Cat Show. 7/2/2021
HOBBS: How are your travels, Vladimir? When are you coming back? I need some sanity in this house, because Alice is clearly losing it. Between the heat wave in Northern Canada and the new delta strain, she can’t go outside, she wraps herself in five masks, and refuses to see anyone. Even the death of this nasty and vicious republican, Rumsfeld, couldn’t make a dent in her masked defense. She is not smiling!
ALICE: I am going to wear masks until the last strain or the last Republican is gone, whatever comes last. It is the Republicans who want to destroy us one by one, now by the climate change, which they refuse to recognize, now by making us to drop our defenses against this global pandemic, which they fail to take seriously. But they are not fooling me. Nor do they fool million of progressive, forward looking, educated latte-drinkers. When you go to a coffee shop, put on a mask, and try to address the equally well masked barista with a tattoo on their shoulder and the patch of purple hair on their forehead – by ordering a triple vaporized latte with a double almond-matcha syrup, you show the world that you are ready to fight Trump and his legacy till the last Prius in your garage. I am sure that out there in the west, you, Vladimir, have encountered the like minded progressive forces.
VG: In Colorado you can always recognize the coast-dwellers by their mask devotion, which borderlines on fanaticism. But in Santa Fe, the story is different. Progressive busy-buddies can’t enter either a crowded coffee shop or an empty gallery without a mask. Mask is a thing to catch the conscience of the president. And they did. Trump had been cast down, and the new progressive leader, whose only progressive feature is his progressing senility, had been ushered in. To be honest, I feel that Democratic progress is the same as Republican wealth. One just waits for it to trickle down, but it never does.
HOBBS: Yes, when you let elites – no matter how conservative or progressive they are – to run the show, common people rarely benefit. Surely, the houses that used to cost half a million now cost a million or two – and that’s true not just about California and Santa Fe, but even Providence, but does it really make a difference for those who don’t have these houses? In fact, my hope is on the historic chance and aberration, and not on conscious effort of our leaders. I understand why people like to watch sport events. Swiss defeating France, Czechs crushing the Dutch – how liberating it is, in comparison with the NATO establishment methodically and scientifically pushing us to the brink of destruction.
ALICE: Democratic values updated by political correctness; the rejection of authoritarianism and other radical solutions; the gentle, touchy feely rule of the educated Ph.Ds. will never bring the world to the brink of destruction. Don’t forget that our purpose is to preserve the status quo, and there is no destruction in status quo. Of course, this preservation of status quo might mean millions of refugees here, and thousands of ruined homes there, but we are talking about the great unwashed, the deplorables, the MAGA hatters and not mask-wearers. Princeton educated Rumsfeld, Republican as he was, understood it well. And that’s the task of the Secretary of Defense in any case. Status quo here or the destruction of Middle East there? The choice is obvious, and we, the progressive forces of the American republic are always happy when Republicans are doing the dirty job for us. That’s how we can have our cake and eat it too. And Brits of course, have shown us the way, as they always do, when they came up with their approach to politics: Thatcherism without Maggie.
HOBBS: You got that one right. All this fake outrage at Trump or Maggie was pure formality, meaningless mask wearing, full of sound and fury signifying nothing. Trumpism without Trump, that was the dream of the establishment, and Biden is an ideal figurehead for this. And so are Merkel and Macron. Boris Johnson, of course, in his British eccentric manner, decided to reincarnate Maggie and Rumsfeld simultaneously. I hope Putin would put an end to his cheap masquerade as he reminded Boris that Crimea is not Falklands. I don’t think Putin was bluffing when he said that next time British boat finds itself in Crimean waters, it would be sunk. And NATO won’t lift neither a finger nor ballistic missile in defense of Boriska's follies.
VG: The world is full of comical figures whose ambitions never match their wisdom or experience. Of course, the guys like Boris or Trump know that they are slightly comical. It is enough for them to look at the mirror, after all. The danger comes from the “serious” politicians; people like Thatcher, or Rumsfeld, or McCain, who never realized how comical they were or would appear from the perspective of history. I wonder if Rumsfeld – in the manner of McCain-- planned his funeral and made sure that Trump is not going to be invited, while other “serious” keepers of the status quo, are.
HOBBS: Probably not. He was too reckless and arrogant for that. Rumsfeld was afraid only of the unknown unknowns, while Trump was the known unknown for him. But by the next week we’ll know for sure.
