Back in the days of sailing ships, a certain subtropical zone of the ocean became known as the “horse latitudes.” There, an eerie windless calm prevailed, sometimes for weeks, stalling the progress of ships in mid-crossing. In desperation to save water on-board, captains ordered the horses being transported to America to be cast overboard, and the animals’ bloated carcasses drifted in an ominous cortège of warning to other mariners entering the zone of stillness and death.
This stretch of weeks in late summer has become the horse latitudes of human affairs for American politics. The primaries are mostly over, at least the ones that mattered. Congress has departed the Potomac swamp for the lakes, seashores, and the county fairs out where the corn grows high. The heat in the Arabian Sea must turn the deck of an American aircraft carrier into a giant hot-plate sailors fear to tread. Even the country’s multitude of lawyers turn off their cell-phones and contemplate the blank, watery horizon with heads full of iced brown liquor.
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We civilians are stuck between that old rock and a hard place. . . two political parties whirling around the drain of extinction in a nation seeming to drift toward the edge of the known world. In the background, a massive realignment grinds away. The old parties of labor and of property have forgotten their reasons for existence. Labor vamoosed to Mexico, China, and obscure faraway lands decades ago. Property is still here, but it’s all been collateralized into grift and fraud.
In the absence of working people to defend, the Democrats became a party of racketeering race-and-gender hobgoblins, now marshaling into an insectile host of predatory Marxists, and altogether their antics present as a spectrum of mental illness. Voters who somehow managed to preserve some sense of mental decorum increasingly abandon that lunatic coalition — but where to go? This is exactly what is happening in the state of Michigan with the rise of Abdul el-Sayed, who adds a caboose of jihad to his choo-choo train of Bolshevik nuttery. Long-time Dems like Democratic attorney Julian Epstein are publicly jumping ship to support el-Sayed’s opponent, Mike Rogers.
The clueless old gorks in charge of the Democratic Party — the likes of Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, Mark Warner, Liz Warren, Chris Murphy, Sheldon Whitehouse — are suddenly nowhere to be seen or heard. They don’t dare denounce this latest onrush to new-and-improved insanities because, apparently, insanity is all the party has left — stealing other people’s property. . . pretending to change sexes. . . organizing giant frauds. . . demanding payoffs for hallucinated affronts. . . and feeding the vicious Leviathan they want government to be.
And don’t be too sure that coalescing around the figure of one AOC in 2028 is going to save this outfit. Sandy is trying to pretend she’s somewhere in the middle, between the feckless old official leadership and the outright commies, but she’s still a member of the odious “Squad” composed of Somali fraudster Ilhan Omar, jihadist Rashida Tlaib, and race-hustler Ayanna Pressley — meaning, it’s just the same brand of crazy the party has been cultivating for more than a decade. What remains for America to discover about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is that she’s a mere opportunist with nothing inside except some skill at middle-school girl games. . . Eva Peron without the savvy.
On the other end of the political transect stand the Republican phantoms of Congress busy getting nothing done for the past year and a half despite holding the majority in both houses. They’re personified perfectly by Senator Mitch McConnell, quite possibly dead for all that anyone really knows. In John Thune you have something like an anti-leader, doing everything possible to evade his duties, squashing election reform under arcane procedural bullshit, obstructing the confirmation of important agency nominees and federal judges, and “gaveling-in” ghost sessions of his chamber to prevent the president from making recess appointments. And why? Probably for no better reason than he just wants to dissociate himself and many of his fellows from the president because he’s seen as too gauche for their club.
Speaking of whom, you see Mr. Trump and his faction stand apart, but not alone, in this big game. He’s going through a rough patch in these horse latitudes of summer. But despite some appearances, and despite the bluster emanating from Tehran, he has already succeeded in neutralizing Iran while Secretary Bessent keeps the maniac IRGC in an ever-tightening economic squeeze. There’s reason to believe this will end well for the Middle East, actually in an epic realignment of actual interests, rather than obsolete tribal animosities.
Mr. Trump is also working hard to realign American interests at home into an economy based on making things of value instead of just taking profits on financial shell-games. It’s a gigantic task and one that will take time to get working because factories can’t be built overnight and the demoralized working class can’t be instantly realigned to opportunities that are months from materializing. In the meantime, have a little faith if you can, even though these have been notably faithless decades for our sore-beset nation, and we are too accustomed to bad faith.
Just power through these listless, torpid dog days of August and gird your loins for action in the fall because it’s coming. And that includes a long-awaited accounting for the many crimes against the people of this land by some of our own people. A new permission structure is building out there in the foggy gloaming: you will be set free to stop pretending about a lot of stuff that matters.
JHK’s newest novel, a comic romp set during the week of the tragic JFK Assassination, November 1963. Autographed Copies from Battenkill Books.
JHK’s World Made By Hand four-book novel cycle. A small town in the remnant of the USA in the not-distant future. The community struggles to carry on. . . .
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We civilians are the horses.
As we maneuver through the dog days of August, let us nonetheless continue to resist efforts to remove our freedoms as they will relentlessly continue unabated. Each time you refuse to give in to data mining (be it another 'smart' appliance or discounts for being a 'member' of a grocery or hardware store) you help others.
I'm a snow bird and a few weeks back a rental organization wanted me to allow a third party to have a photo (front and back) of my DL, then use facial recognition via my phone to 'identify' me, simply for the 'privilege' of applying... - I let them know that I do not risk my personal information in such a way and instead signed on with another organization. - These types of actions may not help you personally, but each time you do not comply, you help to starve the beast.