Baseball, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie... and Concentration Camps
Happy 249th Birthday, America!
Some folks tried to tell me that I was over-reacting, but it was pretty damn obvious to me this last Fourth of July how dire things would be if my fellow Americans actually allowed a retribution-obsessed, intellectually-stunted, felonious con man who’d tried to forcibly overturn the previous presidential election to slime his way back into the White House…
And lo, this shoddy sequel has been even worse than I imagined; I mean, it’s no surprise that the Demander-in-Chief has surrounded himself with some of the worst and most unqualified cabinet members imaginable, or that the GOP members of Congress have willingly debased themselves and abandoned their constituents in order to approve his every whim, or that a great many of the Heritage Foundation’s authoritarian objectives laid out in Project 2025 have already been met. And sure, I totally expected Dear Leader and his toadies to find creative new ways to profit off their return to the Oval Office, though I admittedly didn't have a fragrance line on my Grifter Bingo card.
But I honestly hadn’t expected the homegrown Gestapo to show up this early in the film, or for brown-skinned friends of mine in the L.A. area to already be donning blonde wigs and blue contact lenses to keep from getting kidnapped by ICE, or for the GOP to be celebrating the building of an open-air Everglades concentration camp by hawking “Alligator Alcatraz” merch. But I guess things can move pretty fast when greed, racism, cruelty and daddy issues are the main themes driving the script.
Of course, none of these themes are remotely new to American history — hell, the Nazis got their whole concentration camp concept from us — but I haven’t seen them all so openly, sickeningly celebrated in my lifetime, either by American citizens or by our elected officials. Nor have I lived through a time in this country in which diversity (the one thing that has genuinely made this country great) was so deeply vilified, or the very idea of having empathy for other human beings was so widely derided… all of which makes the notion of celebrating today’s national holiday seem all the more perverse.
What are we celebrating, exactly? That 249 years ago, our Founding Fathers threw off the yoke of monarchy, only for us to circle compulsively back to it like a dog to a piss-soaked fire hydrant? That we are being “led” by a wannabe dictator whose primary concerns are lining his own pockets and expanding his own power? That the richest and most powerful country in the world, which has blithely allowed its middle class to whither away over the last several decades, has just kicked even more of its working class and poor citizens to the curb through massive Medicaid, Medicare, ACA and SNAP cuts (which the Christo-fascists in congress celebrated with a prayer circle)? That we’ve become an utterly unreliable ally to any country not currently being run by right-wing “strongmen”? That innocent people are being swept off our streets and out of their schools, workplaces and homes — in our name, with our tax dollars, and without the due process guaranteed them by our Constitution — and may never be seen alive again by those who love them? That so many of our fellow citizens are so twisted by hate, fear and ignorance that they would rather damage this country and themselves than co-exist with people of different backgrounds, religions, skin tones and sexual orientations?
If you’re actively cheering for any or all of that — and/or think any of it somehow makes us “great” as a nation — you might want to take a moment to examine how and why you turned into such a shitty human being…
“They go together, in the good ol’ USA,” went the mid-1970s Chevy ad jingle, “Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie… and Chevrolet!” 50 years on, Chevrolet still sells well over a million cars a year in this country — but with our government intent on pumping some $100 billion of our tax dollars into ICE’s coffers between now and 2029, secret police kidnappings and coast-to-coast concentration camps seem like they’re well on the way to becoming a much bigger part of the American brand than Detroit-built automobiles. Which is really fucking disgusting, frightening, infuriating and embarrassing.
All that said, this is absolutely not the time to give up, give in to despair, or surrender to easy cynicism. Moaning “We’re doomed!” or snarkily asking “What makes you think there are even going to be fair elections in 2026?” is about as helpful right now as handing a dixie cup full of bleach to a passing marathon runner. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: It’s time to organize, not catastrophize. (If you have time to bitch and moan on social media, or ask your friends which TV series you should binge-watch next, then you have time to call your senators, representatives and governors; the 5 Calls app is an excellent tool for making your voice heard.)
It’s still our fucking country, too, and there are millions upon millions of us who don’t buy into the MAGA madness. So let’s channel the rage that we’re feeling over this white nationalist coup into doing whatever we still can to make whatever’s left of this union a more perfect one, to defend our civil and Constitutional rights, and to reaffirm the idea that “liberty and justice for all” actually is for all, and not just for the super-wealthy and the well-connected.
There may be no going back to the comparatively better days that we remember, but community will be absolutely key going forward. Find a mutual aid network near you to support. Get involved with grassroots groups like Mobilize and Indivisible and 50501 and the People’s Union USA and the Working Families Party to find ways to push back peacefully (including protests, boycotts and other actions) against the fascism of the current administration. If you’re a white person living in an area with heavy ICE activity, check in with your Latino friends and neighbors and see if you can be of any assistance to them right now. (And while you’re at it, download the ICEBlock app, a completely anonymous crowd-sourced platform that allows users to alert others to ICE activity in their area.)
Call out the fascist bullshit whenever and wherever you see it, and remember the names of all the shitbags who enabled it. Keep resisting, and find ways to help others resist. Find joy and gratitude in every day, even if it’s just in the fact that you’re not a bootlicking MAGA stooge. And never, ever obey in advance.
Yes, these are unquestionably scary, ugly, uncertain times. But “We the People” still have a tremendous amount of power, so let’s flex it however, whenever, and wherever we can… and let us pledge to still be standing together and fighting back this time next year, when our country’s 250th birthday rolls around.
Take it away, Jimi…
I was born in 1946 so I have lived through this before—Red scare, McCarthy, polio, measles, and mumps, Jim Crow, voter suppression, wars—Korea and Vietnam—my uncle went to Korea, I went to Vietnam. I also lived through the resulting societal convulsions—freedom rides, assassinations, protests, both non-violent and violent, and the resulting societal changes, voting rights, desegregation, women’s rights, Brown, Roe, Obergefell…. And so here we are again as the wheel turns full circle. There’s a reason so many protests feature white haired protestors with walkers, wheelchairs, and canes. We’ve lived it, we remember it, but we are at the end of our road. It’s time for the generations behind us to stand up for what this country should stand for.
Sadly but righteously as spot on as last year's story. I too so fondly remember all those lovely 1976 things you mention, along with the Summer Olympics in Montreal. Hell the bicentennial wagon train came through my hometown of Sturgis, MI and camped out over night in a big park, Calistoga wagons all circled up.
Years later, on one of my many thousands of mile road-trip journeys, one of my favorite things to do in life, I'm writing from Lincoln City, Oregon at the moment, I found one of those very Calistoga wagons on display (with bicentennial wagon train plaque) which thrilled me to death as I delved into all that wonderful USA history as well.
I agree with everything you wrote about what to do to get the hell out of this horrible national state of being - and this is sort of a continuation of my comment I just made after re-reading your last year's 4th stack - but I am so exhausted from the obvious direction this country has been on for the last 50 years. I remember fighting as a kid, trying to get people to understand that raygunomics will not serve you, that bush/cheny/condi/rummy are lying through their teeth to you about this war.
Most people that are susceptible to this have already been taken in by the bible myth - how can anyone be drawn into worshipping and fearing someone? On it's face is bullshit, even before you get to the burning in hell and he loves you parts. It's the same disconnect.
For years I tolerated and spoke super carefully to repubs as to not trigger them and to bite my lip when they were explaining their positions based completely on lies therefore preventing any intelligent conversation or debate -out of politeness and the greater good I was tolerant.
After seeing what I am seeing in LA right now, and so many of these friends of mine are still on board, as you wrote, to me, they are no longer confused, scared and wrong-headed, they are shitty people and I refuse to engage with any of them anymore, there is no point, it takes too much energy to coexist with this horseshit, time to spend that energy elsewhere.
I wish I could be fired up for a righteous fight for this country but I am not, I really have nothing keeping me here and I do not want to die in this country, you'll find me in the Mediterranean or Latin America - I am not at all sad about it, I did my time here, sad for the country though. I will be rooting you on, and as Ben Franklin said about the republic, I hope you can keep it.