“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”

–Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night

Today I saw a wild-eyed fellow with a t-shirt that said “Russian Asset” and I immediately looked away from him, since in my experience the sort of nutbag who would wear such a shirt usually wants more than anything to get some kind of reaction from you. I saw him again a few minutes later and he had a hat on that looked just like Elon Musk’s MAGA hats, but instead read “Make America Get Apartheid.”

I was enraged and wanted to knock it from his head. How could someone walk around with this kind of message? What is going on in this country when someone can proudly wear this? In the most generous reading of it, is it possible he was, I don’t know, being ironic? Was this his idea of satire? It really doesn’t matter what his intent was, because YOU CANNOT IRONICALLY WEAR A NAZI SYMBOL. It’s hard to believe this even needs to be said.

Yesterday, the vice president of the United States went to Greenland and said “We must have it” and that “We can’t ignore the president’s desires.” Most Trump supporters I know would probably say he is exaggerating, that it’s all a joke. We have heard this refrain over and over, every time the administration, or Trump, does something outrageous or cruel or warmongering. But they mean everything they say. JD Vance definitely looks on Trump as some kind of God-Emperor, like we’re in DUNE, which is why he speaks of his ‘desires’ as if they’re the immutable will of some divine presence. And all Trump’s followers know this isn’t a joke, even if they say it is. We’re teetering on the abyss, and there’s nothing funny about it.