The frozen machine

Dead in the Water

Jacob Stewart, Columnist

Icy winds are making it difficult to do much of anything, readers. Cabin fever thoughts are beginning to take hold, and I don’t know how much longer I can keep the madness at bay. Soon enough I’ll have started writing on the walls, the language making sense to no one but myself, and seeing as how I rent this place, I’m sure the landlord won’t appreciate my bizarre activities. Yet this is the least of my concerns as I sit here and attempt to somehow use the approaching madness as a benefit, a tool to try to figure out the ugliness of the world beyond the physical.

We’re lost in a metaphoric winter, weeks are shifting into months, and our government is still only temporarily open. The shutdown was a record breaker, but that’s nothing to celebrate, not for those of us who wish to see the republic continue onward. Of course, it’s difficult to keep that dream alive when we still find ourselves in the complete mental breakdown that is the Trump Presidency.

For a man who vehemently claims he has no connection to the Kremlin, Donald Trump is doing everything to prove himself wrong. He’s left us divided and without a working government, and with news of the Supreme Court’s decision to allow his ban on transgender troops, he’s weakened our military strength. Surely, these are the actions of someone working for a hostile power.

Perhaps it’s not the Kremlin, he could be striving to help build the American Reich. After all, he has shown little to no defiance toward the neo-Nazi movement, and each time he opens his mouth to spew more racial division, he simply adds fuel to the fire. Take for example the actions of the smug and entitled youth who verbally assaulted Nathan Phillips, an elder in the Omaha Nation as well as Vietnam veteran. Phillips and other Native Americans were surrounded by the youth section of the White Power movement who began to shout one of Trump’s most iconic sayings, “Build the Wall!”

I’m sure I don’t have to explain the irony here to any of you, folks….

Plenty of people have come out to defend the Covington Catholic school students. Parents as well other do-gooders all across social media have tried to say that the group were actually accosted by the Native Americans, another excuse was that “black Muslims” were somehow at fault. Whatever claims may arise, they are all serving the same purpose of attempting to deflect the racism that was shown toward Phillips and those who were with him. I’m just surprised that Trump hasn’t come out with his “both groups are to blame” bit that worked so well after the violence seen at Charlottesville back in 2017.

Until America rids itself of the cancerous type of people that have come about during Trump’s disastrous reign, we’ll forever be in danger of another presidency such as this. The Unite the Right Movement at Charlottesville and the Covington Catholic students prove just how backwards we’ve gone, the cold winds rising, keeping us from moving forward.