The departure of decency…

Doesn’t mean we have to lose who we are.

More than almost anything else, I will miss having a President who is capable of compassion, decency and empathy in times of crisis.

Just as we rounded the corner into 2025, a year we’re already bracing for like it’s a stomach bug making its way through your kid’s 4th grade class, the world decided to get a jump start on the chaos, calamity and catastrophe we’ve long been dreading.

And it is in times like these, times of national tragedy — from fires and floods to school shootings and racial unrest — that this nation so often looks to its leader, not just for practical assistance but also for spiritual reassurance.

We have a leader like that at the helm in Joe Biden, but he’s leaving soon. And unfortunately, what’s inexplicably coming in to replace him is about as warmhearted as a tapeworm.

The Temu Oompa Loompa makes yeast infections look compassionate by comparison.

So, what has already unfolded in the zygote stage of this new year has made one stark contrast crystal clear— we are losing a deeply moral President who actually cares about us and wants to commiserate with us as we grieve, and what we are getting in exchange is an apathetic at best, amoral, serial-sexual abuser who doesn’t give a single flying fuck about any of us, never has and never will.

In the wake of the horrific New Orleans attack and the Vegas cybertruck explosion, President Biden has done all he can to soothe a still reeling nation. Understanding the tinderbox of the times we live in, he has been extremely careful in making sure what he was telling us was accurate. As always, in moments of uncertainty such as these, Joe’s calm, compassionate sincerity has been like a beacon of light illuminating the path which cuts through all the distance and the dark.

Meanwhile, the incoming dumpster fire felon-elect has predictably, been spreading blatant, intentionally incendiary disinformation about the suspects and “the border.”

To be clear, both suspects were American. As crestfallen as MAGA is to learn the perpetrators weren’t “illegals”, facts (for now anyway) are still facts. Well, unless you’re Trump, or Marge Greene, or Mike Johnson or any of the other countless Republicans who continue to choose their own “facts” as they pertain to the border having something to do with these two events when it doesn’t.

President Biden is empathetically channeling our shared grief in order to bring us together, and the dictator-curious dotard is cruelly trafficking in xenophobia while using lies and stoking fear in order to tear us apart.

President Biden is a good man. He genuinely cares about people. Empathy and his own history of loss have long-since been central to his political identity, and as a result, our nation was blessed to once again have a true Consoler-in-Chief in command.

The same could never be said of his persimmon-painted predecessor.

There is no end to the fiction that is Donald Trump. His entire existence is predicated on a series of lies his supporters choose to believe, but no one actually believes he’s a decent man.

A Consoler-in-Chief he ain’t.

That one is a bridge way too fucking far. In fact, it’s the INDECENCY that the incivility-chummed clodpoll cultists crave the most.

For the mashed potato minded Magaidiots, fictional Trump is a helluva guy. The truth of who he is or isn’t doesn’t matter to them.

It doesn’t matter that he was found liable for sexual abuse and bragged openly, more than once about grabbing women by the pussy, he has total respect for women and has ‘done more for women in the history of the world than anyone ever. Maybe even God himself!’

It doesn’t matter that he opined on the sex life of his own daughter so often that he had to be reminded regularly by his staff that she was in fact, his daughter… he’s a “family man”.

It doesn’t matter that he cannot cite a SINGLE Bible verse when asked after calling that very same book his “favorite”.

Or that he spends his Sundays worshiping at The Church of the Immaculate Fairway, he’s making “God great again”, unlike that practicing Catholic Biden who actually does attend church every Sunday.

Fictional trump is also obviously a patriot. How could he have incited a deadly attack on our Capitol in order to remain in the office he lost if he didn’t love America?

It doesn’t matter that he demeaned John McCain for being captured, attacked a Gold Star family, insulted a military widow and called the fallen heroes of war suckers and losers, he loves our troops. After all, he didn’t dodge the draft, nope — not fictional trump. That guy went to Vietnam voluntarily. Twice. Yep. He was also at Normandy, piloted the Enola Gay and brokered peace between the North and the South in like, 24 hours. He just said a few things to Grant and a few things to Lee, and they were both too scared of him to say ‘no, no, I don’t like that.’ and so he got it done, ok.

It doesn’t matter that he bragged about having the ability to identify an elephant correctly, or memorize the order of five whole words, he’s like “really smart.”

It doesn’t matter that he thought Nipple and Button were the names of countries, that the moon was a part of Mars, or that Charles was the Prince of a place called “Whales”. Didn’t matter that he said there were airports and rammed manparts during the Revolutionary War. Fictional trump is a genius. A stable one at that.

It doesn’t matter that he’s a fetid heap of french fry grease, Diet Coke, Heinz ketchup and ground up Adderall, he’s in tip-top shape, just watch how adeptly he traverses down a ramp.

The truth of Trump matters not at all to the smooth-brained who buy his Bibles.

It’s all lies. They’ll believe whatever they need to believe to justify their god-like worship.

And yet, none of them even bother to pretend that he’s a decent man. That he’s a genuinely GOOD man. They like the “mean tweets.” They like that he “tells it like it is.” They like the mocking, belittling, demeaning and degrading.

They like the awfulness his unabashed awfulness allows them the “freedom” to openly display. They like the permission he gives them to be their worst selves. They see all of it as him being “tough” and themselves as being “liberated.”

To be considerate, to respect others who aren’t like you, to be compassionate, selfless and kind, is “woke” and “weak”.

If you’re not overtly sexist or racist or xenophobic, then it’s because you’re being “politically correct.”

He’s a sociopathic, narcissistic, pathologically lying, serial sexual predator, and a bigoted, hateful, vitriolic criminal conman who refers to innocent immigrants as “vermin”, while praising murderous despots at the same time.

And they fucking love him for it. Because of what it emboldens in them. Now, they get to blame all of those “other people”, for all that has gone wrong in their own lives. They get to blame them and hate them.

Because Donald Trump hates who they hate.

And that’s all they think they need.

Donald Trump embodies the worst of us.

He exemplifies moral decline of our nation and if he is making anything “great again” it’s immorality.

In case you missed it, President Biden was asked what one thing Donald Trump could learn from Jimmy Carter in the wake of his passing, and his answer was “Decency. Decency. Decency. Everybody deserves a shot, everybody. Can you imagine Jimmy Carter walking by someone who needed something and just walking… can you imagine Jimmy Carter referring to someone by the way they look or talk? I can’t.”

Of course, Trump can’t learn decency from anyone. He doesn’t have a decency setting. Saying Trump was “decent” would be akin to saying Jeffrey Epstein was “paternal”, or Alex Jones was “honest”, or Eric Trump could “read”.

But Joe Biden is inherently decent. Don’t forget, it was Charlottesville that inspired him to run for office. When he heard Trump “both sides” the Nazis marching with tiki torches & spewing hate, he knew he had to stand up & fight. He said “You see, I believe silence is complicity. And I would not be silent any more than you were. So, I ran.”

We cannot be silent in this moment either.

He fought against Trump because he didn’t believe that monster represented who we were. And he won. But now, we are here. And once again we must decide…

Who are we? Who do we WANT to be?

Like Joe Biden, despite all of this, despite the John Jackass Kennedys and the thumbs up Governor Landrys, and the rapist-palooza that is Trump’s incoming cabinet, I am still betting on our capacity for decency, humanity & hopefulness.

I’m still betting on the best in us.

Not the worst.

But it’s going to mean that we do a helluva lot of reminding so folks don’t forget who they are and what they don’t have to accept. What they cannot become numb to.

Because we don’t have to accept Donald Trump’s depravity.

Jimmy Carter has passed, and Joe Biden is leaving the White House, and with them, so too goes so much of the decency we have come to expect from our leaders.

But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t still expect it. That we shouldn’t still demand it. Or that we ourselves, shouldn’t still embody and espouse it.

We are the ones who decide who we want to lead us, and who we want to be.

Not them.

I’m going to continue to choose decency. Like so many of you with whom I find solace, strength and solidarity — I’m choosing the good. To be the good. For my kids, for my family, for my friends, for our country, for our democracy and for all of you.

Yeah, I’m still gonna call those Magaidiots names and I’m sure as shit still gonna mock their orange-jello Jesus, but I never claimed to be a Saint. 😂

And today’s song is a favorite which just feels right. (I also got to see him play at the WH in 2022, so that was super cool).

And half of this essay was written while the author was and still very much IS in the throes of the norovirus, so I am very sorry if there are a bunch of typos.

Love you guys!

Stay safe. Stay strong! Stay sane. Stay away from stomach bugs.

Jo ❤️

And apropos of nothing, here’s a bonus track for today, just because it’s beautiful and it reminds me of a truly amazing, magical human being who means the whole wide world to me.💞