Tag: politics

Anyone who didn’t see this coming doesn’t know America

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

This tracks.

This will (hopefully) be the only post I make about the election, and despite the fact that I fucking hate politics to begin with, I have a lot of feelings about the latest shitshow that routinely plagues the United States like one giant metaphorical sexually transmitted disease, and apparently have a lot of things to write about that I would be doing myself and the people I speak with on a regular basis a disservice to not get them off of my chest and burden them with alternatively.

I saw the outcome of this election, the minute that Joe Biden announced that he would not be running for reelection.  Everyone knew that by default, the DNC would push Kamala Harris to the candidacy, and that was basically the kiss of death right there, because if there’s one thing that America seems to dislike more than a known felon, sex offender, cheater and thief, is apparently women, and if there’s one thing America would hate more than a woman, would be a woman of color.

This morning, I felt dread in my stomach, my heart, my head, watching my girls eating breakfast.  They’re too young to know what’s really going on out there in the world, but it makes me feel sorrow to know that they’re living in a country that will never value them as much as a white man, because they’re both female, and of mixed-race.

This bullshit is not their fault, nor the fault of any children out there.  Whatever happened to the comprehensive goal of giving kids a world better than our own?  Real maturity in voting is understanding that you sometimes are voting for things that have no bearing to your own lifetime, but have immeasurable impact on the lives of those who follow after us. 

Americans are so selfish and short-sighted that they vote for the things that they think are going to impact them now, tomorrow, or at least in their lifetimes; and as evidence has shown throughout the course of history, those types of promises are as about as rare as encountering a shiny Pokémon.

Continue reading “Anyone who didn’t see this coming doesn’t know America” →

Eviction Notice: the extreme politics household

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

There’s a household in my neighborhood that would classify as an extreme supporter of orange guy.  Unfortunately, they live pretty close to me, so it’s impossible to not notice the majority of the bullshit that I’m about to detail.

When I first moved into the neighborhood, it didn’t take long before, for whatever reason, they put up a T/P sign up in their yard; mind you, this was in 2017, and we were already a year into this dictatorship, and I can’t help but feel like this sign going up was kind of directed at mythical wife and I, for being this mixed couple that had the audacity to move in fairly close proximity to them.

The sign got blown away during the hurricane season months later, and I remember lol’ing heartily at seeing the stand of the sign still in their yard, with the sign itself nowhere to be seen.

Suffice to say, 2020 was not a good year for them, having to exist in a world where their lord king was knocked out of power, and I guess I was delusional to think that that would be the end to their bullshit, because it was only the beginning.  Their property and their belongings eventually became their canvases to express their disdain with the state of America, and over the span of the last few years, there have been a revolving door of signs, flags, cardboard cutouts and other orange guy paraphernalia adorning their house, the yard, and even their own primary vehicle.

I don’t pay a tremendous amount of attention to world news or political news because I would rather stab myself in the dick, but it was always obvious that Joe Biden did something, based on the rapidly changing reactionary décor of the orange house’s entrance window; sometimes it would be an upside American flag, which really should be reserved for genuine states of distress but here we are, a black and blue WE BACK THE BLUE flag, a red MAGA flag, or sometimes a lifesize cutout of orange guy is just thrown up there, smiling like the sex offender out at the rest of the community.

Unsurprising, their front yard has become a battlefield of orange guy supporting signs over the last few weeks, and it started with one generic sign, but over the span of the last week, the signs have multiplied greatly, with all these fairly niche and overboard signs featuring silhouettes of the orange guy, presumably after the first assassination attempt, really expressing their defiance of Democratic America, and the fairly recent array of signs that are basically the lowest common denominator of ORANGE GUY GOOD, KAMALA BAD, like ORANGE GUY LOW PRICES / KAMALA HIGH PRICES and ORANGE GUY SECURE BORDER / KAMALA OPEN BORDER, etc.

But what really served as the impetus to this post, is their car.  Not long after the events of 2020, I noticed that they had decals of the orange guy on their car; the ones that are of his profile, and placed on the windows, so it looks like he’s riding in the backseat of their car.  But the best part is that they apparently only have adhesive on one side, so although it looks normally placed on the passenger side, on the driver’s side, orange guys is rear-facing; much like the infant he acts like all the time, so it is kind of appropriate.

However, a few days ago, I noticed that there was some writing on their doors.  I was outside with my kids and I didn’t have my glasses on, so I couldn’t make out what the writing was, but either they had started a side gig of some sort and had some company name or information on their door, or they had to have some new orange guy-related message affixed to their car because why the fuck wouldn’t they do that.

Later in the day, I was picking up some food at Chick Fil-A, and as I was circling through the app-only lane AKA the greatest invention in the food service industry, I noticed a car in the non-app lane AKA the pleeb lane, that had on the door, the words “GARBAGE MOBILE.”  My brow scrunched in confusion at seeing this, like why the fuck would anyone want to call out their ride as being a garbage mobile?  Were they in the waste industry or something?  But then I glanced up and I saw the backward orange guy on the window, and my jaw kind of quarter opened at the realization at whose ride I was seeing.

Okay, so my thought process was that either some filthy libs had enough of seeing the orange guy mobile, and decided to vandalize them with a sticker calling their car  garbage mobile, or something had occurred in the political arena where orange guy was called a piece of garbage or something, to put focus on the word garbage in the first place, and this fanatic voluntarily put this sticker on their car, because their modus operandi since I’ve known of them has always been reactionary and petulant, and they’re not intelligent enough to realize that they are willingly calling themselves garbage.

Asking my friends, who follow news and politics more than I do, I learned that while on the campaign trail, apparently Joe Biden called orange guy, his supporters, or something under that dumb orange umbrella, trash, and there appears to be a contingent of his brainless disciples that seem to want to be voluntarily owning the terms, trash or garbage, and here we are, where extreme orange-ites are putting stickers on their cars calling themselves, garbage mobiles.

The point is, this is a household that strikes me as extremely, extremely weird, because their entire identity is absolutely nothing but their political beliefs.  Like, I’ve been the sports guy, the baseball guy, the wrestling guy, the blet guy, girl dad, and various other guys in my life.  At no point in my life, would I want my entire public facing identity being tied solely to politics much less any single iota.

And that being said, if I had the power and ability to kick them out of the neighborhood, evict them and get them the fuck out of here and replaced by a household of more sensibly existing human beings, I’d do it in a heartbeat.  And in all fairness, I’m not targeting them solely because they’re orange guy cultists; I would be just as eager and willing to eject out a household of left-wing extremists who were as obnoxious about their political identity and had absolutely no personality other than politics.

There’s just so much to the world that a higher importance than fucking politics, that anyone who can’t see that, and lets politics consume their entire existences, I don’t want them living near me.  Get the fuck out of my community, please and thank you

A microcosm of societal problems

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

My subdivision is an interesting representation of what I think is reflective of the United States these days.  There is seemingly a pretty divided line that separates those residents whom are either original owners of their properties, or are owners who have lived here for 25+ years, and then are all the people who are very much of the next generation of homeowners, like my household, and have lived in the neighborhood for anywhere from 8-9 or fewer years.

Unsurprising, there exists some very stark correlations to how they lean politically, easily represented by the political signs that are proudly propped up on the yards of many homeowners, and as we inch closer to the merciful November 5th election date, the intensity in which these wastes of resources are popping up, and it’s evident that it’s not so much how much they actually support these crooked politicians as much as they are wanting to subtly tell their neighbors that they oppose their choice in political affiliation.

But at the root of all these political pissing contest participants, are still human beings, human beings with feelings, human beings with care, human beings with intentions, and human beings who probably just want to exist in peace without too much bullshit in their lives.

One of my best friends and I, we couldn’t possibly exist on opposite sides of the spectrums when it comes to political beliefs.  They support a candidate, I don’t care too much about politics but I don’t really care for that person because of all the flagrantly racist and classist rhetoric that has been demonstrated.  But my friend and I, we don’t talk about politics, at all.  I don’t know if they even know that I disagree with their political choice, and frankly one of my biggest dreads is if one day they realize it and decide to sever our friendship because of it.

Regardless, I hold this person in the highest regard, we chat on a near daily basis and I’d take a bullet for them.  I like to think they feel similarly for me; because behind politics, we’re still human beings.

I took my kids trick or treating on Halloween, because that’s what we do as parents, and this was actually the first year that I took both girls out to trick or treat, and let them stay out past their bed times and be wandering around at night.  My neighborhood is pretty awesome when it comes to trick or treating, and this was one of the things I always envisioned being in the future when I had moved into it, and it was pleasant to go around and watch my kids have fun and take part in a timeless tradition.  And all through the neighborhood were all sorts of other families and groups consisting of my neighbors, young and old doing the same thing; it was fun knowing that we were in a community full of kids that my kids will someday play with, go to school with, and grow up with.

On our return route, there was a home with an orange guy sign in their yard.  Sitting out on their front stoop was the guy that lived there; older, white, male, sitting in lawn chair, carrying a bucket full of candy for kids, sitting between two lit jack-o-lanterns.  Very evident that he was participating in giving out candy for the kids.

A group, consisting of two, maybe three households and all their kids, I watched as the kids slowed down and looked up at the home with the orange guy sign in the yard; and then proceeded to keep on walking, and going to the following house, that had no sign in front.  None of the parents reacted, or encouraged the kids to go on and get free candy and ignore the sign up front.

Needless to say, when mythical wife and I approached the house, I encouraged my girls to go up the driveway, reminded them to say trick-or-treat and thank you, and hollered a thank you to the man myself, for being kind enough to be participating and giving candy to my kids.  He was kind to my children, and I was grateful for his positive interaction with my kids.

I might not agree with his politics, but at the root of it, he’s still a human being, and if he was being human enough to participate in a timeless tradition, then I would be human enough to send my children over to him and be gracious and polite and make him feel included.

I’m not saying I’m better than my neighbors or anyone else by my choice of actions or even writing about this scenario, but I do think that this was a microcosm of the divide in population that is plaguing America.  Too many are making politics personal, and I can’t say that I blame anyone for becoming jaded, lord knows I am too, but there are just times in which it’s really easy to set politics aside and just being fucking normal people to one another.

That being said, there was one house that I avoided while trick-or-treating, as did pretty much everyone else did as well.  The one that had a whole army of signs on their lawn, demonstrating a level of fanaticism that is outright scary obsessive, and raises questions to where they were on January 6, 2021.  But politics aside, they’re also a household that just one of those crabby neighbors who goes out of their way to be as unwelcoming as possible, and had no lights on, no pumpkins or any décor that wasn’t orange in the holiday sense.

People like those, are kind of a lost cause, and them even not wanting to be nice to the kids of the community, makes it easy to acquiesce their desire to be isolated.

How to fix the wage gap

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Among one of my group chats, the topic of wage inequality came up again, starting with the embarrassingly low salaries of WNBA players.  Basically despite being the female equivalent of Steph Curry, the #1 draft pick of the WNBA draft, Caitlin Clark, she who led Iowa into prominence and caught the imagination of hoops fans across the country, will basically be making a paltry $75,000, or something close to that, in her first season in the WNBA. 

It’s not often that I can say it, but I make more money than the WNBA salary, and I am not a professional athlete.

To put it in perspective, I’ve been doing a lot of daily research on history, in an attempt to simply enlighten myself with useless knowledge, but one of the things that I like to do is when I come across financial figures from various points in time, I like to punch in the numbers to compare to how the dollar amounts translate with today’s inflation.

Like for example, Alaska was purchased for $7.2 million dollars in 1867, and $7.2 million in today’s dollars would be like $155M or somewhere close.  And then off the top of my head, I could rattle off several baseball players who are on contracts for double that amount or more, putting into further perspective just how overpaid professional athletes not in the WNBA are.

Ford lit the world on fire in the 1914 when they instituted a $5 daily wage; I’m not sure how accurate internet inflation calendars really are, but basically that breaks down to a $19 an hour minimum wage, yet somehow across the country, less than half of that is still considered the federal minimum.

For about a minute, we pondered on what the world would be like if even the most menial jobs making minimum wage, were still paying $19-21 an hour.  People would be grossing $3K+ a month if they could notch full-time hours, and that’s definitely closer to being able to survive in the world than where we are now.

Then came the rhetorical pondering of how fucked up it is that there’s such an inequity in wages in the world; leading me to snarkily blurt out that with wages like these, American employers might as well reinstitute indentured servitude, because if you’re going to treat people like slaves, might as well give them a roof over their heads and three square meals a day for the exploitation.

And then it dawned on me that if rich white people were forced to shelter and feed and give rudimentary human consideration to people, they would ultimately favor paying them more to keep the poors away from them, and right here, we’ve just fixed the wage gap.

I would absolutely want to tune in and watch, some politician in a suit, march into Congress or the Senate or the House or whichever place in Washington DC where white people argue over the state of the country, and with a completely straight face, propose reinstituting indentured servitude.  Obviously, don’t tell them why it’s being suggested, but I would wager that the intended result would undoubtedly happen, because as much as rich white people love turning the screws to poor people, the hate being around poor people.

If they were put into a position to where they not only had to be near them, but actually had to cohabitate with them, then there’s no telling just how fast they would agree to up wages across the board just to prevent such a ludicrous idea from even come remotely close to becoming reality.

And just like that, I’ve figured out how to close the wage gap up, real fast.  As the ancient Egyptians once paraphrased, slavery – it gets shit done.  But in this case, it’s indentured servitude, but it really is close enough to where the point remains.

If life were wrestling, Stacey Abrams turns heel now

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I never wanted to be a person whose gave much concern over politics, but maybe it’s a symptom of getting older, or the world is just getting so progressively fucked up that people like me are organically becoming more aware of them, but I’ve found myself caring enough to the point where when the political season starts heating up, I feel the need to ignore everything, because I care, and I’m treating the whole thing like how I treat sports game that I’m vested in.

That being said, I can’t say that I’m the least bit surprised at the results of Georgia’s political battleground, namely the two key races that most people have been paying attention to.  Despite all of the available facts out there, Georgia unsurprisingly embarrassed themselves on a national stage, by having a legally brain-dead Hershel Walker garner so much voter support, that his deadlocked race against Raphael Warnock is now headed to a dreadful run-off race next month.

To my recollection, Democrats haven’t won a single run-off since I’ve lived here or paid any attention to, so instead of losing in November, Warnock seems destined to lose a bigger and more scrutinized race in December, because from what I can observe, the Democratic party can’t seem to put together a single winning strategy against the formulaic low-fruit smashing tactics of the GOP.

But the main point of this post is about Stacey Abrams, who lost for the second time to Yosemite Sam for governorship of Georgia.  I can’t say that I’m at all surprised by this outcome, but I was hoping that Sam’s bickering with the orange guy in 2020 would have done enough damage to him to where it might have shifted some voters to not vote for him, but when it really comes down to it, and the exit polls kind of confer, Stacey Abrams being both black and a female just makes it way too hard to overcome both racist and sexist reflexes of the Georgia voters that actually decided to vote.

According to census numbers, Georgia has about 7 million people who are of voting eligibility, but only about 4 million people actually voted.  Obviously, this isn’t to say that both Abrams and Warnock’s chances of victory would have been improved by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s still frustrating to learn that nearly 3 million people just didn’t vote at all.  If I’m a Hershel Walker supporter, I’m just as frustrated by this, seeing as how the margin of voters between Warnock is what’s sending this to a run-off in the first place.

Either way, to no surprise, Abrams is taking her loss with dignity and class, as was the case the first time around.  She vows to continue to fight for Georgians, and is saying all of the right things that those in the political career should be saying.  But honestly, if I’m Stacey Abrams, and life were actually professional wrestling, at this point I’m fucking sick of Georgians, tired of trying to win Georgia, and I’m turning heel on the state and vowing to move onto bigger and better things.

3 million motherfuckers not voting at all?  What’s the point of Fair Fight when there are a bunch of people who just don’t want to fight at all?  Twice now, Georgians have left Stacey down by not turning up to the polls, and she’s basically had to eat a shit sandwich twice over now.

Abrams is no stranger outside of Georgia too, as she was one of the names that was on the short list of potential Vice President candidates.  Who’s to say that after jobbing twice to Dutch Mantell that she just stops giving a fuck about Georgia and doesn’t move on to bigger and better opportunities in Washington? 

Frankly, I think it would tickle me delirious if Stacey Abrams were to go have a press conference on WSB to announce what she’s going to do next, and unleashing a scathing promo on the state of Georgia, that she’s sick and tired of trying to prop this sexist and racist backwater state up to civilized standards, and that she’s peaceing the fuck out of here, before dropping the mic.

As she gets down from the podium, a bunch of white rednecks in UGA sweatshirts are seen throwing Bud Light bottles and toilet paper rolls onto the stage, like a 1998 episode of WCW Monday Nitro.

At this point, I can’t say I’d blame her.

Being an orange guy supporter fan is basically a meme

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

On my way to the office, there’s this house that I’ve noticed.  It was an obvious tear-down and flip, because it’s a home that sticks out that it looks absolutely nothing like the aesthetic of all the other properties in the vicinity.  It’s hard to describe it, but it almost seems fortress-like, because there’s almost no landscaping other than fresh sod, there are high fences that flank the sides of the property, and the only vehicles in the driveway have been two giant fuck-you trucks.  The trucks are black and white respectively, and for the matter so is the house, with it being primarily white with black shutters, doors and accents.

I don’t really know why, but I had this hunch that the people that lived there were probably the types of people who supported the orange guy that tanked ruled ‘Murica.  But recently, on my latest commute in, I noticed that they had two signs in their yard, in support of Bubba Kemp, the orange-guy worshipping incumbent governor who is up for reelection in November, and it basically validated everything I theorized about the residents of this property.

But then it got me thinking, how easy it’s become to pick out orange guy supporters, even if they’re not so flagrantly broadcasting their fealty.  And that they’ve basically become living breathing memes of human beings with their brainless worship of a clown.

Sure, there are the very obvious sheep out there who have Make America Great Again hats, bumper stickers, and other orange guy paraphernalia, and those guys are sad and disappointing in their own right, but at least they’re honest and straightforward with their allegiance.  But it’s the people that want you to know without making it obvious that I’m more fascinated in and frankly, these are the people out there that I think are worse, because it’s like they want to enjoy the luxuries of America, while being in support of ‘Murica.

Not to mention, that a lot of these types have unfortunately co-opted all sorts of brands, IPs and other forms of symbolism, and ruined it for everyone else by claiming that they’re symbols of their hatred of modern society.

So anyway, here’s what I’ve observed as being signs of more subtle orange guy fanaticism:

  • Don’t Tread On Me stickers, flags or decals
  • The Punisher logo decals
  • Salt Life stickers
  • Really loves firearms
  • Very large trucks with lift kits, usually black
  • American flags hanging off of said trucks
  • Properties that look like they are somewhat defensible in an apocalyptic scenario

I’m sure there are lots of other things that could be on this list, but these are the things that come immediately to mind when I think about things I see that instantly make me very confident that a person is an obvious patriot.  And the more bullets they check off, the more I’m curious what they were doing or where they were on January 6th.

The point is, people don’t really need to be brandishing the very obvious stuff to make it obvious where their general allegiances and temperaments lie.  Whether they care to realize it or not, there’s plenty of other things that have manifested and been nurtured throughout the last few years that make it pretty obvious to what type of person a random stranger on the street is, just by their behaviors and preferences, which to me, is what makes something meme-worthy. 

What’s sad, aside from the people who are brainwashed by all this bullshit, are the poor identities and IPs that have been bastardized by their being co-opted by the extreme right.  I feel bad for any intelligent Marines who have to see the Gadsden flag being used by idiots who have never even thought about serving the country, flying it without knowing any bit of its history.  I feel bad for Marvel Comics and any writer who ever was involved with The Punisher, seeing all these morons using the skull emblem and claiming it to be “for them.” 

And worst off, I feel saddest for the American flag, which is so often being flown with almost a malicious intent, by people who want to throw their extreme patriotism in the faces of normal, regular Americans who might not feel the need to have to throw the flag up everywhere they go to represent the country we live in.

The behavior of the mindless and ignorant have taken a lot of historic elements and respectable  symbols and turned them into memes by how flagrantly misused they’ve been, but at least in doing so, they’re making it very easy to identify people that I really have no interest in associating with, because ain’t nobody need this kind of stupidity anchoring down my little world.

Not bad, Utah

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

notbad.gif: Utah seeing massive uptick in child support payments after new law enacted that states those who fall too far behind in payments will become unable to acquire hunting or fishing licenses

Big kudos to the nerds who recognized the correlation between deadbeats who didn’t pay their child support and people who liked to hunt and fish.  And then good on the politicians who realized that the old system of simply arresting and throwing the book at them wasn’t working, and came up with a more effective means of penalization that is actually proving to be effective at keeping deadbeats from being deadbeats.

In all seriousness, I do commend this line of thinking, and think it should kind of serve as a model to the rest of the country that jail just isn’t always the right consequence for anything and everything negative.  Don’t get me wrong, I thought the fake Iron Bowl Tickets sweepstakes/sting to bust deadbeats done in Alabama was hilarious, but that was like 2011, and times have changed, and the context to the narrative has as well.

The impetus behind it seemed solid, and the results are speaking for themselves.  If the threat of jail and the consequences of having a criminal record is what people have to look forward to facing if and when they start falling behind on child support, then most people are just going to cut and run and stay hidden as long as they can, until they swirl down a downward spiral of failure, where everyone suffers, including the children they need to be supporting.

But hitting them in their hobbies and vices, that conveniently have license requirements that need to be renewed annually?  That’s pretty smart thinking.  It’s nowhere near as severe as jail, but it’s still seen as punishment enough, to where they won’t legally be allowed to partake in the activities that they like to do, and it’s proving to be enough of a threat to make them pony up and square up their debts so they can get back to the things that make them happy.  And the proof is in the pudding, with as much payment is seemingly coming back to Utah’s kids in the process.

Not much else to say about this, other than to once again opine, not bad, Utah.  Creative solutions to problems that never were getting better, and showing some improvement in the process.  The country could sure use a whole lot more of this.