The Big Con

A bunch of men in suits and ties in front of TV cameras investigating another bunch of guys in suits and ties could be one of the great shell games of the Trump era.  Meanwhile, as the “Russia probes” go on, memos and tweets flying like paper shrapnel,   many Americans not in suits and ties sicken and die as a direct result of the suits’ indifference or plunder or both.

We’re all Appalachia now and nobody gives a damn because, here in the Rust Belt and Trump-voting south, legislative thunder and lightning are coming down on our heads.  We have no shelter from the hard rain of a trillion dollar cut in “entitlements” like Medicaid, Medicare, Assistance to Disabled Families, Food Stamps,

Meals on Wheels hitting us suthiners in partcular and especially hard in the old coal mine valleys.  I don’t like using farm language in front of the ladies.  But we’re being fucked up the ass by our own people following the lead of the new President we truly love.

So up in Washington I see two different factions of the same Harvard-Wharton class squabbling over who next sits in the Oval Office, Kamala Harris or Mike Pence when Donald is impeached, Lord don’t let it happen.

The Democrats, damn their hides, can’t help me because they too wear the same suit and ties – even the women Democrats seem to.   They all belong to the same “made it” tribe and share the same indigenous language native to Washington DC you learn only if you can afford a good college.

Way back in my grandma’s time, the Big Depression, traveling photographers like Dorothea Lange. Walker Evans and Marguerite Bourke White walked among us seeing us at our stoical worst that somehow got the government’s attention to help us in the hollows, valleys and factory towns.

Tonight on TV I see pictures of exploding Syrian babies and Nigerian refugees drowning in the sea.  TV glamour.

But we down here, waiting for a Medicaid van that probably won’t ever come, never see a big name anchor nosing around like they did in Vietnam or when there’s a mass shooting.  Plain fact is, we’re too ugly, and what’s happening to our people too depressing for Megyn and Rachel to come down here.

After a day’s work who wants to relax looking at us bitching and whining?

God damn it, it’s undignified.

 

Clancy Sigal is a screenwriter and novelist. His latest book is Black Sunset