Chicanonautica: Trumpocalypse Now

by Ernest Hogan 

I was expecting an ugly meltdown, but what happened was more than I let my super-charged, twisted Latinoid imagination conjure. It wasn’t  “Rock and Roll adolescent hoodlums storm the streets of all nations. They rush into the Louvre and throw acid in the Mona Lisa’s face” like William S. Burroughs said in Naked Lunch, but then there were Trumpsters storming the Capitol, while blasting the Village People’s “Macho Man” and Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean,” interrupting the election confirmation debate, disrupting the supposedly sacred democratic process. There was tear gas in the Rotunda. Lawmakers were given “escape hoods,” disposable gas masks that look like space helmets from a low-budget sci-fi production from the Sixties. Shots were fired, and a woman, Ashli Babbit, an Air Force veteran who thought that California’s COVID-19 stay-at-home order was “commie bullshit,” and QAnon conspiracies were the Gospel truth, took a bullet and later died. Jacob Anthony Chansleym AKA Jake Angeli, AKA QAnon Shaman, AKA Baked Alaska, AKA Ali Akbar, part-time actor and voiceover artist from Arizona who lead the attack with in his furry, horned buffalo hat, his face painted, chest bare to show off his Nazi tattoos, lived to get arrested a few days later.

National Guard troops were (eventually) sent in. The Capitol was evacuated. 

Streets were cleared. Property was destroyed. There were injuries and deaths.

If a similar armed insurrection by black or brown protesters had happened, what would have the police/military reaction have been? As compared to, say, last summer’s nonviolent, unarmed Black Lives Matter demonstrations?

Later, Congress returned and in a session that went on into the night, and despite controversy over the electoral votes from Arizona, Biden’s victory in the election was confirmed.

The next day, the headlines of the L.A. Times were:

TRUMP-INCITED MOB STORMS U.S. CAPITOL

4 DIE; OFFICERS, 1 RIOTER INJURED

Congress forced to flee, but electoral vote count resumes hours later

The next day, Trump was banned from Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Trumpsters on my feeds (some who are old friends and relatives) have been posting lame, grotesque memes like someone losing an argument bursting out with “Your haircut is lousy!” When they try to comment, it makes no sense, except that they may be trying and failing to be snarky. Or they are announcing that they have had it with politics, and don’t want to hear about it anymore. Still others remain silent, as is their right.

Now, even Republicans are turning against Trump. There’s talk of impeachment, and the 25th Amendment. Voters are fleeing the Republican party. 

Participants (they are being called protesters, rioters, terrorists, etc.) are being arrested because they posted pictures of themselves in the act on social media. Then there was that guy with a truckload of bombs . . . 

How does this concern those of us who are part of the Latinoid continuum? We--our very existence--are part of what this mob is angry about. And now that Trumptopia is self-destructing, they are in crisis mode. Nasty rhetoric, and just talking about violence isn’t enough for them anymore. 

Meanwhile, Trump, until January 20--when the Trumpsters also have plans--is still the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, with access to nuclear launch codes . . .

Con cuidado, mis amigos.

Ernest Hogan, Father of Chicano Science Fiction reports that in spite of all the pendejadas going on, his writing career is alive and well and demanding his attention.