While I make no effort to follow the news, it nevertheless finds me.

Michael Waltz will be the new National Security Advisor. Can't say he's a "neighbor" but he supposedly lives nearby. He's a "just the tip" seditionist. He had intended to object to the electors on January 6th, but changed his mind after the insurrection. He's also a veteran of the "storming the SCIF action" during the impeachment hearings.

Waltz is a veteran, a colonel in the National Guard. I was careful to write that military service gives one the opportunity to learn about meaning. It doesn't guarantee that anyone will.

In the absence of meaning, the emptiness at the heart of such men births ambition. A form of desire that aims to fill the emptiness within with rank, title, authority, wealth or achievement. This is what defines Waltz and Scott and probably Rubio. They have no character, per se. That is, no intrinsic sense of self or identity that keeps them upright. They will bend whichever way their blind ambition pushes them.

Susie Wiles is a familiar name. She's a veteran of Florida zero-sum politics. She has had some experience in governance, but the majority of her career has been in politics as sport. I'm not expecting great things in terms of ameliorating Orange Jesus' worst flaws, and I don't expect her to last very long. But who knows? Saturated in Florida politics, I don't detect much in the way of character. Choosing her boss is perhaps all anyone needs to know. Ambition. Position. Emptiness.

Winning an election isn't the same as governing, though all Florida Republicans make that mistake.

Florida is two states, one for the privileged and the other is ignored. Or it used to be ignored. Now it is targeted. America will be the same.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 05:06 Wednesday, 13 November 2024