Thursday, November 14, 2024

Chicanonautica: Re-Entering Trumptopia

 



A lot of my friends are depressed. I refuse to be. Time to use creativity as a survival tool. When the going gets tough, the tough get creative. Imagination is our superpower.


I will stay informed, but no doomscrolling. There is so much going on right now, a renaissance that is being ignored. I have no time to become addicted to the Donald Trump Horror Picture Show.


I’d rather have the future Harris proposed than the one Trump was selling, but this is the hand we’ve been dealt. Rasquache–the Chicano aesthetic–is all about using what you have, starting from where you are. If you don’t start building the world you want now, others will build one for you.


We have an advantage in this being the second Trump administration. We know what he does and doesn’t do. There were no surprises in his campaign, just the same old clichés. And he never really delivers. What about those mass deportations? And the wall? 


Yeah, there’s the 2025 crew, but they’re all a bunch of wannabe fuhrers without stormtroopers to do the heavy lifting and knock down doors. They’re good at saying things to upset the liberals, but can they make a viable fascist infrastructure? Their ineptitude gives me hope, but there will be chaos.


 


Also, mi raza, we have to get real about Latinos for Trump. They’re not a joke. There’s a lot more in the Latinoid Continuum than dreamt of in your philosophy. Yeah, we aren’t a monolith–we’re an exploding galaxy, and that gets scary. Diversity doesn’t always mean peace, love, and understanding. 


People of all races, ethnicities, and genders believe the modern myth that billionaires can fix the economy and make us all rich. Trump isn’t Bruce Wayne, and there ain’t no such thing as Batman. Bleeding people ask vampires for advice.


I find myself remembering that the Egyptian Book of the Dead warns that in the underworld you will be approached by demons with plates of feces. They will offer them to you to eat. You are supposed to refuse with extreme prejudice. Weird that you have to tell someone that, but throughout the book, it’s repeated, over and over . . .


Now there’s a man saying he can save the country–the world!--and all you have to do is put up with some racist/sexist/Nazi stuff . . .


They say you shouldn’t take what he says seriously. A strange thing to say about someone who once again will be one of the most powerful human beings on the planet. If you can’t trust the president of the United States, who can you trust?


Yeah, I’m getting inspired. Dangerous visions are growing in my brain. I’m gonna be busy.


The world needs Chicano sci-fi more than ever.


Meanwhile, don’t drink the Kool-Aid, and don’t eat the shit.




Ernest Hogan is going to unleash a lot of Chicano sci-fi in the next few years. His dispatches about the first Trump administration can be found in Our Creative Realidades: A Nonfiction Anthology and “Uno! Dos! One-Two! Tres! Cuatro!” a Trump-inspired romp is in Guerrilla Mural of a Siren’s Song: 15 Gonzo Science Fiction Stories.

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