Editor’s Note: I am in a Days Inn motel in western Connecticut- this was as far as I could get on my drive north yesterday due to appalling traffic in New York City. I think this drive marks a tipping point of sorts. For most of my life I never thought a long drive was a challenge. There was loud music and a changing landscape to enjoy over the steering wheel.

We drove Up North from Detroit every weekend, and when college shut down for the summer, The Boys would fill up a cooler with sandwiches and beer, jump in the car in Ann Arbor, and drive straight through to Salt Lake City. I think I am about done with that sort of travel. This hurts and I have to be back in the Emerald City on Monday.

Joyful event tomorrow in Massachusetts- more on that anon.

As to this- Marlow nails what many people are thinking these days, with snarling guitar sounds.

– Vic

July 28 2017
Kick Out the Jams
Coastal Empire

Author’s note: What a crazy scary-go-round this has become.

Certain moments in American politics simply defy all attempts to properly put them into context. Whether they are good or bad moments, they almost always serve dual duties; both defining an exact moment in history, as well as having a massive influence for years to come.

While such incidents can be found throughout the history of the doings along Pennsylvania Avenue in our empire’s Emerald City, two pivotal but disconnected moments happened yesterday. One was the failure in the US Senate to pass any healthcare reform bill, including skinny repeal. The second and perhaps more conseqential were Anthony Scaramucci’s foul mouthed rants. His comments crossed lines that proto-punk rock groups like the MC5 and the Stooges crossed in the Detroit music scene almost five decaes ago.

With ‘”the Mooch’s” crossing of the Rubicon (and CNN immediately following him), it’s official that everything Trump is doing now wil be a f*ckin freedom fight against the old political processes. They like their NYC punk rocker forebears treasure shock vaue above all else. It’s what keeps the rebellious MAGA spirit alive . . . hence, yesterday witnessed the coming out of American punk rock politics.

We should have seen this coming when it became clear that the Trump adminisitration would turn just about every debate that doesn’t immediately go their way into a crude street fight. Their arguments seem to align with the punk rock versions of everyone who disagrees with us is literally unAmerican as Hitler or a Communist.

We should have seen this coming when it was apparent that a key Trump campaign animator was naively optimistic rage-driven politics. Rage is aways ephemeral and ends up not producting any real results. Hence the abject failure of the Senate yesterday.

Like most punk rock concerts dating back to the MC5’s in 1969, Trump punk rockers pursue turning the political rock scene into one giant unsafe space, where everyone in the imperial city is kept on eggshells. No one will lose their livelihood ever for saying something deemed to be insensitive, sexist, etc. In fact the fouler and more off color the better.

Arguing against them will be cast as violating their right to free speech and halting the drive to MAGA.

For my younger readers: it’s critical to recall that Johnny Rotten, the lead singer of punk rock version 1.0’s premier group, The Six Pistol s, was an unabashed enemy of political correctness. For example, the Pistol’s song “God Save the Queen” was a snarling, subversive anthem of the fed-up British working class. It earned the band denunciations and threats from the British Parliament.

Key innermost circle Trump administration officials have now embraced punk’s enduring zeitgeist of “f*cking sh@t up at all costs.” They are unabashedly positioning themselves to be seen as a progressive, exciting and revolutionary campaign to change things for the better in the 21st century.

With the Trump Adminstration now offically punk rock politics version 1.0, how about Screaching Weasls as a name?

Regardless . . . (turn the volume up to 11 and the attitude to 100) . . . Kick out the jams, moherf*cker!

Guitar riffs to follow. Endless political jamming will now cease.

Copyright © 2017 From My Isle Seat
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