A BRIDGE TOO FARFETCHED

Leading up to a question…is it a bag too far?

The phrase “a bridge too far” is taken from British Lieutenant General Frederick Browning’s comments to Field Marshal Montgomery before WWII’s Operation Market Garden in 1944, referring to the slim at best chance of success for the plan to capture the Arnhem Bridge in 1944. It has become a metaphor for overreaching and grandiose ambition, often leading to catastrophic results.

Donald Trump does not possess a fraction of the intelligence, courage or resolve of the Allied command and its troops. That fucking champion fibber crossed a bridge too farfetched when he took his first breath in the world as we once knew it, long before he proved it without any doubt. His entire miserable life as well as his poisoned landfill of an out-of-control administration, future leading players in the power point presentation of political shame in Washington DC, has been a master class in corruption, perversion, criminal activity, moral bankruptcy, mendacity, incompetence, and willful ignorance. Even with that sinner’s smorgasbord, all of that could have been pushed aside to implement the charge of treason. Donald Trump should have been taken out in handcuffs the evening of January 6, 2021. Another day of infamy in what’s left of American history.

I still relive watching the live feed of events transpiring on that day while shaking like a leaf at what the nation was witnessing. It is a measure of how low the MAGA cult members have sunk in their own personal garbage pile of protoplasm that millions have crossed that bridge too far with Cadet Bone Spurs. And with catastrophic results.

Letting him escape any accountability or consequences for TREASON will go down as possibly the biggest mistake, miscalculation, misdirection or mishandled decision in American history.

And, surreally, we seem paralyzed, still stuck in the pointless and murky twilight zone of acting as though it still makes sense to try to make sense of this. Of him. Shock? Surprise? A completely worthless state of being amongst the constant projections of bullshit and crimes against humanity that issue from his anus mouth and his poisoned pen.

Funny, I was not in the least surprised when he put out the vile post on the murder of Rob and Michele Reiner. I would have been utterly shocked if he had given any sort of appropriate or compassionate message. After the constant bombardment of twisted, sociopathic, mentally deranged garbage he’s been putting out for, let’s see, oh, yes, THE LAST FUCKING DECADE, a cursed (for us) tenure during which he has been hurtled upon the world like an infectious bacterium, how the fuck is anyone surprised AT THIS POINT? Aren’t we past the faux fretting? And even worse, is stopping this insanity now a bridge too far for us? Spoiler Alert—we might say that was true as of January 7, 2021.

Did anyone on earth think that the Donald J. Trump White House was going to release the Epstein Files in any way, shape or form that would be honest, legal, or even only a tad altered? Come on, people, this has got to fucking end. The self-perpetuating inaction and inertia after the constant flood of impeachable offenses, outright criminality and corruption is like a hot poker stuck in our eyes, being twisted with each directive he devises. This is all we need to know—Donald Trump tried to overthrow the government in a violent unconstitutional desecration of both public property and public trust. He has for years been a rapist and sex trafficker of young girls, crimes for which even hardcore criminals in maximum security prisons extract retribution on their perpetrators.

WHY IS THIS FUCKING DEGENERATE STILL IN THE WHITE HOUSE? WHY?

Despite his atrocities, crimes that would have been the end of the career of any other human being on earth, if not life, Donald Trump is in his second term as President, still sitting in the White House unimpeded in any of his democracy-destroying actions.

A few weeks into the Herr-Sprayed Shitler’s FakeTan Death March over the United States of America’s Constitutional roadmap, in a fit of rage I grabbed my backpack and metallic markers. The result is shown in the picture above.

It could be said that this bag is an unlikely omnipresent adornment on the back of an old bag like me, displayed flagrantly in any venue, circumstance, event or activity. Maybe even a bridge too far? It could be said. But not by me.

I have been wearing my backpack on extensive travels in Europe. Since for the most part Europe views Trump as the equivalent of the Black Death, I did not expect more than the occasional jeer or comment. That has turned out to be pretty much the situation. Oh, there was a young man in London doing his best “Tomorrow Belongs to Me” billy club act. Another London man snarling at me that Trump is not a rapist. An older woman spitting “disgusting” at me in Germany (she was American, however.)

What I did not expect was the constant stream of finger tappings on my back and the beautiful lyricism of someone saying “I LOVE your backpack! Can I take a picture?” In Toulouse, France, I got a round of applause from patrons in a hotel bar. In London, going up to the cash register of a coffee place and the cashier saying “it’s on him” while pointing to the burly man waving and giving the thumbs up across the aisle. An American woman at a Christmas market in Germany telling me she’s with her daughter, could they please take a photo of me with the daughter holding up the bag so they can send it as their holiday greeting? Tuk Tuk drivers in Portugal cheering as they whisked by. An older man from Indiana in a tour group whispering to me “Keep rocking that bag!” A group of fellow visitors in the Basque Country in Spain becoming What’sApp pals after bonding over my bag. A handful of new welcomed friendships in the European city I now reside in, initiated by my bag.

Americans of all shapes, sizes, colors and hometowns have approached freely. More than not, these exchanges have led to emotional conversations in which we connect almost instantly over the mutual grief, sorrow and rage we feel. The bag has opened a door to the Situation Room slash psychiatrist’s couch in which decent Americans have been watching a horrific tyrant commit unspeakable travesties in our country’s name. Coming from a city in which everyone spills secrets and offers uncensored opinions to complete strangers, it pleases me that many have told me it is liberating for them to see our opinion expressed openly and without sugarcoating. Anger and judgment they share, but often in silence.

In Cologne, Germany an older German woman chased me down a street. When she caught me, she said she had seen my bag and wanted to talk to me. She had been born in that city during the war and wanted to share some memories of Germany in the aftermath. She spoke eloquently about the danger of men like Hitler and Trump (yes, she equated Trump with Hitler, as I do myself.) She feels a sense of profound shock, sorrow and disbelief that Americans could embrace someone as truly horrific as Donald Trump.

At a Christmas market elsewhere in Germany, an older woman of color, with an American accent, tapped me on the shoulder and told me that I was her hero. I know I am no hero but this lovely woman for some reason or circumstance in her life, was affected greatly at that moment by the words on my bag.

Even with my bag, and I write that facetiously, the Epstein Files remain unreleased. The President is enjoying his steady diet of sociopathy and sycophancy. The world is up shit’s creek without a paddle. Rob Reiner and Tatiana Schlossberg are dead. Donald Trump and the ghouls who populate his world seem to thrive. There are no answers for life’s biggest random cruelties. Unless that is an answer in and of itself.

If we can advance on a bridge too far, I wonder what’s on the other side.