4. Call things what they are.

I HAVE AN IDEA.

Stop calling the statements our Liar In Chief and his elected hand puppet make in public forums “untruths,” or ‘hyperbole” or “misstatements” or “alternative facts” or any of the other minimizing, dismissive euphemisms that have become normalized part of discourse in the last two decades.

Call them lies. Doing anything else is an abdication of power. Always has been.

In a similar vein, the absurd-to-the-point of surreal declarations people make these days online and in real life are wrong. They are not mistaken, not misinformed, not “differences of opinion.” They are spouting nonsense they have acceptedd as truths. They. Are. Wrong.

If more people with the righteous narratives (not “the facts!” no one wants “facts!”) regularly called out people who make loud, public, confident wrong statements, the US of A would not be nearly as stinky a cesspool as it currently is.

It’d still be a fucked-up mess. The Hand Puppet In Chief would likely still be in office. But it’d be better. But I am 10 years past done with people mistaking capitulation for courtesy, “giving people the benefit of the doubt,” “letting people have their own opinions,” and keeping quiet to get along.

I got the nickname Socrates twice in my life, and the first time I asked if it was because I always answered questions with questions (Q. E. D.) or if it was because I was willing to die for things I believed in. The answer, unsurprisingly, was, “Both.”

I’m sick of watching the people whose elected job it is to speak up, stepping quietly aside in the face of absolutely fucking BONKERS levels of what-the-fuckery. And then having the gall to spout the same old now obviously WRONG line of ":we need to get along.”