Focusing on the arc

It’s so weird—Independence Day here and I’m feeling uncharacteristically meh about it. From the flag-waving antics of the Gravy SEALS crowd to the Christofascist majority on the Supreme Court cutting a swathe the size of Olduvai Gorge through the Constitution, I’m finding it hard to feel…celebratory this year.

For one thing, the ProudBoysOathKeepersMomsforLiberty set has so thoroughly co-opted the flag that every time I see it I think, “What fresh fuckery is going on now?” And I’m sorry about that.

I do believe that the ProudBoysOathKeepersMomsforLiberty set will die off—possibly from a combination of their congenital bile, unvaccinated status, appalling diet and heavy smoking. Not soon enough, but it’ll happen.

I’m also heartened that numbers of people claiming to be members of Christian sects are diminishing—primarily because these Bible-thumping ignoramuses have distorted the teachings of the Nazarene beyond recognition. I rather hope that, when they, too, die off, there’s some kind of “nooo, you kinda missed the point” announcement as they head to their well-earned eternal rest.

SCOTUS, now—damn. If the Founding Fathers could see those six venal and morally corrupt bastards, it would incinerate their powdered wigs. “Wait—we had to make provision for ethical standards for jurists? Because men [this was the Eighteenth Century, after all] who devoted their lives to the law might pervert it through bribery and ideology? Are you fucking kidding me?”

Yeah, Jay, Hamilton and Madison. While we’re on the subject, let me tell you about the Federalist Society. Your eyebrows will join your wigs.

On the plus side, there will be no display of military might on the National Mall this year. I can’t believe that’s a thing I even have to say. And the sitting president will not, under any circumstances, hold the nominating convention for his political party at the White House next summer. There’s that. But it’s weak sauce for celebration.

In past years, I’ve delved into the principles of the Founders—life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This time, I’m just not feeling it. Those words seem hollow right now. So I’m going to go back not to 1776, but to 1968, when Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke at the National Cathedral.

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

We are not there yet. But I believe that we will arrive and all the mouth-foaming attempts to subvert it by the racist, misogynistic, homophobic, xenophobic, terrified bigots will, in the end, fail.

And I’ll bloody well drink to that.