And, you know, I don’t know. The nature of democracy as a government body seems to be very codependent – suffers the same problem as any codependent situation. You know, you’ve, you’ve got this idea, this body, this entity that wants everyone to be treated equally, that wants everybody to, to be on the same level. That it’s a real people-pleasing idea. And people pleasers are vulnerable to major assholes and profound gaslighting.

So here we sit at the precipice of an authoritarian America, where people will be nominated and put in positions of power where they have no capability of doing it correctly or don’t know the job primarily. So the autocrat at the top of the pyramid has all the say in all the power. He’s terrorized his stooges and the Senate and Congress and in business to fear for their own lives, if not their own careers and politics if they do not do what he does. And that fundamentally, I don’t know, it doesn’t sound like democracy.

I’m not trying to bum you out, but this is where we are today. And I don’t – look, my fears are, are the same of many, as many of yours. You know, I mean, I know some people in their denial or in their need to adapt, they’re like, “well, we’ll see what happens.” Yeah, we will, but – I don’t, I don’t – it’s not gonna be good. 

And the dread and isolation and feelings of despair are real. And again, they love it. This is a trolling population of autodidactic meatheads with heads full of garbage and bits and pieces that enable them to bully and just gloat and find a real joy in that. Somehow or another, their disposition, which is basically built on the idea that empathy is for suckers and everyone’s on their own, and you just gotta make do. And a lot of people that I thought were once, you know, relatively decent people have locked into this political movement as a way to make their personal fortunes and continue their grift. 

And I don’t know – I – it’s not that I assumed that humans were all innately good, but it's sort of interesting to watch the ones that you thought were somewhat well balanced, you know, buckle for their own in reasons.

You know, I flew out of a fire zone into a blizzard, and the dread of waiting for fire day to day, that – that feeling of a lack of control, a powerlessness in the face of natural disaster is, is a lot to live with. And then I came out here to Denver and did a couple of amazing shows, great people out here in Boulder and in Fort Collins. We really had a good time. Me and Makowski did some great sets and, and, you know, did what we could to ease the stress. But there was a blizzard and that feeling of driving on ice. Driving on ice in a, you know, a car that isn’t an all-wheel drive. And that weird tension where you just don’t know when the car’s just gonna start sliding without you. That fear of powerlessness. I guess it was a primer, is that the word I wanted? It was priming me for what's gonna happen today and what it’s gonna feel like for God knows how long.

But again, the desire to isolate and lose yourself in your phone and losing to yourself in, in baskingin, you know, frightening information, or information that’s bullshit. 

I'm not suggesting, you know, denial, but I am suggesting that somehow or another we try to keep our fucking heads together. I mean, on some level, a little bit of denial is necessary. Just so you don’t lose your fucking mind. You know, maybe don’t look at your phone right when you wake up in the morning. Give it a few hours, take a breath, have a nice breakfast, and then, you know, blow your brains out with the fucking phone – because it’s gonna be a shit show. It’s gonna be just like checking for fires. It's gonna be every day of that. Every fucking day. This week is gonna be horrifying for tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of families who will be ripped outta their homes and thrown into transport vehicles and taken wherever, possibly to camps, possibly to countries that they haven't lived in as families for decades, maybe ever. 

And, you know, that'll probably be on TV.

But this is what making America great looks like to, you know, about 77,284,118 people in this country, taking the rights away from women. This is what makes America great. This is what does it. It's a small price to pay, right? For people who just want their eggs to be cheaper on the backs of this kind of bullshit? But look, again, don't want to be negative. Just wanna say, hey, try to hold onto yourselves. Try to hold onto who you are. Try to get involved on a, you know, community level, on a state level. See if we can, you know, regroup something or, or hold the line in terms of just treating people with some fucking decency because the war on tolerance has been won. 

And, you know, tolerance was the necessary lubricant for democracy to function. And I don't really even know what to do – well, you know – what to do with the 110 million people that didn't vote at all. But, you know, who knows? They're the wild card, I guess. But I do know, again, that 75 million plus people do not want this. And that's almost half, it's a difference of a couple million people. So we're out there, they're out there to try to, you know, do the right thing in their day-to-day life and probably, you know, try to do the right thing in, in the civic world of your community, of your state. And yeah, I don't really know what happens.

But look, you can still enjoy a nice, you know, a nice meal. You can still entertain yourself. You can still run your errands, you can still have your friends. Just try to hold onto your minds. Will you, could you try to take care of the people that are vulnerable in the way that you can?