Post 685 - November 28, 2024

Gratitude, considering where we may be heading, may seem harder to muster than usual this year but it’s still worth giving it a shot. After all, we haven’t arrived wherever we are going, and maybe we won’t ever get there.

It’s a day to give thanks. Sure, the news is full of unwatchable dire doings, but so what? It’s not over ‘til it’s over and it isn’t close to being done. Close and closer aren’t remotely the same thing. Some of what we are all worrying about may never happen.

The President-elect is still going on about the tariffs he wants to impose against goods coming from Mexico, Canada, and China. His messaging, however, has changed somewhat. The word on what the proposed taxes on the American people will really do to all of us must be starting to get out.

What our future leader is saying now is that he will impose tariffs IF these countries don’t do what he wants. IF the border crisis doesn’t improve. IF the drugs supposedly streaming in on the backs of the undocumented hoards slipping through border security aren’t stopped. That’s not what he said while he was campaigning. Then he said he WOULD impose them.

During this past year, the situations around both have improved. His red-hatted base probably didn’t hear about it, but the policies of the Biden/Harris White House have significantly lowered fentanyl use. Working with the Mexican government, they have also significantly impacted the number of people coming through the southern border. Those numbers are down. Well down.

Most of the fentanyl coming into this country is being brought in by American citizens. It isn’t being brought in by the undocumented people slipping through the cracks in the wall. It never has been. Much like the Haitian immigrants eating people’s pets in Ohio, it’s a convenient lie that helped the Republicans get themselves elected.

Many people interviewed said that the economy was the reason they voted red earlier this month. They don’t mean the economy when they say that as most of them don’t even know what the economy is. The economy, in fact, is in fantastic and enviable shape. What people mean when they talk about the economy is that the prices they pay for basic commodities in the grocery store have gone up. Given that, the Republicans (who may be dumb, but they are not stupid) must realize that if that trend continues, they will have a very disgruntled population on their hands who will be poised to rebel during the midterms.

The United States imports half its fruits and vegetables from Mexico. Over ninety percent of our country’s avocados alone come from our southern neighbor. We also get a significant amount of oil from our northern neighbor. We get a huge percentage of our electronics and appliances as well as their parts from China. We also import clothing and shoes and basic household goods from our Asian trading partner. Taxes imposed on all of this will make everything significantly more expensive.

Elon Musk is urging everyone to have patience for a while and grit their teeth and bear it, but we don’t have a very good history of doing that. He’s a South African and grew up in a country without many of the things we all take for granted. South Africans have become used to shortages and high prices. Americans are not South Africans. We don’t do well living without. We are not going to like it and we are not going to accept it.

The idea from the incoming administration seems to be that these tariffs will stimulate the growth of US manufacturing and agriculture. With millions of people in the potential workforce to support that being deported, that’s going to be a difficult stunt to pull off. It also won’t happen quickly. Food and gas prices can only go up while all that happens. That will drive people out onto the streets to protest.

I will be as UNshocked as a person can possibly be if the new administration cites the lowering of immigrants’ numbers and decreased fentanyl use as the reason that they don’t ultimately impose these new tariffs. Mark my words, if that’s what they do, the Republicans will take full credit for the lower numbers even though they will have had little to do with them.

The President of Mexico is a woman named Claudia Scheinbaum Pardo. The day before yesterday, she fired back at the President-elect saying that if the United States imposes tariffs on Mexican goods, she will, in turn, impose tariffs on American goods. I can’t wait to see how this all turns out. If nothing else, strong women terrify the incoming President. He’s not going to be able to just grab her by the p&*@y. (Note to self: pick up a good supply of popcorn.)

I’ve genuinely stopped paying attention to which crony is being given which cabinet position. The only qualification each of them has is great wealth. A few of them are just television personalities. None seem to have any relevant experience. Will they get in, or won’t they? It all depends upon how much spine the dwindling reasonable Republicans in the Senate can retain.

Worrying about any of it now, when nothing yet has happened is a waste of a perfectly good couple of months. We should be enjoying ourselves and taking advantage of the freedoms we have while we still have them. If we work ourselves into a froth fretting and nothing changes in January, then we will have gone to hell and back for no reason. If, on the other hand, we begin to see radical alterations to our quality of life soon then how stupid will we feel if we didn’t take full advantage of what we have now.

I do enjoy this time of year in New York and I’m not about to let an election gone south ruin it for me. Thanksgiving has seemed endlessly far off in some imaginary future for so long and now, here it is. The Christmas season is upon us.

Saks is not going to do the gigantic light display it has done on its Fifth Avenue store for the last decade. That can’t be a good sign. They must be hurting. As online sales continue to grow, brick-and-mortar stores suffer.

The great tree opposite Saks in Rockefeller Center, however, is up. The scaffolding around it has come down. It will be lit sometime next week.

It was hard not to notice the people working on decorating the tree. It took a small army. Yesterday, as I walked down Broadway, I saw another group of folks putting up the holiday village that opens at the entrance to the park at Columbus Circle every December. The guys were covering the stalls with white tarps and making sure that the wooden structures were all in place.

All the people doing the work seemed to be speaking Spanish. Will they all still be here next year? That, I suppose is something we will have to see for ourselves when we get there. Statistically, many people like them voted for the incoming people.

New York is one of the places that is going to protect its workers as best it can from being deported. The President-elect is already thinking about the retribution he’s going to take against so-called “Sanctuary Cities.” We will likely be punished in some way for giving a haven to our recent immigrants in the same way we were punished during his last time in office. That time he changed what could be deducted from our federal income taxes knowing it would particularly hurt New York artists.

Oh well. When something like that comes to pass, we will deal with it then.

For now, it is Thanksgiving. It is a National Day of Sharing. Michael and I have some of our family staying here with us. The apartment is not nearly big enough for the number of people currently in it.

There was some discussion about going out to the parade, but it’s raining so that’s put somewhat of a damper on those plans. Instead, we are all sprawled around the living room watching the festivities on television. Michael’s cooking breakfast for seven.

My sister and I had a book growing up called “Miss Twiggly’s Tree.” It was about an eccentric and reclusive lady who lived in a tree house by herself. Being around people made her nervous and shy, so she hid out alone in her tree.

One day it began to rain. And rain. And rain. It rained much harder than it’s raining today. Everything in the town flooded.

The only place people could take shelter was in Miss Twiggly’s treehouse. Miss Twiggly was scared about letting everyone in. Her kind heart, though, wouldn’t let her keep the people in need out. Her fellow townspeople, who had made fun of her for her treehouse in the past, began climbing up and finding places to sleep. After a while, as more people came, it turned into a lovely party.

Anytime I find myself having to bunk down with a group of people I am reminded of how much I love that book. Air mattresses on the floor and the sofa opened into a bed that fills the living room would drive me crazy over any length of time. For a day or two, though, it’s heaven. With the rain steadily streaming down outside, inside our cozy little apartment, it’s just like being up in Miss Twiggly’s tree.

Anything can happen. It probably won’t be what we are expecting and maybe even dreading. It may be something better or maybe it will be something worse. Who knows? When we know, we’ll know.

In the meantime, it’s a perfect time to give thanks for everything we have now, in this moment. Tomorrow will come, as it usually does. When it does, I hope that I can hold onto what I am feeling today. It’s the same feeling all the townspeople end up having towards the eccentric Miss Twiggly.

Gratitude.