Bleak Beauty Blog

The catastrophe has happened. On January 20, Humpty Dumpty Trump will become

the 45th President of the United States. This is not a cartoon. This is not a science

fiction film. This is what the disaster of the last thirty years has come to. And for the

second time in recent history the loser of a presidential election received more votes

than the winner. And we accept it.

Demonstrations began here in NYC and in most major cities, including

Albuquerque, the 58th largest city in Amerika, the day after election day. On the first

night here in New York City, sixty-three persons were arrested. I was with the

demonstrators at Union Square and later beneath Trump Tower where Humpty

Dumpty lives in his three stories of apartment space above Fifth Avenue. Many of

the marchers were young women, who passed with powerful rhythmic and

cadenced chants. Among my favorite was “Republican! Elephant! Fuck him in the

ass!”, along with waving signs like “Not my Pussy! Not my President!”, the simpler

“Fuck Trump” and the many “Queers Fight Back!”. The Union Square rally was called

by a socialist alliance and at one point I had to give up my high up, above the crowd

camera position to a woman climbing towards me with a bull horn who said,

“Excuse me, I’m leading the rally” and went on to deafen my left ear with her use of

the horn. “I am leading this rally! Let me introduce myself! I am a Puerto Rican! I am

a socialist! I am a transsexual!” Beneath me at the foot of the steps was Hawk

Newsome, leader of Black Lives Matter New York. And when I spoke with Hawk I

said, “You guys started this.” And he answered, “Correct. We’ve been doing this for

four and half years. “

It has taken Humpty Dumpty to do what nothing before has accomplished. In a

single stunning and disturbingly historic moment, the Gay Movement, the

Environmental Movement, the Black Lives Matter Movement, the American Indian

Movement, the Chicano Power Movement, the Women’s Movement, the Abortion

Rights Movement, all divided, all self centered, have become a single furious

movement. And there will be blood in the streets.

You cannot stop the future. It is already here among us. It is everywhere. It is

realized in every successful socially revolutionary movement that has been realized

since the 1960’s, and it is global. Nothing Humpty Dumpty and his Amerikan

government does will change that. There has never been a shift of real power with

out violence, and sooner or latter the police will attack these demonstrations. As

they have already attacked the Lakota’s fighting the pipeline under the Missouri

River, a historic battle ground where the Indians, until now, have always lost. As a

grandmother up there said, “I’d like to win this one time.” She will. It is written. The

genie that was released from the bottles in 1960’s Amerika can never be put back.

And beating them down, shooting them down, will only swell the ranks of those that

understand that the engine of change is always in the streets. They have been

shooting down black folks for years. Now they will shoot down white folks. That is

exactly what happened when the Civil Rights Movement begat the Anti War

Movement, and Tricky Dick and the Amerikan war in Vietnam produced the “the

sixties”, the most progressive and culturally liberated decade of the last sixty years.

The ballot box has never been a successful way to create progress in America. All

progress has begun in the streets, which the politicians playing catch up.

What lies ahead? An empowering of the counter culture, a culture that has been

here for years. An empowering as the ranks of demonstrators grow. A blissful

anarchy which is the only answer to a government that would prevent abortion,

round up undocumented workers, obstruct efforts to save the planet, promote the

use of dangerous fuels, all these things will be opposed with fury in the streets and

on the ground. Nothing can stop a free person that acts freely. And if our beloved

institutions don’t protect us, perhaps they should not be so beloved. The easiest way

for Amerika to enter the twenty-second century is for citizens to behave as if they

live in the twenty-second century. I’ve never done what the government wanted me

to do, and no free person does either. Humpty Dumpty Trump cannot stop the

future.