Let’s be honest about what we’re watching here.
🇺🇸 330 million people, the country that put men on the moon, defeated the Nazis is now sitting on its sofa watching its president post crayon drawings of Venezuela with an American flag on it.
At least the Russians who oppose Putin have a reasonable excuse not to speak up. Siberia is cold and windows are tall. At least North Koreans can point to the very real possibility of their entire extended family being relocated to a concrete box with no heating. These are legitimate barriers to civic engagement.
What’s America’s excuse?
You can vote. You can protest. You can run for office. Nobody is sending you to a gulag. The worst thing that happens is someone calls you a name on Truth Social. And yet, there you all sit, 330 million of you, watching a man who cannot spell “Venezuela” claim it as American territory, while nodding along like this is a completely normal thing for a head of state to do.
No dictator in modern history has done more damage to the prestige of a country’s highest office than this man, and he’s done it entirely voluntarily, with access to the full resources of the American government, and a communications team that apparently just lets him post whatever falls out of his head before breakfast.
Kim Jong-un, for all his considerable faults, has never once posted a map with a flag on it and called it foreign policy.
Think about that.
Gandalv / @Microinteracti1
Dave: “Hello, caller, you are on the air.”
Caller: “I don’t think billionaires create value.”
Dave: “Okay. What do you mean by that?”
Caller: “Nobody can earn a billion dollars ethically.”
Dave: “Alright. What do you do for a living?”
Caller: “Well, before this, I was a bartender.”
Dave: “Nothing wrong with bartending. Honest work.”
Caller: “Right.”
Dave: “And now?”
Caller: “I work in government.”
Dave: “Okay. So let me get this straight. You're saying Elon Musk, who helped build PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX, and Starlink, has made innovations like online payments, electric cars, rockets, and satellite internet possible, didn't earn his way to being a billionaire?"
Caller: “None of that justifies being a billionaire.”
Dave: “Well, sure sounds like value got created somewhere along the line.”
Caller: “I disagree.”
Dave: “What exactly did you build?”
Caller: “I advocate for economic justice.”
Dave: “No ma’am, I mean actual products.”
Caller: “…”
Dave: “You’re telling me the guy catching rockets mid-air created less value than a person who used to serve mojitos and now votes on spending his tax dollars?”
Caller: “That’s unfair.”
Dave: “What’s unfair is pretending markets are imaginary while cashing a government paycheck funded by the businesses you claim don’t create value.”
Caller: “I’m actually a congresswoman.”
Dave: “Oh Lord. Of course!"
Woke up with a soft heart today. Grateful for small things: warm coffee, morning light, and the fact that I’m still growing. Life is messy, but beautiful anyway. ☀️📷#Grateful#SimpleJoys