Second As Farce [David’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab]

My friend Roger once said that the real problem pathological liars face is that they can never keep track of their lies so they must continually heap lie onto lie onto lie until their narrative is a tumorous absurdity. The same rule applies to the enablers of liars. They, too, must heap justification upon justification until their justifications are preposterous. Ridiculous. Harebrained.

And, so, here we are. Tumorous absurdity propped up by preposterous, ridiculous, harebrained justifications.

With a pathological liar-in-chief and his party of dancing-bear-enablers, the story gets more and more barmy. A rapist leading the charge to eliminate abuse. An oligarch profiting mightily from the government he proclaims to be cleansing of fraud. Republicans, in the name of cutting waste, race to run up the national debt to provide tax cuts for billionaires.

It leaves me wondering how much balderdash a maga-mouth can swallow, how much rubbish a fox-infused brain can justify before it (they) wake up – you know, become “woke” – to the fact that America is not being made great, it’s being plundered. When do the sheep realize that they are being fleeced?

Karl Marx called it: “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce”.

read Kerri’s blogpost about WASTE, ABUSE, FRAUD

smack-dab © 2025 kerrianddavid.com

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For Real [David’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab.]

What is real? It’s not so easy to answer this very simple question these days. With A-I manufacturing videos and images that seem real, with foreign interference in our elections, with a pathological liar about to once again take the national bully pulpit and a propaganda fox willing to magnify his hooey, with people believing tik-tok, X and instagram are sources of news…it is damn hard to know what is real. It’s damn hard to believe the dull-witted-ness in ascendence.

Who is real? This is a much more complex question. A heartbreaking question.

Post election we’re everywhere seeing and hearing from the maga-madcaps the phrase , “Family over politics”. Yet, a vote for the despot-elect was a vote against my son who is gay. A vote for the rapist-in-chief was a vote against my daughter’s rights. It was a vote against my wife’s rights. She was raped so it’s not a small thing to her that half the nation, including family and friends, seem okay to look the other way. To minimize his multiple sexual assaults as locker room talk. She feels deeply in her body – her soul – the national endorsement of rape. The national assent of sexual violence.

Every time she sees the phrase,”Family over politics,” Kerri hisses, “Back-at-you!” Real family, real friends would have thought to protect our children’s health and well-being before voting against them. They would have thought to protect our nation from an avowed fascist with retribution fantasies; they would have thought before voting against basic morality. They would have had the simple dignity to consider the sexual predation, the pathological lying and gross indecency of their candidate. Instead, they cheered. They voted for it. It’s left us nauseous with the question, “Are you for real?”

They put politics (if you can call it that) over family (if you can call it that). For real.

read Kerri’s blogpost about WHAT IS REAL

smack-dab © 2024 kerrianddavid.com

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Easy To See [David’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab.]

We crossed paths with some friends on the bike path and, of course, our conversation turned to politics. Our discussion – like all of our political conversations lately – begin and end with disbelief.

The maga candidate is a horror-story of a human being, a consummate liar, a dedicated victim, found liable for rape, a convicted felon, an authoritarian who openly intends to dismantle our constitution, promoting dangerous conspiracy theories, sowing division for personal gain while feeding the anger of people who deserve to have their issues addressed and not exploited by their candidate.

In every conversation we ask again and again,”What do they not see?”

As Kerri reminded me, “They DO see it.”

That troubles me.

In the very first full paragraph of my book, I wrote, “Not many people see. Most people merely look. Just as most people hear but they do not listen, most people look but they do not see.” Words that haunt.

Angry people do not see. They can’t. Angry people do not think. They can’t. They can only blindly react. This maga candidate and his fox-news-propaganda-machine keep his crowd angry, fear-full, firmly distracted, ensconced in lizard brain. Fight-or-flight. He profits. They lose.

They do not see – they could not see – or they’d gag, turn their backs, and walk away. Or maybe, as Kerri suggests, they DO see. And white nationalism, violence borne of age-old-ignorance is what they want. It is, apparently, what they support.

This meme floated across my screen the other day. “I can’t respect people who respect him.” There are no more better angels in my nature. I can no longer twist my brain to try and understand the enablers of this monster. His lies are hurting people. Witness what is now happening in Springfield, Ohio. There is no mystery here. This is thuggery.

This red-hat-rage is mob mentality. His enablers, voiding their judgment, their morality, their values, are bonded by fear and whipped into a fury by a narcissist who fuels their nightmare with fantasy and then feeds on their panic.

Any attempt at finding something to respect in their hate-filled-point-of-view is to pretend that it has validity. It is to become one of the enablers of this train wreck.

They will (I hope) wake up someday, blurry-eyed and confused, and like all people who stormed all night, out of their minds with the mob, they will ask themselves, “What have I done?” Then they might begin the long journey back to self-respect.

In the meantime, there is no reasoning with a mob.

The best we can do is vote. And, this time, more than issues and policies, we choose between our democracy and fascism. We choose between decency and…gross indecency. This is not about the price of eggs. The choice is abundantly clear and, when in one’s right-mind, it’s actually very easy to see.

read Kerri’s blogpost about SEEING

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It Takes Some Courage [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

I woke up this morning with this song running through my mind:

Her Majesty’s a pretty nice girl, but she doesn’t have a lot to say
Her Majesty’s a pretty nice girl, but she changes from day to day
I wanna tell her that I love her a lot, but I gotta get a belly full of wine
Her Majesty’s a pretty nice girl, someday, I’m gonna make her mine
Oh yeah, someday I’m gonna make her mine.

It’s the last track on the Beatles album, Abbey Road. A 23 second ditty. I haven’t listened to the album in a decade. So, why was Her Majesty running amok in my dream life? I don’t know. The rest of the dream faded so all context was lost. It’s enough to make me “gotta get a belly full of wine”.

Sense-making is a product of context. For instance, this photograph of the sun piercing the clouds is nice but becomes much more meaningful when placed in context: we were under a tornado warning when Kerri suddenly grabbed her camera and ran outside. “Hope!” she said in response to my puzzled stare. Now, this is and always will be a photograph of unlikely hope.

Context is everything. For instance, the election-was-stolen-lie only gains traction in the red hat community if the context is ignored. Context: 62 lawsuits were brought contesting the results of the election and nearly all were dismissed due to lack of evidence. Liars routinely attempt to insert a fabricated context in place of an actual context. “The election was stolen,” is on the same eye-rolling-level as “The dog ate my homework!”

It only takes a question or two to pop the wildest fabrication.

Of course, one must first want to pop the fabrication.

We are witness to the greatest pathological liar of our times spinning new and fantastic contexts for his question-free believers. If the actual truth doesn’t match their group-hallucination they cry in unison, “Fake News!” Fake news is a go-to context akin to “The dog ate my homework.” It covers a lot of missing homework. It stops the most basic questions. It’s intellectually and spiritually lazy.

We are under a metaphoric tornado warning. I hold a small hope that a few of the red hats might one day wrinkle their brow at the outrageous baseless assertions they are fed and wonder if the dross they are eating is actually true. In that moment, it’s possible that they might ask a question or two. It’s possible they might seek context beyond the group-lie.

It takes some courage to ask questions, especially when it is unpopular to ask them.

It’s never too late to pop the fabrication of a pathological liar. It’s never too late to come back to your senses. It’s never too late to ask yourself, “What was I thinking?” It’s never too late to find your courage. I imagine it would feel like the sun piercing through threatening clouds.

An unlikely hope.

read Kerri’s blogpost about SUN THROUGH CLOUDS

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