A few years ago I completed almost a decade of high stress employment. The job involved enough time in airports to make me never want to set foot in one of those horrible places ever again. However, I’ve been unable to avoid them entirely, and I think that if I were hooked up to a blood pressure monitor that the numbers would increase as the proximity to the airport parking also increased. The parking and the security hoops were only mildly annoying, but when people get added to the mixture the experience gets almost unbearable for me.
Airports are a story for another time.
I mentioned the job and the stress associated with that work assignment because this blog was born out of it’s conclusion. When I got home I found out that I couldn’t just shut off the work mode I was locked into, and so some writing, or venting depending on your perspective, turned out to be half assed therapeutic. Initially the concept was that writing shit down was an effort to structure my thoughts into a different direction. A non-work direction. Kind of a reintroduction into society. I’m not sure it worked to be frank, or if I just needed time, but I think I’m as reintegrated as I’m willing to allow.
I do think though that writing has a tendency to influence a person’s outlook or philosophy on this life. Similar to reading, but different because it forces you to structure random thoughts and feelings into some semblance of coherence.
Basically a tool to try and make sense of the planet, and the people I have to share it with.
So the title for this endeavor is Natrocious. I understand that it’s not a word, but I chose it in honor of a person I used to work with that used the non-word repeatedly. This same person also had a fondness for irregardless, which additionally made me slightly mental, but Natrocious seemed the better title choice. In fact, in the course of venting I was able to develop a character description of people like my ex-colleague. I called them the Natrocites.
The description of these people is in one of the first blogs I wrote. It’s on page 21 if you’re interested, and here’s the link. Natrocites and the law of probably – Natrocious
That’s the first part of the explanation. A history if you will, but it’s not my primary objective today.
So, here’s the second part of the explanation.
When I started Natrocious the words were aimed at a small but specific audience. Friends, coworkers I wasn’t seeing anymore, and family. Over time more people have shown up and only a few ever leave comments, so I have no idea who most of the visitors are. I do however know what country they’re from.
In the last few months the number of American visitors has jumped significantly. So much so that they’ve actually eclipsed Canada and China, and so this explanation that I’m slowly making my way toward is aimed primarily at those Americans.
First of all I’m happy you’re here. I’m not getting threatened in the comments, and so I’ve assumed that most of the Americans showing up aren’t pissed at my perspective on a country that isn’t my own. That’s gracious and appreciated, but I’ve got to add in my defence that the U.S. of A is really fucking hard to ignore. I think that exceptionalism in America doesn’t differentiate between exceptionally admirable and exceptionally alarming. It could be that you can’t have one without the other, but whether that’s an accurate observation or not, I can’t shake this sense that the entire country is on the spectrum in one fashion or another.
But the fact that American visits have increased is encouraging, because these visitors haven’t been in attack mode, It gives me hope that there are enough people and enough determination in my Southern neighbor to right the ship and recapture the America that I thought I knew. If I’m feeling really optimistic, then I let myself hope that Americans learn from the Trump experience, and change a few things, so a repeat performance isn’t an inevitability.
I hope someone figures out a better way to select your supreme court justices. That would be a great start. Once that gets sorted, the next order of business would be to limit campaign financing, because if you don’t then you’re never going to regain a by the people for the people doctrine. I could be wrong, but I think that’s what the founders sort of envisioned. I say sort of because the electoral college or the second article of your constitution has been around since seventeen eighty something, and a cynic could argue that the college idea was a failsafe to prevent a populist the elites found distasteful from ascending to the presidency.
Maybe an amendment would fashion a method where the candidate that won the general vote would actually win the election. That’s a tricky objective for democracies though. Canada is trying to figure the concept out too.
While your lawmakers are contemplating a change or two that reflect the realities of 2026, I suggest you disallow billionaires from controlling your media platforms. This is a Trump trend that the project 2025 people learned from Orban, and it needs to be reversed as soon as possible. If the media is the message rings true, then letting two or three people control that message is a terrible idea.
Because you’re hearing what they want you to hear, and seeing what they want you to see. Sights and sounds that serve billionaire interests that not only don’t assist average Americans, but actively cause harm. Physical, mental, environmental and economic harm.
That’s only the beginning of a reckoning for the so called elite. Making them pay taxes would be a fine idea. Sending them to jail when they break the law would also be on my recommended list, and while you’re on subject, maybe stiffen up those monopoly laws that orange asshole has either relaxed or ignored.
It appears that the real task facing Americans is how to effectively limit the power of the president, the billionaires and the corporations without another American revolution. This challenge is much more difficult when the president is also a corporation, a billionaire, and a deranged sociopath. Although I’ve got to say that if American survives the second term of the Donald, the experience may make it easier to accept limiting presidential powers.
Adding to the difficulty of structural alteration is the basic acceptance that unfettered capitalism is as American as baseball, apple pie and foreign wars. Capitalism whose message is that by the people for the people is somehow socialism.
Or worse yet, communism. Worse because I think most Americans don’t differentiate between democratic socialism and fucking commies, and so the two become indistinguishable to the American mindset. This perception makes it very difficult to introduce a social safety net with laws that deliver healthcare and other benefits that social democracies provide. Things like affordable higher education, minimum wage, daycare and maternity leave.
Commie stuff, like Barack Hussein Obamacare.
Also it’s difficult to make any social changes when all of the elected representatives are either already very wealthy, owned by wealthy donors, or on their way to being wealthy with a little assistance from insider trading.
So I think that the American dream requires an accessibility amendment. An alteration where access to the concept reaches all Americans and not just the elites. Lately the word affordability has been thrown around as an election talking point. I’m hoping that a populous movement emerges where that concept is embraced for all aspects of life as an American and not just gas prices.
That would be an evolution of democracy that would be a magnificent example for the rest of the world.
But somehow, you have to show us how to reign in the filthy rich. Because if Don has given us anything of value, I think it’s example after example of the word filthy being an apt companion of rich.