My Corona Diary (Take XIII): No Black Vans Today, Lots Of Fireworks Anyway

<"Get Off My Lawn,

You ##@!!!'Ing Libs..."

Take I/The Reckoner>

<i.>

The minute I heard the yelling, I knew trouble was coming, full steam ahead, just around the corner. The Squawker and I, after an absence of several months, were returning to the Tuesday protests in front of our Congressman's office. We'd missed them for various reasons, most related to life happening -- like a major water leak that wiped out one weekend in December.

We had no idea what to expect. Had COVID-19 forced people to skimp on protesting? Or were protests, like so many other group activities, simply out of the question? Or were people doing them, anyway, if they were wearing masks, and taking all the usual precautions?

We decided to check it out. If nobody was around, we could head straight to lunch. Otherwise, we could join our resistance-minded colleagues in picketing those mysterious camo-clad hordes who'd been out grabbing protesters, scooping them up into unmarked minivans, and then shuttling them off, God knows where, only to begrudgingly release them hours later.

Scary stuff, right? The kinds of images you associate with banana republics and tinpot dictatorships the world over, but presumably, part and parcel of the swamp that Herr Trump isn't ready to drain just yet.

I vaguely heard some yelling, once we'd parked and started heading down the street, to take our places on the corner. The source -- and the reason -- became apparent soon enough. 

The shrieks and screams were coming from a fiftysomething guy wielding a TRUMP 2020 sign, wearing one of those damned MAGA (Make America Great Again) hats. Only this one bore this year's Trump campaign slogan, "Keep America Great Again." (But I haven't seen anyone using KAGA as an acronym yet, though.)

Needless to say, while he wore our masks, he wasn't wearing doing likewise. But he was keeping his lungs busy, to dish out a steady stream of invective:

"Trump 2020! Law and order, law and order! Why do you Democrats hate America so much? We're taking our country back!" 

I'd forfeited enough sleep at images of federal goons popping up to start kidnapping the whole lot of us. Jeez, I thought, do we have to deal with this nonsense, too?  I

 mean, I'd seen Trumpkins -- as I call his followers -- at previous protests, but they hadn't been as persistently loud as this character.  For the most part, they'd been content to carry their signs and mind their own business, but rarely interacted with any of us.

And that's when things really heated up.

<ii.>

One woman standing less than a couple feet from her Trumpian antagonist had reached her tipping point, apparently. Every time the Trumpkin shouted something, she shouted right back at him: "Take back your country? You lost the popular vote, bitch!" 

To which the Trumpkin retorted, ever so wittily...

“F#ck you, bitch!”

“F#ck you, whore!”

"You're calling me a whore? Look at yourself!" the woman screamed.

That retort kicked a new freeform rant from the Trumpkin, plus another volley of F-Bombs: "Listen to that! She hates America! She hates white people!

"Racist! Racist!”

<iii.>

"Classy, isn't he?" I said. "Unlike his sidekick." I pointed out an older gentleman, wearing a big straw hat, jeans and a red plaid shirt. (No mask for him either, of course.) He looked in his mid-seventies, maybe early eighties. But he held up his sign and said little or nothing, unlike his cohort. Fine by me.

"Maybe we should confront him," The Squawker suggested, gesturing to the only sign that we'd chosen to carry. It featured a drawing of Trump, reborn as the spitting image of Adolf Hitler. It seemed, well, a tad prophetic, to put it mildly.

"Uh, no. Look at his eyes," I said. "And the spit flying out of his mouth as he screams. Turn off the lights. There's no one home."

"You have a point."

But the woman picketer seemed unwilling to concede just yet. She screamed at the Trumpkin to go somewhere else (Good luck getting that to stick on a public sidewalk, I told myself). Then she began physically dogging him, literally walking only mere steps behind him.

Such actions did not go over well with the Trumpkin, who swiveled his head around, and screamed: "Don't you follow me around! I have a right to defend myself, and I will defend myself!" (Apparently, Trumpkins and Trumpsters don't want invading you their "personal space," as they called it in the '70s. Just like the hippies, I guess. The mind boggles.)

My stomach started knotting. Oh, Christ, I thought. The guy's gonna punch the woman. Then all of us guys out here picketing are gonna have to jump the Trumpkin, and beat the shit out of him royally Or at least, pull him off her, so he quits.

Which means, he'll call the cops to defend "his" rights. Which means, a trip to the courthouse. Which means endless hearings, and all other that legal BS to deal with. Which means...

Just then, however, our group began to break up. Our permit with the city is only good from noon to 12:30 p.m., apparently, so the woman threw up her hands, and walked away. 

The Trumpkin continued to shout: "Honk if you love America! Honk if you love Trump! We're not gonna let our country go to hell!"

Under my breath, I muttered: "Dude, that ship has sailed already."

"It's just as well," The Squawker said. "I didn't want to catch COVID from all his spit." 

We slowly walked back to our van, and started loading up the signs -- the Trump/Hitler one that Squawker had drawn, plus a yard sign for one of our local Democratic candidates, that we'd accepted -- into the hatchback.

We circled around the street once more. The Trumpkin still standing, minus his older sidekick, still waving his signs. We both gave him a thumbs down as we drove away.

The camo-clad federal goons never showed up. Nor did any black vans, nor black helicopters, for that matter.

<"Get Off My Lawn,

You ##@!!!'Ing Libs..."

Take II/The Reckoner>

<Coda>

But I won't shake the images out of my head any time soon. Judging by what we saw, the popular caricature of Trumpists as unfiltered and unhinged, bug-eyed, full-frothed, red-faced, ranting, raving and drooling fanatics isn't terribly wide of the mark.

It's hardly news that the GOP has a credibility gap with women. When you have 88 Democratic female Congresswomen, versus only 13 for the GOP, you have to ask yourself, "Who's doing a better outreach job?"

For further proof, look what happened when New York's progressive voice, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, found herself accosted by Ted Yoho, the GOP Yahoo from Florida who called her a "f#cking bitch." Evidently, he didn't have the same upbringing that I did, as in, you...don't....f#cking...talk...to women...that way. Period. No ifs, ands, nor buts.

So how did "Congressman" Yoho respond? Like all his GOP chorts, with a self-serving mea culpa that bore an uncanny resemblance to South Park's BP Oil parody: "We're sorry. We're really, really sorry." Read the link below and judge for yourself, but I'll say it this way: Andy Griffith, he ain't.

Thankfully, "Congressman" Yoho isn't running for re-election this year, which should allow his constituents the opportunity to choose someone besides a ham-fisted F-Bomb dropper to represent them. Of course, he simply expressed what his kind say every day behind closed doors, and open ones, too. 

I imagine there's a lot of F-Bombs dropping, given the rapid unchecked rise of COVID, and the failure of Trump's regime to address it, not to mention the cratering economy. It's also a howl of helpless rage at a nation that continues to grow, steadily and relentlessly, ever more diverse, no matter how loudly and shrilly they may scream.

This is how all Good Old Boys go out, I suppose, once their aura fades away for good -- rearing up and raging against the dying of the light that will eventually click shut over their flailing, white-clenched fists. To which I say, "Boo f#cking hoo. It couldn't have happened to a nicer bunch of guys. And not nearly fast enough." --The Reckoner

Links To Go Go (Hurry, Hurry,
Out Of My Way, You Effing...)

CNN: This Florida Republican
Just Delivered A Master Class...
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/22/politics/ted-yoho-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-house-floor/index.html

Yahoo News: Republican Rep. Ted Yoho
Reportedly Called Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez...
https://www.yahoo.com/news/republican-congressman-ted-yoho-reportedly-144827393.html