As we argue, Chelsea is doing her best to change Ivanka's mind. Their friendship is the greatest hope we have. The other day, Ivanka quoted Emma Watson quoting another source, and Emma Watson is a feminist. No one in trump's camp would reference a feminist like Emma Watson. It came from Chelsea. Chelsea is a feminist. This is good. (Cue conspiracy theories about the two candidates in the most brutal and potentially lethal election with accusations of treason and blood libel being in cahoots. Because that's how you'd tag-team in a country full of guns and mental health crises).

Abortion rights matter. Please read Donald Trump's 'Values Voters' speech to the religious right, in light of several Supreme Cort openings being filled by the next President of the United States.

The Tao is funny... at this time, I'm seeing the corporate establishment and the Democratic party very positively, and I've never been one to get involved with any sort of authoritarian structure because it doesn't fit my ADD. Their incentives are mostly aligned with Tao, while many idealists unwilling to compromise based on personal experiences (which are TOTALLY valid, many anti-Hillary people have Boomer issues and I would too if forced to 'act like an adult' as Boomers are wont to say) are wasting energy denouncing her as a warmonger, Wall St. shill and wicked witch. Being an Xer with more of a 'use everything for the best purpose' mindset, I'd advise Millennial Xers to shit-meme the fuck out of Trump, see what Hillary does after the election and use Bernie and Stein's social capital (and some Libertarian voices) to ensure honesty and pressure for integrity in the DNC, as well as stacking Congress with Greens. This is just me. My sense of the Tao. I could just be too high to see reason. But this computes, and feels right. If wrong, will adjust strategy. And so it goes.

The Nutterfly Effect:

One bunker-ready End Times fundamentalist flapping his Bible-signs in small town Alabama can set off chain reactions that lead to a hurricane of alt-Right misogynist trolls rampaging at a Texas university.

Lockhart's Second Law of Logodynamics:

The longer a 'brand' remains unchanged, the more idiots and assholes take it over and make it look evil.

(First Law: Authoritarian Hierarchies Are The Devil*)

*See my Children's Guide Through A Demonological Garden of Sociopolitical Apparitions And Boogeymen.

THE TWELVE STEPS OF DOUCHEBAGS ANONYMOUS

1. We admitted we were powerless over douchery—that our lives had become
unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to
douche-less sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we
understood Him.(Note: Abrahamic deities may be powerless over their own douchery, so go with Buddhism, my advice).

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves, and resisted Nietzsche.

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature
of our douchery.Lucked out and didn't get doxxed and flooded with douche threats. Maybe skip that last one.

6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.* (See above warning about gods.)

7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.* (Physician may not have fully healed Himself, depending on how you interpret Revelation. Violent obsessive fantasy or sureally ironic meta-commetary? His psychiatrist is on the fence here.)

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make
amends to them all.* (May qualify as stalking in some instances.)

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do
so would injure them or others.* (Milk this for all it's worth if you're douchebag and someone thinks they'll make amends without a little guilt-grifting.) [To self -- edit this later.]

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly
admitted it. *(May not apply to some candidates for political office, we're not trying to lose here... or ARE we? Hmm...)

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with
God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and
the power to carry that out.* (Again, this could go really badly if you're priming your prayer-antennae with some of the more psychopathic verses. DO NOT prescribe to psychotics, people on anti-psychotics, or anyone bipolar).

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to
carry this message to douchebags, and to practice these principles in all our
affairs.* (And got the courts to endorse our blatantly religious agenda! How cool is that.)

Factual note: AA was first envisioned during a hallucinogenic drug trip (belladonna was used for detox, before further research on hallucinogenic interventions for addictions was banned).

Paraphrasing Matthew 5, a treasure mine of beautifully ironic (when juxtaposed with Religious Right hypocrisy) sayings attributed to Jesus, as well as social media commentary:

“Therefore, if you are offering your opinion in the chatroom and there remember that your bro or side-chick has something against you, leave your opinion there in the input box. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your post.

Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to social media court. Do it while you are still private messaging on the way, or your adversary may hand you over to the pedantic sociopath dissecting your opinion and identity to a kangaroo court of trolls, and the trolls may hand you over to the obsessive conspiracy theorist with apocalyptic delusions and undiagnosed schizophrenia, and you may be doxxed. Truly I tell you, you will not clear your name until you have paid the last bitcoin."

Social networks are now tribal. People trust what they see their friends and allies trusting. They trust the sources their people trust, mistrust opposing sources, and for some curious reason it all lines up divided into narratives that affirm 'our pride and innocence against their deliberate, shameful, sinister wrong.'

People with a curious and open nature, who venture from their living rooms and cross subcultural lines for edification and experience, are finding this a time of urgent culture-weaving. Their lifeblood is a cross-cultural, free, friendly exchange of ideas, energy, hospitality, knowledge, and opportunity. They're smart, they're connected and popular, deeply concerned, and they have trust currency. And they're going to undermine the monocultural fetishists who hide behind social categories, flags, charged symbols and ideologies to shred the global social fabric. The dead have no Idea what the living are up to. They will figure it out soon, panic, flail recklessly in ways that get good people hurt, tailspin and dive, crash into the earth catastrophically and tragically, and become fertilizer for a civilization being born.

These are momentous times. Words accelerate, they heal and they kill. Treat language as sacred. Especially in comedy, possibly the most sacred art form available to primates. Be hilarious, be fierce, be determined and prolific. Obliterate authoritarian ego-driven conformist hierarchical ideological power trips. Undermine them at every step. Confound the linear, blow up inconsistencies, speak out for people with more to lose, and take endless delight in unleashing the power of truth in love until there is no refuge for hate but confessional and renunciation for cancerous, contagious forms of vicarious power. Use your words. Use my words. Use all words.

In verba, victoria.