Published July 4, 2026
“Hollywood” has long been a sort of shorthand for “the movies” in this country, even though some of the best movies are made outside that world, films that tell gritty truth. America has long been shorthand for things that are in short supply now, if we ever really had them.
The dance between the two, America and Hollywood, has produced powerful myths that tell a history of the best version of ourselves. They do not usually stand up to scrutiny.
Too many of us are not able to see what’s right under our noses as it’s happening. Surely, we’re the good guys, the moral center of this world, we are convinced.
Turn it into a movie, though, one taking place across an ocean, with set design reserved for stark wartime stories, and everything we’ve seen for years here in the United States would look scarier to many, I think. Scarier, but still safe, because it’s over there, not here.
No, it’s all happening here. It’s not over, but we sure are letting the monsters, the Nazis, the grifters and thieves all win. We have been for a long time.
You need watch only the first 3 1/2 minutes of actor Adrien Brody’s discussion of the movie “The Pianist” to hear words that will haunt you in your sleep. The movie “had a real slow burn, how these atrocities slowly became accepted in society, and how bigotry and hatred can grab hold and how people can just destroy — evil, and the horror within all of that, that is incomprehensible.”
Set our story in Warsaw, in the late 1930s, and I promise you we’d see it all so clearly.
Too many of us don’t see what’s right in front of us or are in deep denial about what we’ve become and what we’re still becoming.
Perspective
I don’t look at U.S. history through rose-colored glasses. My questioning began in earnest 44 years ago. In seminary, I began learning how much of what I knew to be true was not. I began unlearning. After seminary, my curiosity grew. The Reagan administration made it easy to question things.
We recovered fairly well after 12 years of Republican control of the White House, and we did what we could after the next eight (the Bush failson years), but we might not be able to survive Trump 1.0 and 2.0 and whatever comes next. We’re the bad guys, more so than we’ve been in my lifetime. (As I write this on stolen land, I’m well aware of our long-ago past, so I am trying to keep things in perspective.)
The truth is, television gave us Trump, gave us a fictitious Trump on what we called “reality TV,” and gave him back enough standing in America to rehabilitate his image, with a lot of help from powerful people in other countries. The made-for-TV movie we’ve been watching for years, with Trump and the Republican Party in control, is what it all created. These are not “America first” people, and not enough of us see through the lie that they claim to be.
Were I to list or link to the 10,000 or more destructive acts and lies of Trump 1.0 and 2.0, would it make any difference? No. If people can’t see it now, I don’t think they ever will. I’ve given up on so many people, and it’s looking more and more likely Canada will be my future home.
Ignorance and hate have become virtues
The trail of destruction is horrifying.
One year after Trump signed his “big, beautiful bill,” it has begun reshaping the country.
At least 4 million people have lost food stamps. Millions more will lose healthcare. Refugees and other legal immigrants are getting kicked off the safety net. And the wealthiest Americans have gotten richer.
— Mike Hixenbaugh (@mikehixenbaugh.com) July 1, 2026 at 5:16 AM
It keeps getting scarier for transgender people, for me.
I wrote about the Supreme Court’s latest disgusting anti-trans ruling. I wrote about it because I refuse to act like taking away constitutional rights and allowing legal discrimination is okay just because it’s happening to people who don’t poll well in a diner in Ohio.
In @thenation.com— ElieNYC (@elienyc.bsky.social) July 2, 2026 at 7:27 AM
But on Fox News, the scary movie they play to frighten their viewers is what Democratic Socialists and others want to do to help tens of millions of people.
Incredible moment where Fox News puts up a graphic with all the reasons it opposes the DSA and why people should be afraid of them
— Tamoor Hussain (@tamoorh.com) July 2, 2026 at 7:52 PM
Years ago I knew someone who loved to quote that line about how “socialism” is bad because “sooner or later, you run out of other people’s money.” Guess what? It’s all other people’s money. The wars we start. The trillions we waste. The problems our leaders create before saying there’s no solution for them.
It’s all other people’s money! It’s all our money! Which they are stealing anyway!
Remember the child dying in his mother’s arms in the scene from “The Pianist” above?
One study found Musk’s closing of the U.S. Agency for International Development could cause the deaths of millions of children.
— Forbes (@forbes.com) June 29, 2026 at 9:40 AM
We’re the bad guys.
And about that scary word, socialism …
Socialism for the wealthy, feudalism for everyone else.
There is no reason for me to celebrate Independence Day. It’s another myth now. We’ve traded one king for another, with his family reaping huge financial rewards.
Good LATimes piece leading its front page this morning: “anniversary events throughout the nation’s capital centered on President Trump” have turned Independence Day into “a celebration of an imperial presidency rather than a revolution from kingly rule.” www.latimes.com/politics/sto…
— Dan Froomkin/Press Watch/Heads Up News (@froomkin.bsky.social) July 3, 2026 at 8:51 AM
Oh, remember the Clean Air Act?
Trump pardons 11, most for violating Clean Air Act – www.reuters.com/legal/govern…
— egbhappy.bsky.social (@egbhappy.bsky.social) July 3, 2026 at 7:53 PM
This is the city. Los Angeles, California.
— Clyde Barnchaser (@clydebarnchaser.bsky.social) July 3, 2026 at 9:36 PM
Well, I should stop. Otherwise, I’ll list all of the 10,000 things he’s doing to destroy this country and the future of the planet.
I might eat a hot dog and go see “Supergirl” today.
If you haven’t seen Supergirl, I have never related to a scene in a movie more right now than when she flies to space so that she can scream into the nothingness of the universe.
— Kateration (@kateration.bsky.social) June 30, 2026 at 9:44 AM
Relatable.
And now, your Bicentennial Minute(s)
I am old enough to remember these. I’ll bet some of you are too.
Do something good for yourself today, and maybe for someone else. Protect your peace. Like water, affordable housing and food, we’re running out of it.
Photo of Warsaw by Cheungjoproduction via Shutterstock.
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Thank you
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