In the face of fear, grasping hope

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Photo via Pexels.
Photo via Pexels.

Let's buy our MAGA friends a cup of coffee

Florida Congressman Maxwell Frost was appalled by the sweltering, overcrowded, and unsanitary conditions at the Alligator Alcatraz internment camp in the Everglades.

I wonder if he is equally appalled by our short attention spans, since that story was replaced (for a while at least) by Donald Trump's latest distraction.

I would be happy to keep my attention on Frost, who is far more decent, honest, and faithful to the Constitution than our president. But Trump, rewriting history, was blaming Democrats for his own endless hyping of conspiracy theories about Jeffrey Epstein's client list.

Frost's outspokenness favorably contrasts with the enabling compliance of the White House press corps, whom MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell described as "using their talking-to-pets voices" with Trump instead of yelling out questions as they did to Joe Biden. But all of that may be changing with the refusal by Trump's MAGA followers to drop the obsession that he himself stoked over Epstein, who died during Trump's first term.

Trump's gift for deflection may at last be failing him. It is unclear why he expected his base to be more titillated by an old story on Sen. Adam Schiff's house mortgage in Maryland than by their fantasies of Deep State orgies at Epstein's private retreat in the Virgin Islands.

Trump is all about putting show ahead of substance. His exploitation of bigotry, viciousness and gullibility has millions of Americans too busy indulging their paranoia to remember that sabotage and plunder are not governance.

The only way to overcome the reigning madness and meanness, I suspect, is appealing to the better angels of our nature, in the words of Lincoln. That is always an uphill battle.

I have decided to counter the gloom by making a list of good things I am observing, large and small.

The dogs in my neighborhood make new friends within two seconds. Summer storms are often preceded by a cool, refreshing breeze. Straight men are increasingly comfortable interacting with gay men without overcompensating like a closeted senator. Most people I chat with are not remotely as stupid as the president of the United States.

Few Metro riders are committing assaults or armed robberies. Most motorists do not blast their horns outside my window in the middle of the night. I do not work on Sunday morning, unlike the people setting up booths at the flea market. I did not suffer a fatal fall from a greenhouse roof during an ICE police raid.

The McDonald's up the street is diverse and friendly. A Metropolitan Police officer wearing a name badge and no mask, who has just picked up his breakfast, holds the door open for me. Inside, a kind older lady overcomes a language barrier to buy a poor man breakfast.

Back home I watch as MSNBC's "The Weekend" co-host Eugene Daniels mentions his husband from South Dakota in describing the adverse effects on rural communities of defunding PBS and NPR. Despite ramped-up immigration enforcement and expanding revenge against Trump's perceived enemies, erasing America's diversity remains a monumental task for Trump and company, who pose the true threat to our country.

Even escapist summer fare reminds me of current events. I recently reread the 1962 science fantasy novel A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle prior to attending a new musical adaptation. The children in the story use something called a tesseract to travel to other planets. This transport method remains purely imaginary, as far as I am aware. But how would we know about an ultra-secret government program? Perhaps someone at Fox News would tell us. Unfortunately, several of them are now working for Trump and assisting with cover-ups.

Why not treat this as an opportunity to buy our disillusioned MAGA friends a cup of coffee and lend a sympathetic ear? Surely we can endure an hour's discomfort if it might help heal our republic.

Speaking of Trump hirelings, I would like to ask Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino if he thinks he spends enough time at the gym. He is so beefed up, he looks overinflated. Despite my opposition to violence and an otherwise reasonable grip on reality, I briefly wonder if sticking him with a pin would make him fly around the room like a pricked balloon.

Please do not attempt such a thing lest you be sent to Alligator Alcatraz. Too many of us already imprison ourselves in an alternate reality while all around us the apparatus of fascism advances.

We begin to halt it by recognizing one another's humanity.

Richard Rosendall is a writer and activist who can be reached at [email protected].

Copyright © 2025 by Richard J. Rosendall. All rights reserved.