You are in your office. Your boss appears. ‘Can I have five minutes?’ You can hardly refuse. His face is cold and grim, like he has just been diagnosed with COVID-19. He wants to talk to you about your comments. What comments? The comments you made about Jane in accounting. You misgendered her. You called her ‘he’.
Look, you say, you’re sorry. Jane was James when you met her. It wasn’t malicious, it was just force of habit. Maybe so, but ‘intent isn’t magic’. Well, you’ll apologize when you next see her. Maybe so, but we can’t let something like this happen again. You’re going to have to take some sensitivity training — unpaid, of course, and on your own time.
You want to quit. You can’t. Your job comes with health insurance — and you might need that health insurance if your job gives you an aneurysm.
‘OK boss.’
The beast in your inbox is expanding. You can’t face it anymore. You log onto Twitter and see a post from Sen. Ron Johnson of the Republican party. Johnson, with Sen. James Lankford, has proposed that Columbus Day be eliminated to make room for a federal holiday on Juneteenth. Johnson writes:
‘My sole motivation for offering this amendment to the Juneteenth bill is to prevent giving federal workers another paid holiday and incurring the additional cost.’
Thank you, Ron Johnson!
You feel as if a beam of light has penetrated the imposing concrete walls of the office. Somebody out there is keeping watch over your wellbeing. Somebody out there is protecting your values and your rights. Cowards may shake and run for cover — not Ron Johnson! He is making damn sure that federal workers will not have an extra holiday on his watch.
Thank you, Ron Johnson!
You feel like singing. Sometimes it is easy to succumb to despair. When your cousin became one of tens of thousands of Americans to die from opioid overdoses. When your best friend from school was killed in Afghanistan. When you were sitting in your one-bedroom apartment having meetings on Zoom, playing Call of Duty instead of seeing friends, browsing Pornhub instead of meeting women, never seeing anybody in the flesh except a retail worker, only to watch tens of thousands of people march in the streets with no repercussions.
But now the clouds have lifted! Thank you, Ron Johnson! No more will the tyranny of extra federal holidays threaten the United States.
Some have claimed that the Republicans are too focused on business interests. Some have argued, ludicrously, that they overvalue laissez-faire at the expense of the struggles of working class and middle class Americans. Some even suggest that Republicans are prepared to cede all cultural and societal battles to the left so long as they have a few tax cuts and a little deregulation.
Not a bit of it! Sure, it might look as if Sen. Johnson is giving a rampantly iconoclastic progressive movement what it wants so long as postal worker can’t have an unexpected break but you know he understands that the Republic lives and dies on a few hours of productivity among federal employees.
Thank you, Ron Johnson!
Some might see the chaos in America’s streets and devastation in her nursing homes and think the American age is coming to an end. Not Ron Johnson! Ron Johnson has been imbibing the wisdom of the ancients, and of the founders themselves, and he has planted his flag in the most sacred grounds of the States: the principle that no federal worker will slack off unless it is absolutely necessary. That is the kind of strong and moral leadership the nation has been lacking. That is the kind of unifying purpose that will revive America.
[special_offer]
You tell your boss that he can kiss your ass. He fires you. Who cares? You might lose your job, and your health insurance, and your pension, but he can never take your knowledge that no civil servant will be able to put their feet up for an extra day a year.
You walk out into the sun, passing the ruins of a statue of Thomas Jefferson, a looted Target store and a group of homeless men with their eyes rolled back in their head like spilt marbles. ‘Sorry post boy,’ you scream at a baffled mailman, ‘This is America!’
You get back home, pass a heap of unpaid bills, and sink to your knees. Tears run down your cheeks. You know that you are going to vote for Trump in 2020.
