'Axis: Bold as Love'

We cannot let our anger cloud us from our spirit.

In the week since the inauguration we are being inundated with debasement on an hourly basis; a tsunami of ignorance and infantilization of ethics and empathy in favor of garish brutality.

It’s a pity to witness and it must stop now. At the very least our reaction to it must change.

The place that rebellion begins is in your own heart; we must not let the onslaught of negativity and trolling dull our vision or worse - make us numb to the horrors we see unfolding.

A gentle way to counter the defects of character we face in the opposition is to ensure that our actions become more about serving others than ourselves.

Self-centered fear and acrimony seem to motivate much of the rhetoric on the right.

We cannot succumb to the delinquencies of the soul being forced upon us by an army of awful men and women.

And make no mistake, Trump is lining up the most unqualified and ill-suited cabinet in American history.

Installed at his request to dismantle everything that is good about our government and replace it with a perpetual grifting operation designed to serve his corporate benefactors and the nation-states he wants to do business with - while overseeing a government that answers to and serves only his needs.

And those of the business interests and tech tycoons closest to him.

A raft full of scoundrels floating on a sea of dark money and corruption.

Greed is not the virtue these people would have you believe it is.

Neither is over-consumption of anything for that matter beyond love. Of that you can never get enough; a side effect of kindness is a mindfulness and empathy that will orient you towards the greater good.

Solutions reside in community, not cults. MAGA is a cult. They are purposely trained to ignore their own goodness and gratitude in favor of the retribution of their leader.

We are not that.

Consciousness and presence will unlock wisdom in your daily life that will serve you in the travails ahead.

In times so dark and chaotic we must seek out and take comfort in the things that strengthen both our spirit and resolve.

We must always be reaching towards the light - sometimes the spark that begins the glow of illumination begins with a simple smile. Or holding a door for a stranger. Or taking a breath before responding. A beat before an inevitable back and forth.

Silence in place of invective will often pay dividends.

We cannot look away from the political and soon-to-be human catastrophe of the present moment - that is not at all what I am suggesting.

Rather, we must begin to see the turmoil caused by trolls and the authoritarian ascension of those most foul men who now reside in the White House as an opportunity to counter their hate with humanity.

What better response to a man who tells his followers they are the ‘good guys’ - when history shows them to be anything but - than to counter their blunt force stupidity and adrenalized, adolescent, crypto-bro bullshit with actual integrity and courage?

They barely know what virtue looks like because they haven’t seen it in so long. Especially those malnourished minds being force-fed the empty calories of the GOP and the soulless sycophants of ‘America First’.

MAGA is made up of thugs and criminals, charlatans and creeps.

It feels as if you took every awful person in Palm Beach and gave them a diplomatic appointment.

A confederacy of cocktail dresses and dilettantes have now descended on D.C. and are infesting our bureaucracy with a vengeful ignorance that threatens to disable our beleaguered republic.

Or at least in how it functions to serve a free people - now it is being commandeered in service of Donald Trump.

Trump snatched this country away from his followers right before their eyes and most of them are still too stupid to understand what they have done.

A man so rank and vile as Trump returning to power feels like a curse for the ages - but couple it with the ketamine-fueled Nazi salutes of Elon Musk, an absolutely loathsome freak of a human being who now occupies an office in the White House - and it almost feels like too much to bear.

How do we begin to crawl out of such a chasm? We do it by countering the lies with truth and the evil with compassion and righteous action.

The world needs all of us right now to right the ship. Democracy itself seems to be heading towards an iceberg and the rescue beacons have been turned off - intentionally.

The billionaires own the lifeboats - and the captain of the ship was paid handsomely to steer into the crash.

In other words we must save ourselves. And we will - but that can only happen with all hands on deck and sane and sober leadership.

One begins the work of recovery one step at a time; to take in everything at once is too overwhelming. It’s much better to approach the onslaught strategically, moment by moment.

That happens to also be a pretty decent way to approach life itself; most especially in challenging times.

Pull close those things that give you comfort - or better yet hope - because that is an extremely valuable asset.

Faith alone can make the difference between success and failure. I don’t mean that in an ecumenical way as much as an intention towards believing in the notion that in the end truth, justice and love will prevail. We must learn to cultivate our own hope and use it to guide others to our cause.

We need to put on our own life preservers before we can help another.

Calamity may seem inevitable but it is not. The future belongs to us but we are being called upon to fight for it. We have no choice if we hope to save our country and our planet.

Trump should be viewed as a terrorist attempting to take a box cutter to the U.S. Constitution.

He is doing this to consolidate his power.

He is a gangster, not an anodyne head of state or a president in any sense we have known before in American history.

You must fully accept this fact before you can do anything about it.

The call to arms needed in response to such bleakness and naked autocracy is using the powers of the institutions and freedoms will still have access to in service of preserving democracy.

The stakes are as high as they have ever been.

Trump has always aligned himself with he underworld and the bad actors of the planet. It was that way years ago in his N.Y.C. and ‘Apprentice’ days and it is that way now.

From MBS to Putin to the Proud Boys, Trump seeks out those who are as brutal, greedy and thirsty for power as he is and he leverages their own defects in service of his own needs.

He swims freely with the parasites and predators - and if you fall from his favor his makes sure you suffer.

He has always been wretched excuse for a human being. His goal now is to maim our government and American society in pursuit of his own aims.

His odious family cheers him on and salivates for a piece of the pie themselves.

I promise you more than one of them is playing the long game right now and figuring out how to get their hands on the reins when their time comes.

Handing back power will not be in their playbook and you can see the machinations of that now with Trump’s voter I.D. demands attached to federal aid for California.

They will try and parlay the quid pro quo into holding on to power indefinitely - I don’t say this scare you but to caution you not to lose sight of the big picture and alert you to their endgame.

Trump is mad king hoping for a dynasty - and he is building an army to make sure that happens. That is what the pardoning of January 6th violent criminals means for him in real-world terms.

This is what we are up against and you should not forget it.

Donald Trump is essentially who he has always been, a con man and a predator, a deviant.

But now he feels as if there is no one left to stop him.

My greatest fear is that he turns out to be correct.

Don’t let that happen America.