Declaration of Independence…

From giving a rip about Trumpers

By Zach Hagadone
Reader Staff

People don’t get too many epiphanies in life, so I count myself lucky to have had a few. The first one I can remember was when a teacher drew a line of chalk on the blackboard and asked a group of us elementary school students to “describe everything about it.” 

I looked at it and, unbidden, my doors of perception swung wide to reveal that to “describe everything” about that chalk line was to describe “everything” about “everything” — from the muscles and sinews in the teacher’s hand that held the chalk to the chemical composition of the chalk itself to the sweep of history and science encompassing symbolism, geometry and their interpretations. And “everything else,” of course.

I had another profound realization when I was 18, standing in the mouth of the cave where Socrates was said to have been imprisoned in Athens, awaiting his execution for “corrupting the youth” of his city by making them think critically.

In that moment, I had another impromptu “whoa” moment when I realized that nothing separated me and Socrates in that space but time, which when dilated to the geological scale based on the formation and placement of the rocks surrounding me was a distinction lacking difference. That one has stuck with me in a number of other places and times.

There have been a few other instances of profound “ah-hah” over the years, but I just had another one the other day while vacationing on the Oregon coast with my family for spring break.

By way of context, I have severe high blood pressure — so severe that when I took readings on my at-home wrist cuff a week or so ago, the numbers I saw should have prompted a 911 call and trip to the E.R. (or graveyard). I’ve since gotten that (mostly) under control with medication, and standing on the shore of the Pacific Ocean in unseasonably fine western Oregon weather last week, the confluence of my sideyed brush with mortality and the expanse of the sea led to another occurrence when the mental walls came crumbling down.

That is to say, looking at the waves, birds, rocks and sand, I realized that I don’t care about supporters of Donald Trump or any of his policies or actions (public or private). That also goes for any of his lickspittles and adjacent chancers in all stations of society. Their opinions are moot. Their feelings are void. Their accommodations in my emotional and intellectual life are canceled. My respect for them is revoked on all matters beyond those that maintain the basic norms of human civilization (which they don’t really care about).

I consider this my Declaration of Independence. Or, to borrow a phrase, “Liberation Day.”

I will tolerate them as a person tolerates dog turds on a springtime sidewalk, by stepping around them with mild annoyance, but that’s about it. That means I’m done trying to understand them and their defective minds and motives. I will no longer “meet them where they are.” 

I’ve expended thousands of hours over more than a decade — and read and written a sum of millions of words — trying to diagnose and adapt to their all-consuming nihilistic mental wreckage. After that much consideration, I can report with confidence that there’s nothing of substance to it, other than a noxious melange of fecklessness, laziness, stupidity, cruelty and greed. I feel like a lot of us are going insane trying to make room for these human paraquats, and we should stop. They don’t deserve the courtesy.

I will not listen to their complaints about gas prices, airport disruptions, tariff-resultant rises in the cost of living, loss of the dollar’s standing around the world or anything related to the Iran war. They can piss right off on every aspect of their culture war sorties related to sex, gender and reproduction, because theirs is the party of perverts. They can stuff their talk about “small government” and “fiscal responsibility,” because they are the disciples of bald authoritarianism and even balder corruption.

There are so many other examples of their mendacity and rancid hypocrisy that I can feel my blood pressure rising as I contemplate them all. Better to be done with it — and them — and if we normal people are going to get out of this alive, I invite a similar epiphany for all of good faith.