Personal essays
In the blink of an eye
Know that they’ll say
If Kim were alive today we would be so rich.
She had a unique ability to anticipate republican arguments and reactions.
So when Donald Trump’s lawyer, Todd Blanche read a Michael Cohen post into the record that referred to the former president as “Von ShitzInPantz”, Kim would have know exactly what was coming.
I didn’t.
I can’t believe I missed this again. It was a beautiful slow pitch coming right across the plate and I watched it go by.
How did I not see that Trump fans would be wearing diapers at his rallies in support of their guy?
How did I not anticipate and sell “Diapers over Dems” and “Real Men Wear Diapers” sweatshirts.
Don’t dismiss this
It’s easy to dismiss the diaper story - I urge you not to.
The media doesn’t help. They’ve spent the last week or so discussing whether Trump is passing gas in court. We saw it before in the coverage of Rudy in court.
This is not a scatalogical or titilating story.
This is a story about adults wearing diapers in public, not because they need to - I’m all for that, but in support of their candidate.
This is a story about adults buying and wearing t-shirts and sweatshirts that say “Real Men Wear Diapers.”
This is about a political party becoming a sports team.
A new player joins the team and thousands of fans buy a shirt with their name on the back.
We’ve discussed before that the team can completely change over the years with new players, new coaches, new owners, new stadiums, and new cities - but somehow they’re still your team and one day you wake up with a “Real Men Wear Diapers” sweatshirt in your closet.
Change happens fast
Maggie and I were recently in Berlin.
You can’t go there and not be confronted with the causes and realities of the second world war.
First of all, nothing there is genuinely old. Everything had to be rebuilt.
Second of all, the nation changed to what it became under Hitler fast and the stories of how it changed should be things we pay attention to.
There was a display that detailed the persecution of homosexuals. It talked of the closure of gay and lesbian clubs.
At the bottom of the display was the following (translated) letter from an ordinary citizen to the secret police about his neighbor.
“We’ve been living in the house for 12 years, and he has never once been out with a girl […]. Of course I can’t claim anything, but it seems suspicious to me. What are those lads doing at his place? But I’d like to ask you not to mention my name.”
This is what worries me about the diapers. The people who do things they would have thought of us unthinkable either out of fear or because they’ve been convinced that it’s for the good.
We’re told that most of the people who attacked the capitol on January 6 weren’t bad people. They were ordinary people who got caught up in the moment.
That worries me a lot.
I’m concerned how easy it is to take ordinary people - sprinkled with a sufficient number of people who weren’t ordinary - inflamed by the speech of a person they think has all the answers into a mob that attacks and defiles the literal seat of power and searches for people to harm.
“I don’t know what happened during the election,” they are told, “but it sounds suspicious to me.”
No. Don’t dismiss the diapers.
Essay from Dim Sum Thinking Newsletter 216. Read the rest of the Newsletter or subscribe