The Real Housewives of State Funerals.

Bravo ain’t got nothing on that shit.

Before I get into the table-flip-less nonetheless popcorn worthy reunion of current and former cast members/occupants of the executive branch and the nonverbal church pew fuck-you-fest that was playing out at Jimmy Carter’s funeral, I have to ask, just as an aside - has anyone done a wellness check on Mark Zuckerberg? His whole “bend over and cough, bub bye to fact checking a fascist” what’s up with those tan lines weirdness looked more like a hostage video filmed in an office building in Azusa by the Russian mafia after a naked wake surfing alien pretending to be a human crashed into their gun smuggling/cocaine carrying cargo ship.

Either that, or a nine year old Zuck went to bed after getting his fortune for a quarter and woke up in a mostly grown man’s body but the only men’s clothing he could find was a “1980s breakdancer” Halloween costume in his mom’s closet.

(Although he also does kinda look like one of those wiener dogs dressed in a little dog costume with arms and in this case, a perm, or an anthropomorphic Chia Pet, or the love child of Bob Ross and Richard Simmons, or the Temu version of Will Ferrell in the SNL More Cowbell skit…)

But I digress…

Because I’m really here to talk about the layers deep/backstory-laden “oh no she didn’t”kaleidoscope of unspoken melodrama that was unfolding like the tangled plot-line of a primetime telenovela for all to see.

Not to diminish Jimmy Carter’s legacy as a true public servant, which he was, and for which I am eternally grateful, but the man was known for his selflessness, but not so much his “sizzle” and when you’re talking about seating the insurrection inciting traitor/birther/racist next to the Black president he said wasn’t born here, behind the woman he called “Comrade”, a few seats away from the VP he wanted hanged, and down the aisle from the “nasty woman” he stalked on a debate stage and threatened to imprison, and then you throw in the Texan painting hobbyist who hates his fucking guts but didn’t have the balls to tell the world that when it mattered most — shit is bound to get real.

This is the true story, of several former executive office holders… picked to sit in the pews, to exchange nonverbal cues, and have their side-eye taped, to find out what happens when former presidents and vice presidents stop being polite, and start getting real… the real world, Carter’s Funeral.

(Ok, ok ok mixing my reality shows but I love me a mixed metaphor and y’all knew who I was when you married me).

I’m not gonna lie, I did not have Barack Obama yucking it up with the bronzer-bathed-birther who said he wasn’t born here like they were long-lost frat brothers recounting the drunken debauchery of their douchey college days on my dystopian hellscape BINGO card. Alas…

And look, I get it, we all have that one fucking asshole relative who we almost never have to see who still shows up at funerals, smelling like a feral cat after it’s been barrel aging in Jean Nate, menthol cigarette butts and Steve Bannon’s under-ball sweat, and you’re like, fuck, Aunt Louise is here, I fucking hate her, but dad said I have to be nice to her because she’s older than shit, so fine, whatever, and then they put you next to her because no one else can even pretend to tolerate her, and you know she’s walking around with like a half an avocado rotting in her purse which she just might at any point whip out and start eating, but you still have to be nice no matter how awkward it is, and that was basically Obama’s “role”, but still — it sucked to watch him smiling aside the serial sexual predator traitor all the same.

Michelle wasn’t even having that shit and just didn’t show, and frankly who the fuck could blame her. That motherfucker’s lies about her family resulted in death threats to her KIDS, and there ain’t a momma bear among us who’d be able to sit and watch her baby’s daddy making smiley small talk with the sick fuck who put her little humans in harm’s way.

For his part, the yam-dyed dotard looked about as out of place as one would expect from a Bible shaking, daughter fantasizing, hemorrhoidal heap of hate heathen who spends his every Sunday worshiping at Our Lady of the Perpetual Mulligan.

The convict-elect showed up looking like something I’d draw with my left hand in enough body-shellac he was visible from space while his BeBesting former titty model trophy bride was a mashup of the Flying Nun and Nurse Ratched with an unusual-for-her conservative up-do that was giving more of a “who gives a fuck about funeral and invocation” vibe than it was “mourning peanut farmer man who don’t make me rich.”

Fun fact - she was also “reading” the program upside down. Because of course she was.

Kamala threw a heavy sigh Barack’s way as she damn well should have because there are rules about this shit ok boo, and if we’re tight you better not be talking to my enemy right there in front of me like that.

But once again, thank God for Doug, who not only refused to shake Trump’s shrimpy hand, he didn’t so much as look at him, and he had his wife’s back the entire time.

Hill and Bill walked in looking like a million bucks all outta fucks and team all-white-male-VP who never became POTUS, Quayle, Gore and Pence, smiled and nodded while recalling that riveting round of Apples to Apples they played back in ‘08.

‘And remember when my card was “white person” and then Al, you threw down the “cracker” card. Oh that was a hoot, wasn’t it Mother?’ Mike Pence appeared to say to his wife Karen, who couldn’t hear him over the ‘do not engage shade’ she was busy serving Team Pop-up gallows with her man’s name on it.

Look, if my man’s boss wanted him hanged for not breaking democracy for him, the last fucking thing I’d ever do would be to shake his hand. And yes, we all know Mother Pence wears the cowboy hat not the saddle in that dom/sub square dance, but I still didn’t know she was capable of that level of ignore-hard badassery.

As a jersey mom who prides herself on being able to literally look through a person if they cross me, I was actually impressed by Ma Pence’s sudden steeliness.

And then in walked W, coming in fast and hard like he was trying to sell everyone on a war he said he’d just won but hadn’t.

A playful, ‘lemmie get by you fast ol’ slap to Barack’s midsection, and just like that, he and Laura slid in past that crimson cocksucker like a couple of hot dogs tossed down a hallway. Never once acknowledging Team Tan Mom on the end.

But the chef’s kiss was when President Biden said the following, and the camera panned to Half-Staff Sad Donnie:

“We have an obligation to give hate no safe harbor and to stand up to what my dad used to say is the greatest sin of all: the abuse of power,”

Joe knew what he was doing, he knew what he was saying, and while the Day One Dictator Dumb Dumb clearly didn’t like that he said it, I sure as fuck did.

I know, I know — decorum is what’s been missing and we should be “happy” when we see our elected officials together in public places without conflict. I get that, but only so long as one of them IS NOT the madman behind the attack on our Democracy. Only when we aren’t including a monster who brags about sexual assault, threatens to jail his rivals, stokes intolerance and opines about being a dictator.

Yeah yeah, I get it — he’s the incoming felon-elect. A reality we are now unable to escape thanks the smooth brained, as useful as an ashtray on a motorcycle, paint chip eaters in our country who didn’t think being a rapist traitor criminal conman was as disqualifying as being an accomplished Black woman.

And no, I don’t think the funeral for a former president is the place to be rolling up sleeves for arm wrestling contests, but it doesn’t have to look chummy either.

It doesn’t mean that we have to embrace him as if he didn’t launch a deadly attack on all of us. As if he hasn’t been trying to tear us apart for the better part of the last decade. As if he’s not a puppet for Putin. As if he wouldn’t shank us all to help himself. We don’t have to act like any of this shit is even remotely normal.

He doesn’t have a civil bone in his entire decrepit mass of addy-laced dreadfulness. He’s a sociopathic sexual predator who believes he can force himself and his will upon anyone and anything he chooses (apparently, that happens to be Canada, Greenland and Panama at present, but you take my point).

Karen Pence, George and Laura Bush got it right in my opinion. They didn’t dignify his presence. That’s what he deserves. And I’m not here for anyone telling me that means I disregard and disrespect those who voted for him, because that ain’t fucking true either. I don’t hide my disdain for them or for their choice. And I’m not going to pretend otherwise. Why should I?

I’m not just gonna turn off my love for this country or my adherence to preserving our democracy because 70 million people who got it all sorts of fucking wrong picked the burn it all down bad guy.

None of us has to do that. And there are a hell of a lot of us out there, almost as many as them. And what a lot of us need to see are people like us who aren’t going to simply roll over.

I’m not mad that Obama was friendly, but it irks me all the same. I don’t want to lend one shred of legitimacy to Trump because that will only embolden him to do far worse than he already intends.

I think a lot of people on our side are looking around and wondering where our leaders are right now.

Who is leading the “resistance”?

The simple act of sitting down like Karen Pence did, went a helluva lot further to that end than the knee slapping buddy buddy weirdness displayed by Barack.

What our leaders model matters. Yes, decorum and decency matter, but acquiescing to a wanna be despot is not the way.

God bless Jimmy Carter, May he rest in peace, and may his memory be a blessing, but even he saw Trump for who he was.

Donald Trump is the definition of depravity. He’s a bad man. He doesn’t belong in the Oval Office and he didn’t belong at Carter’s funeral. The piece of shit couldn’t even put his hand over his heart like everyone else did. Why? Because all he cares about, all he thinks about, the only thing that matters to him — is himself.

And I don’t have to like Karen Pence to appreciate the fact that she treated him exactly as he deserved to be treated. As if he didn’t even exist.

Fuck him.

I guess you could say I woke up in a mood this morning, lol.

Happy Saturday. Stay safe. Stay sane (ish). Stay strong. Stay steely.

Love,

Jo ❤️