it has the same title as a Smithsonian Folkways compilation of Maroon music from the earliest free Black communities in Jamaica. I got so blissed out that I couldn't feel my body, and I imagined the funkiest monks in the universe escorting me up a snowy yet sunny mountain trail into paradise. 

Anyway, after the shooting last weekend, I wrote, "I would say that maybe the people who brought their kids shouldn't do that next time, but then again, in the United States of America, you expose your kids to a risk of gun violence any time you bring them out in public at all." That very evening, a teenager at a carnival elsewhere in Utah proved me right by shooting four people dead, including a baby the same age and in the same city as my niece. The news didn't identify the baby, so I thought it might be my niece, and I didn't like that, but I didn't hope it wasn't my niece because I didn't hope that someone else's baby got murdered instead. Someone's baby got murdered, and there's no positive version of that, so all I can hope is that the victims' families find peace and the murderer gets raped in prison. This country is sick.

We might be at war with Iran now. I don't like it when Trump does illegal things like bomb other countries without Congressional approval, but it's funny to see more of his supporters turn against him, and I'm not going to lose any sleep over Iran's brutal dictatorship getting what it deserves. It blows my mind to see leftists portraying a regime of virulently bigoted murderers and torturers as innocent victims of Israeli and American aggression. I understand that legally, countries don't have a right to attack each other whenever they want, but morally, the Islamic Republic doesn't have a right to exist. And honestly, the United States is largely responsible for putting this regime in power and erasing decades of social progress overnight in the first place, so helping to exterminate it is arguably a moral obligation, though it should have been approved by Congress. I wish Ayatollah Khamenei a very stressful and short rest of his life. I happen to know that many Iranians, even those who fear for their own lives amidst the turmoil, are stoked.

Sarah McBride was elected as the first openly transgender member of Congress last year, one of the few silver linings in possibly the shittiest election in American history. I haven't heard anything about her since then except that her Republican colleagues intentionally targeted her by making her use the men's bathroom in the Capitol building, and she didn't argue or resist, and that made some trans rights activists angry. In this conversation with Ezra Klein, she explains that fighting it wouldn't have helped anything, but it would have given Republicans the reaction they wanted, and since she didn't give them the reaction they wanted, they've stopped targeting her as much. She didn't spell it out, but of course this is another illustration of how modern Republicans have the mentality of middle school bullies. Stupid, godawful people. Anyway, this conversation is about why the trans rights movement has faced so much backlash and so many setbacks despite a promising start. She says a lot of nuanced and reasonable things. Of course, I have no empathy whatsoever for the hardcore anti-trans bigots who don't understand anything and refuse to learn, but I can understand why ordinary people feel confused and threatened when the oversimplified understanding of the world they've believed in for decades is upended so suddenly. In 2018, when a college professor asked for my pronouns for the first time, I thought it was stupid. I didn't go out of my way to make other people's lives worse as a result, though.