The Monster Our Society Created

 

Whoever ends up writing the history of this period of time in the American experiment is going to have a difficult time making sense of the decisions made during this period. Of course, I’m not only assuming that a form of national sanity returns to the United States but that there’s a human civilization about a century from now. Something that with all the unaddressed global problems we face I have doubts will exist.

It doesn’t take a PhD in political science or history to pick out the one individual at the center of the chaos. Donald Trump.

His rise to power is the culmination of a series of systemic failures in our society. The first being that he was born into wealth and influence. Had Trump been born middle class- or lower- in my hometown, a small blue collar place kept alive by a huge paper mill and steel mill, at best he would have ended up as a sleazy used car salesman or insurance agent.

The second failure that allowed Trump to thrive was society’s inability to reign in his excesses. For decades it was known that Trump did not play well with others or obey the rules common folks have to follow. But he was flashy, had money, and knew the right people so the rules for him were just suggestions he could ignore.

This bleeds over into the media promoting him on television. His goddamn reality show “The Apprentice” made him look like a savvy businessman even though Trump somehow found a way to bankrupt a fucking casino. That was just one of his six bankruptcies.

And I’m resisting the urge to go off on a tangent about how people like Joe Fucking Scarborough gave Trump access to his morning news show allowing him to seem knowledgeable about current affairs. My hate for Scarborough runs deep because I believe the rumors that he tried to get trump to pick him for Vice President during the 2016 run.

With these and several other factors Trump was able to play society’s weaknesses to become the President of the United States. Here’s where things get messy.

While Trump carefully cultivated the illusion of an artistic businessman able to make the most “most beautiful deals” Trump’s reason for existence is to get revenge on anyone he feels wronged him.

A while back fellow billionaire, Richard Branson was interviewed once about a conversation he had with Trump. Branson said that while he tried to talk business with the Tangerine Hitler, all he wanted to talk about were the people he wanted revenge on. Taking into account what other people have said about Trump, long with his own words, his reason to exist is based solely on destroying others.

Sure, Trump wants his personal wealth to grow and he wants to be seen around beautiful and smart people. But his main drive are the grievances he carries around in his head.

But the job of being president means interacting with other, and at times, compromising on issues. Trump’s one talent is being a bully and that has been reinforced over his lifetime because of the money and influence at his disposal. The problem with being one of the lead actors of the world stage is that there are others who play the near the same level. Given Trump’s child-like understanding of economics he has almost overnight wrecked the global trading system. Oh yes, he’s pulled back at times and declared some sort of victory while our trading partners and allies look on in fear of his lunacy. But that’s the least of my worries.

When it comes to dealing with Putin of Russia and Xi of China, Trump’s unhinged admiration of their authoritarian power should give any normal person nightmares. Trump is seeking a form of camaraderie with those dictators because such a friendship feeds his ego.

I would bet money I don’t have that both Putin and Xi at best see Trump as a fool. A fool that would undermine his own country’s economic and military position in an effort to look as powerful and respected- in his mind- as Putin and Xi.

Where things become unglued is if Trump ever loses face on the global stage, I have no doubt that like the spoiled child he is, Trump wouldn’t hesitate to attack both of those countries.

Whether here in the United States or globally, Trump would rather burn everything down and rule over the ashes than lose.

The Start of the Second American Civil War (Part One)

 

Fan fiction loosely based on Our War by Craig DiLouie

 This story is the sum of all my fears. It's not a prediction but I honestly do not believe Trump will leave office peacefully. He and his sycophants show no hint that they believe their criminal actions will ever be brought to justice.

 The main reason the Red State factions finally agreed to an armistice was because the nation was economically destroyed. The billionaires that had funded what they called the “Righteous Uprising” had become strapped for cash. Not for the deaths of over two million Americans, with three-times that displaced from their homes because of the violence. And certainly not because the specter of widespread famine was a growing possibility. 

But because the United Nations and European Union sanctions had dried up the American billionaires streams of revenue. 

It also helped that with civil war in the United States the global power vacuum it created resulted in China invading Siberia. Ever since China emerged from its self-imposed isolation in the 1980s, it had been silently lusting after the resource rich and thinly populated region of Russian Siberia. Despite years of the two nations pledging solidarity in the struggle against American overreach, with the main enemy absent, the Chinese leadership couldn’t ignore the untapped mineral wealth and oil Russia didn’t have the technology to exploit.  

For the Russians, the de facto collapse of the United States as a world power was, to them, a true gift from God. Every report of mass death and destruction out of America was a cause for jubilation. In fact the Russians had readily supplied weapons to the multitude of militias, both Blue and Red State, in what most people around the world called the Second American Civil War.   

But the Chinese invasion of Siberia was a huge knife in the back of Russia and all the weapons being smuggled into the U.S. were now needed at home. European Russia had gone total national war mobilization and had kids as young as fifteen fighting in the land east of the Ural Mountains. The Russian government now understood all too well that its mid-2020s conquest of Ukraine had depleted manpower to the point they were just trying to force China to negotiate over Siberia. China on the other hand smelled the blood of a sick and dying Russia and wasn’t going to stop their advance till they reached the eastern foothills of The Ural Mountains. 

At first the Red States’ Righteous Uprising took the upper-hand in the conflict. Red militias controlled almost the entirety of rural America and had overrun several areas where the population was staunchly Blue.

The problem was that there were far more Blue-leaning Americans than Red. It took time, especially since in the initial stages of the conflict the Reds had the majority of weapons. But once Blue forces were equipped and organized, they rolled across the country with a rage that the Reds had grossly underestimated. Many on the Blue side made a point of enacting revenge on every Red they could find, both active combatant and unfortunately, civilian.

The causes for the Second American Civil War were many and had been simmering just on the edge of boiling over for decades. But what finally pushed the country over the edge was the Impeachment and conviction of President Daniel Marsh. 

Marsh’s first term as president was only an electoral college victory. He lost the popular vote by almost four million votes to his Democratic opponent who, like others before in similar circumstances, accepted defeat and pledged support to the President-elect.

The corruption and incompetence of the first Marsh Administration was never concealed. Marsh and his billionaire supporters flaunted their behavior during that time with their media support structure defending every action. Given Marsh’s overwhelming support with the Republican base, any politician that spoke against him was immediately kicked out of the party.

The overwhelming consensus among political analysts and media pundits was that Marsh would lose reelection in a landslide. However when the campaign began for the general election, polls showed what appeared to be an ambivalence to both candidates. This indifference wasn’t reflected at the campaign rallies and in terms of donations.

The Democratic nominee was young, an accomplished federal prosecutor who went on to become the Attorney General of California, before being elected to the United States Senate.

While polls had always suggested the race would be close, her defeat to Marsh was still thought of as odd to her supporters. However, she accepted the defeat for the good of the country and returned to private life. The problem was that Marsh spun his victory as a mandate and began overhauling the Federal government.

Using his billionaire friends as unofficial government agents, every level of the federal government had their budget and personnel cut. The ones that replaced the fired employees were all loyalty tested to be Marsh supporters. 

These actions quickly escalated and even affected the FBI and the Defense Department. Marsh loyalists were soon running key positions in those organizations and instituting authoritarian measures. The administration began wholesale round-ups of not just illegal immigrants but people with visas and green cards. The situation got worse when American citizens, including judges and elected officials, were then arrested for allegedly interfering with the deportations.

On another front, Marsh raised tariffs on the majority of imported goods resulting in a massive increase of inflation. The stated reasoning behind these tariffs, the man-child president believed, would bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States. Instead Marsh crashed the U.S. economy and destroyed our relationships with long-time trading partners.

More puzzling was that Marsh was shocked when the countries affected by his tariffs retaliated. He somehow assumed that other countries would just endure the tariffs and rush to personally placate him to win back American markets. Less than a year after taking office the United States went into a recession that was worse than the one following the 2008 housing crisis.   

These actions didn’t largely turn Marsh’s base against him. They accepted his explanation that things would be tough economically for a short time, even though financial experts across the spectrum of political opinion clearly stated his actions would not bring jobs back.  But political independents and Democrats were scared into action organizing protests across the nation. But for Marsh, public opinion outside his base was completely ignored.

It was the 2026 midterms where the collapse of the United States began. The Democrats won a huge majority in the House. In the U.S. Senate, Democrats gained 58 of the seats to convict Marsh and remove him from office. Even though the midterms were a disaster for the Marsh Administration, the president and his supporters believed they were safe from an impeachment conviction. Marsh was sure no Republican senators would defect to the Democrats.

What Marsh didn’t count on was the corrosive nature an economic recession would have on even his loyal supporters. When the Articles of Impeachment were sent to the senate, two Republicans voted yes giving the Democrats the 60 needed for conviction. Per the United States Constitution, Marsh was supposed to be stripped of power and removed from office. But that is not what happened. 

Marsh went on television just minutes after the senate conviction saying the actions of Congress were unconstitutional. More damning was that Marsh stated that he was not stepping down and that Congress would need the military to drag him out of the White House. Just to add the icing to the Constitutional crisis, Marsh’s vice president gave his total support to his boss saying he would not push to assume the office.

Where things went from nightmarish to horrific, Marsh’s Secretary of Defence had eliminated numerous high ranking officers that he felt were not politically reliable. Along with that he had the Republican-controlled congress promoted dozens of politically reliable officers in their place. 

The Marsh appointed Chairman of the Joint Chiefs then released a statement saying that the impeachment and conviction of the president was a political and judicial problem. That the military would not become involved with the growing crisis. In the ultimate display of cowardice and betrayal the Republican majority Supreme Court refused to rule on the legality of Marsh’s conviction.

Congress found itself stymied with Marsh firmly in control of all the levels of executive power. That’s when the country erupted in protest leading up to two-million people gathering in Washington DC demanding Marsh and his vice president leave office. 

None of the protesters had any idea that right-wing militias, directed by allies of Marsh, would be gathering on the outskirts of DC who, in their words, “would put the fear of God back into the libs.”

Just two hours into the formal beginning of the protest right-wing terrorists attacked those that had gathered. Automatic weapons fire poured into the crowd from multiple locations, along with snipers that had taken positions in nearby buildings. The real horror began when the militias began firing home-made rocket grenades into the crowd.

When the attack finally ended, over twenty-thousand people had been directly killed with many thousand more wounded or injured trying to flee. With local medical services completely overwhelmed an unknown number of others died from the attack because there was no one to treat their wounds.

Marsh and his media allies immediately claimed the attack was perpetrated by foreign terrorists. But numerous members of right-wing militias had posted videos of the attack on social media proudly proclaiming who they were and that they were supporting President Marsh. 

The Second American Civil War had begun.

Blood is Not Thicker Than Water. (non-fiction)

 

My father is on the far left, then there is my brother Sean, his wife. In the middle is my mother and on the right by brother, Francis. Not in this picture is my sister, Hannah. Having my mother and father in the same room for the first time in decades was nerve-wracking.

 

 Upon orders from my lovely wife, a few days ago I dutifully climb up in the attic to look for a box of Christmas decorations. We’ve recently began downsizing a lot of possessions, namely reducing the number of plastic storage boxes containing differently themed Christmas ornaments from four to two.

You have to understand our attic is almost overflowing with those fancy plastic storage containers that would probably survive both a nuclear war and the next ice age.

The problem being is that after twenty-one years in our house, neither my wife nor I know what is in ninety-percent of those containers. I’ll spare you the details about our lack of organization along with having two kids who for various reasons decided to move stuff around.

I did locate that box of decorations, but it was another, much smaller container filled with forgotten pictures that brought back some uncomfortable memories.

Turns out a bunch of them were taken at my son’s first birthday party in October of 1996. Nearly all of them had relatives of mine that have long since passed away. One of those pictures was of my mother and father. And for reasons I can’t explain a memory surfaced of some shit they put me through around 1976.

Many times I have described my parents’ relationship as “Chernobyl-like.” Both of them had serious mental issues, way too many to elaborate on but it was my mom’s alcoholism that was often the biggest monkey wrench in my siblings and my childhood.

This memory begins in Baton Rouge, Louisiana where my mom had taken up residence with her boyfriend, a guy I’ll call “Danny.” He was a certified loser who was probably suffering from many of the same mental issues as my mom. I honestly can't remember the story on where Danny and my mom met but it was probably in one of the many country bars that ran between Conway and Georgetown, South Carolina.

Their favorite pastime was to get angry drunk, and fight with my mom then loading up my siblings and me and running off to another city and/or guy. For better or worse that guy was sometimes my dad and while I don’t think much of him as a father, he’d did take us all back when my mom had no where else to turn.

Baton Rouge was the latest haven where Danny and my mom were supposed to build a new life. Danny worked as a cabinet builder and my mom was a secretary when she wasn’t working as a convenience store clerk. And of course after a several months in Baton Rouge, they got drunk and fought bad enough that one of the neighbors called the cops.

And once the cops carted Danny off to jail, mom loaded us up in the car with the intention of driving to Wichita Falls, Texas. We had lived there with my dad until mom and him had a fight where she then ran down to Louisiana to shack up with Danny. If you think this is confusing you're a sane person.

How we got to Wichita Falls involves way too much detail and to be honest, I don’t remember most of it. The one thing I can say for certain is that my dad left South Carolina to work construction in Texas. He went out there during one of my parents’ multitude of breaks.

But when we arrived my parents rented a three-bedroom apartment in a complex of about ten other similar buildings. As apartment complexes go it was nice, big pool, playground for little kids and for me lots of sidewalks for me to ride my skateboard. I was around ten years-old at the time and skateboarding was the one thing that gave me peace. Some uncertain amount of time later, mom and dad fight which has her running to Danny who was now living in Baton Rouge.

I don’t remember a thing about the drive back to Wichita Falls except that we arrived around 2:00am and that my mom was more than a little drunk.

After pulling into the complex parking lot my mom tells me to knock on the apartment door and get my father so he could carry my younger siblings inside. No problem, except after beating on the front door for several minutes a man NOT my father opens it.

This could have been a really bad scenario except the guy was really cool. I soon learn that after mom took us to live with Danny my father had moved to a smaller apartment in the complex. This guy didn’t know where but it was in the same complex, just a couple of buildings over.

I go tell mom and she, of course, has me knocking on doors in the middle of the freaking night-in Texas. So ten years-old me is methodically knocking on every first-floor apartment door looking for my father. Somehow, I had picked the right building after beating on God-knows how many doors I find the one where my dad is living.

There was no happy family reunion. But mom and dad did shack back up and a few days later we moved into another apartment complex across town. This semi-stability did last around a year before for a reason I have forgotten mom, my siblings, and me left dad again and moved back to South Carolina. No, this time Danny wasn’t part of the equation.

Several more nuclear family meltdowns later I end up living with my maternal grandparents while my siblings stayed with our mom and her new boyfriend. My refusal to live with my mother did prompt her to become more stable and settle down in the upstate of South Carolina. My siblings still had some tough times ahead but they survive.

As the years pass a lot changes. My parents finally divorced, Danny got convicted of writing way too many bad checks and is thrown in prison. My father remarries suspiciously quick after the divorce and mom, I think, marries a guy named Earl. Her story about Earl changed many times. But because my mom was forced to settle down my siblings were able to achieve something of a life. 

As for me, it takes years for me to come to terms with what my parents put me through. Along with trying to catch up educationally given the amount of school I missed. To this day, having to perform the most simple math in my head causes anxiety.

But I graduated from high school, join the army and try to avoid all the mistakes and behaviors my parents couldn’t change. But I just couldn’t bring myself to forgive and forget the past and what they put me through. My siblings could because, I guess, they were so much younger and weren’t as aware how badly our parents were fucking up.

I was home on leave from the army one time and my grandfather pulled me aside to comment on how cold I was treating my mother. Granddad was serious old school and while he had some idea of what occurred, he still believed I should forgive her.

Because I worshiped my granddad, I told him I would work on it. And that was good enough for him.

My mom passed away in 2007. I did not shed a tear. My father is still alive. We don’t talk.

If A United States Senator is Scared...Where Does that leave the Rest of Us???

 

Lisa Murkowski is not the typical Republican. After losing the 2010 Republican primary to a Tea Party shitbag she won the general election as a write-in candidate. So for that reason the good senator has an unusually high degree of latitude when it comes to telling her party to fuck off.

Even with my extreme and universal disdain of anything Republican, Senator Murkowski to me does appear to have some small supply of honor and integrity. Too damn bad her supply of courage appears to be exhausted.

Because at a recent town hall, Senator Murkowski admitted that she is afraid of Donald Trump. Yes, there is video where she clearly states without any hesitation that: “We’re all afraid of afraid.”

Really? A United States senator, one of one-hundred of the most politically powerful men and women on the planet is afraid of the individual currently occupying the White House and playing president. It’s an extraordinary statement that implies numerous connotations, all of the them bad.

The senator continued, also saying: “I’m oftentimes very anxious myself about using my voice because retaliation is real. And that’s not right.”

So help my unpack this information. A politically powerful lady elected by her constituents to represent their best interests and work towards the benefit of the entire nation is afraid to speak up and do the right thing. This begs the question just what the fuck has Trump and his collection of sycophants threatened Senator Murkowski with?

It it the threat of physical violence like assassination for her or her family. Does Trump have some dirt on Murkowski or someone in her family that would bring disgrace or criminal charges? Or is the good senator so comfortable with her power and prestige that she, and all the other spineless Republican worms, are scared to do anything that might end their elevated status? Heaven forbid they have to get a real fucking job without the free healthcare and glorious trips and other perks they all enjoy.

Then there’s the weirdness that out of one-hundred senators sixty-six are millionaires. Couple that with the fact that the annual salary for a United States senator is 174,000 a year, it’s clear as crystal that us proles are being played. And yes, I’m throwing Democrats in with that corrupt group.

The biggest question that should send chills down the spine of any ordinary person like my stupid ass, is that if a senator is afraid what dangers are the rest of us facing? You’d think with the power of the U.S. Senate behind them more of those sorry assholes living off taxpayer dollars would earn their salary.

We’re all screwed.

The Return of Petty Potentates Seeking Glory and Empire

 Say what you will about all the faults of the post-WW2 world order, and there are many, it has been a time of relative peace and economic growth for a majority of people on the planet.

Don’t get your undies in a twist, I’m not saying it was Utopia, not by a long shot. Since then human civilization has lived under the cloud of nuclear annihilation, ecosystems strained to the breaking point, rampant industrial and consumer pollution, and a multitude of other possible world-ending disasters. Throw in the insidious rising power of corporations along with the growing economic chasm between the rich elites and the rest of humanity and its clear the post-WW2 world order desperately needs reforming.

But for all its faults, the post-WW2 geopolitical structure developed and maintained by the United States, Canada, and the nations of Western Europe is responsible for the longest era of peace and economic growth our sorry species has seen in several centuries at least.

The elements of this uneven peace revolve around freedom of the seas, respect for the sovereignty of nations, and growing global free trade. Once again, before any one cries out in existential pain and despair there are glaring holes in this assessment but we’re dealing with humans here and nothing we do is ever perfect. Although our species’ one universal talent is to fuck things up in the worst possible way.

But the fact that even with the high tech death machine toys and poisons developed in the last eighty-years we have refrained from using them says something positive about how the world was being ran.

Well, that has all gone to shit now.

It was bad enough when both Russia and China decided they going to start claiming territory without asking the local residents or staking claims to large areas of open ocean. But now the United States under the Trump regime has taken to the world stage like a caricature of a 19th century colonial power righteously declaring that it will annex Canada, Greenland, and retake the Panama Canal.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Ever since the Tangerine Hitler emerged on the American political scene it’s as if reality has taken a turn into the surreal. I would usually describe it along Twilight Zone terms with the wise Rod Sterling standing over in a corner getting ready to explain how main character in that night’s episode fell from grace.

But we’ve exceeded even that, our reality has mutated beyond pure speculative fiction and is now living in an episode of The Simpsons. The problem though with that comparison is there is nothing to laugh about with the circumstances we find ourselves.

Things further went to shit recently when Putin gave a speech in the Russian city of Murmansk. He essentially gave a nod of approval to the Trump Regime to forcibly take Canada, Greenland, and Panama. That is as long as he gets Ukraine, Poland, and the Baltic states. Not to leave China out of this 21st century imperialistic revival, there is ample evidence that if Mainland China invades Taiwan, Trump will not lift a finger to help them.

No I’m wrong, this isn’t a caricature of 19th colonial realpolitik, this shit looks a lot like petty bronze age kings trying to build their personal empires and deify themselves.

On a personal note that dovetails with this post. I work in a hospital on the mechanical engineering staff fixing things. My duties take me all over the hospital including places like surgery and Labor and Delivery. For several years now when I walk through Labor and Delivery and hear the cry of a newborn baby, I wish the little one luck because it’s going to be a shitty century.

Trump's Third Term Efforts and Bloody Car Wrecks

 For me there is a certain level of morbid fascination when it comes to wondering about the thought processes going on in Trump’s head. The best and simplest analogy would be its the same as if I was passing by a bloody multiple car accident on the Interstate. I know I should concentrate on my driving, so not to endanger anyone else, but with car wreckage scattered everywhere and emergency workers scrambling to save the victims it's often impossible to not glance over.

Trump’s mere existence is a testament to the inherent failures of the human species. The common assumption by many of the philosophers I’ve read is that no person is totally good or evil. And that the way individuals react to events and circumstances depends on many factors. Long obvious story short, the assumption is that every individual could be a hero or a villain given how they react to factors beyond their control.

But Trump seems to be the exception, he truly thinks he’s above us all. While Trump wants to be loved and admired, he also wants total loyalty and control of everything he can access. Deny him the loyalty he automatically expects and Trump will do everything he can to destroy that person.

Since Trump returned to the White House there has been a steady slide to authoritarianism. Which I find funny in a skewed way since from the time he was declared the winner in November I became convinced this country has been dropped into a badly written but nightmarish political dystopian thriller. In other words I except him to go full Putin with this country developing a problem with healthy people suddenly falling out of perfectly good windows.

Case in point, Trump’s unexpected desire to annex Canada, Greenland, and the Panama Canal. While throwing these tantrums he has alienated every ally the United States has ever had. By his actions Trump has achieved the near impossible by uniting Canadians and thoroughly pissing them off.

But its his desire to run for a third presidential term and defy the Twenty-Second Amendment is for me just added icing to the shit cake a plurality of Americans have forced the rest of us to eat.

“A lot of people want me to do it,” Trump said in a Sunday morning phone call with NBC News.

While the Twenty-Second seem to clear to me, speculation has one of the ways to achieve his desire would be to run J.D. Vance for president and then have the couch fucker pick Trump as his Vice President. Which begs the question that if J.D. did become POTUS what mechanism would the GOP use to make sure he resigned and let Trump back into the Oval Office.

During this NBC News phone call Trump remarked that “a lot of people would like me to” referencing supposed poll numbers indicating voters want him to run for a third term.

Apparently Trump’s sleazy henchman, Steve Bannon, has said that he and others are trying to figure out other ways to achieve a third term. Honestly it doesn’t matter, January 6th is proof enough that the legality of this third term project isn’t a problem for them.

I truly wish I could wake up tomorrow morning and suddenly discover this timeline was a Lovecraftian bad dream. But I’ll admit, it will be fascinating to watch Trump and his syncopates further wreck the United States of America. And yes, like a bad car accident, I have no doubt that at some point there will be blood in the streets.

Veterans Day Protest at The South Carolina State House

Not exactly sure who organized this demonstration but around 80 to 100 people showed up at the State House in Columbia, SC to the Tangerine Hitler and Elmo Musk's DOGE cuts affecting veterans benefits. The large guy in the center holding the flag is me.

 

Honestly, I was worried how the State House security guys would act. While we were there protesting the cuts to veterans programs, our chants quickly turned to calling for Trump's ousting from office and charged with treason.  But while security kept a close eye on us, they didn't get stupid.

I fucking despise Elon Musk. Musk is now the most dangerous man in the world, and I do mean he is a greater threat than Putin. He is suffering from a messiah complex and thinks its his mission to save Western Civilization from the forces of the "Woke Virus." His version of Western Civilization has people working 120 hours a week and living like Dark Age Europe serfs. More importantly Musk has no respect for basic human rights, to him were just animals.  

The level of intelligence displayed by the average Trump loving MAGAt is terrifying by itself. But what is worse is how Trump had essentially declared war on not only our European allies but fucking Canada. Our relationship with the Free World is destroyed. None of our allies will ever trust us again. The part in all this that should scare every American is that there will come a time when we need our friends and they will not come.

I was nothing special while in the active US Army and the the South Carolina National Guard. I was just an average soldier. But it truly disturbs me that a deviant slug who avoided the Vietnam draft by using the excuse of bone spurs.

In a move that comes straight from a badly written comedy Trump's DoD has removed pictures of the B-29 that dropped the atomic bombs on Japan. The reason? That bomber was named "Enola Gay" which upset the homophobic, incompetent asshole now running the military. For those who don't know the Enola Gay was named after the pilot's, Colonel Paul Tibbets' mom.

I was also expecting slack from Trump supporters driving by the State House. But we only had two I know about that talked shit to us while driving by. I have no illusions that our little protest scared anyone of power in South Carolina. The ignorant MAGAts here have drank Trump's delusional Kool-Aid, they are lost. But we did make our presence known and for now that's good enough.