I spent the last week with a bad case of the flu. It’s been tough, but we’re recovering. I’m even going back to work tomorrow, for better or worse. I’ll just have the kids work in groups for a couple of days so that I don’t have to be too involved. It’s better than calling in sick another week and since they need to work hard on grammar over the next two weeks, taking it slow for a couple days doesn’t hurt. I’m going to teach them about the future tense. Did you know that it is “It will rain tomorrow” and not “It is going to rain tomorrow”? I can learn the rules for the future a million times and it still feels wrong to me. But I guess that’s the English language, and luckily future tense grammar is the worst thing the UK ever produced. That and the United States.
You saw the title, you know what we’re going to talk about today. Donald Trump just became the 47th president of the United States. No capital workers were harmed in the making of this presidency. As someone living in Europe, part of me wants to completely shut off the news and just pretend that the US is doing okay and we’re fine over here too. But if we’re having to deal with nazis here on European soil, we might as well keep a close eye on the nazis on the other side of the ocean.
Let’s start with the world’s richest nazi: Elon Musk. The man who was so bad at business he was kicked off the board of Paypal. The man who managed to make a dumpster fire of a social media even worse. You have the best terminology in the world with “tweeting” and you get rid of it. The wart on my left hand can make better marketing decisions. But if he was just bad at business and nothing else, that wouldn’t be a big deal. We’d just move on to Bluesky and call it a day. But that’s not the only place where Elon’s musky hands are trying to ruin things. Having become a buddy of Trump, he is now going to be in charge of part of the government which means that he was there at the inauguration, celebrating on stage with the other weirdos. And celebrating he did. With a nazi salute. If it looks like a nazi, acts like a nazi and does a nazi salute, it’s probably a fucking nazi. He didn’t even apologize for it afterwards which should make everything more than clear.
So what has happened in the last week that’s gotten me so down. Well, the US is leaving the world health organization and the Paris climate agreement. With the slogan “drill, baby, drill” it really puts into perspective how I’ve been wasting time and money trying to be more environmentally friendly. These nazi cunts don’t care about our future and they don’t even want to pretend they do. Burn the planet to a cinder, they’ll be gone before the decade ends anyway. They’ve also declared war on Greenland. That’s right, the lump of ice to the north of Canada that has belonged to Denmark for a long time. I’ve done a little bit of research into Greenland because for all I know this is something they want. It turns out that Greenland has their own local government that gets a majority of its funding from the Danish government. Without their support, Greenland would be in trouble. But I’m sure if the US military invades they will gladly replace this money with their own funding right? They’ll improve things for the people living there, right? It’s sort of crazy that this is even a talking point, maybe I’m just going insane. What’s next, renaming the gulf of Mexico to the gulf of America… You’re joking right.
Let’s bring back the anger and the jokes a little bit and talk about an important issue. When I was a younger man, there were a lot of things about the world I did not understand. And not understanding things makes them scary. Two men kissing? That’s weird and I don’t like it. Do that in your own home. A man dressing as a woman? They must be crazy.
As we get older, our perspective on these things can change. I learned a lot by meeting many different people. Of course these people aren’t crazy or weird. They’re just people like you and me, trying to navigate a world that ruthlessly hammers down the nails that stick out. You have to fit the mold or you will be made to fit it. And in Trump’s America, that means there are only two genders and you cannot change yours. It is a small blessing that most people don’t actually seem to be transphobic anymore, but only get stuck on specific issues like sports or bathroom usage. Most people – like sensible people – don’t care what other people do with their lives as long as it doesn’t bother them.
And that’s just it. I don’t want to make life any more difficult for people than I have to. Can you imagine? You’re born into this dark and depressing world and on top of that, the body you’re given does not match how you feel. If you don’t like your hair, if you’re overweight or if you don’t like the way your nose is built, you can get treatment or exercise to fix it. You are encouraged to make your body right for you. But if your body is male and you don’t feel like a man, then changing it is suddenly not allowed? That makes no sense. And who does it hurt? That’s the part of the problem I got confused by when I was still transphobic and that’s how I ended up getting out of that mindset. There are many transgender people in my vicinity as well as gay people, straight people and even non binary people. None of them have ever done anything to make my life more difficult. You know who has made my life more difficult? Straight white male nazis.
Lastly, let’s talk about autism, because that’s what everything in life comes back to. I’ve seen the excuse on the internet that the only reason Elon did the nazi salute – yes we’re back on the nazi salute – is that he’s autistic and couldn’t help it. As someone on the spectrum, we do not claim this man. I know the autism spectrum is very broad and can cause a lot of different issues for different people. I can also tell you that being a nazi has nothing to do with autism. You can’t blame mental health as an excuse for being a cunt. A cunt’s a cunt and a nazi’s a nazi. I’m tired of thinking about this, I hope some of my feelings came through properly in this rant. I’m going back to my fantasy stories that are nazi free. Thanks for reading!
Opal Kaharis 