South Park, Funny?

I’m having a hard time getting behind the recently released South Park episode. I get all the arguments in favor. I get the calls to go low. But this low? I get that the deference normally paid to the office of the Presidency was stripped away many months ago. But this episode just makes our decline so in-your-face that it is impossible to look away. Which is, of course, the point. I guess my problem with it is that it hurts.

So one question for me is, how are we possibly going to survive the next 3.5 years? Young people (anyone under 60) at the coffee shop (my favorite hangout) rarely discuss politics. Their lives are much busier than mine, and apparently, they aren’t seeing much impact on their day-to-day activities. 

But I am. My volunteer job at the small gallery near here has been terminated. (I’ve never been employee of the month, but getting dismissed as a volunteer was a bit of a blow.) But it turns out it’s not my fault. The gallery is closing for the summer, something they have never had to do before. The owner said that traffic since January has dropped by 30%. Sales have dropped even more. I’ve noticed over my one-year tenure that a lot of visitors treated the gallery as a place of entertainment, but those who did make purchases in prior years are no longer in the mood to buy things that are not functional or necessary. Maybe their circumstance haven’t changed, but the idea of being frivolous is no longer appealing.

And then there is Penn, who has a VRBO/Airbnb in Santa Fe. Until this year, she had a 90% occupancy rate during the summer months. This year it is at 50%. When she talks to some of her friends who own gift shops and art galleries in Santa Fe, they are gobsmacked by the difference between 22-23 and this year. Santa Fe is usually recession-proof. It is high-end-ish when it comes to art, but there are so many great hikes, and visible history, and restaurants that the city has a broad appeal to tourists. It is also “woke,” meaning that they still use paper straws, dogs are welcome in most cafes, and people linger over a fresh brew while they inhale the crisp mountain air and smile at the billowing white clouds passing through a brilliant azure sky. And everyone is welcome—city-wide events make that clear, and businesses make that clear. 

Finally, there are the financial reports that the government has released that contradict what I see happening on the ground. The Government says our economy added 147,000 jobs in June in the public sector—the same sector that finds millions of teachers unemployed for the summer and that welcomed DOGE to fire hundreds of thousands of government specialists. The ADP, which reports on private sector employment (including most businesses), says June suffered a loss of 33,000 jobs. 

Granted, I have limited evidence, but it seems pretty clear to me that the Government is lying about the strength of the economy, and it will take a few months for the inflationary forces to make themselves known. And I worry about that moment.

Ryan says we just have to hunker down and turn off the news. ML says we have to agitate and scream and stay hyper-connected. Pen says she’ll think about it as soon as her siblings find a place to live away from her. My usual solution to everything is to go hug a tree. But the trees here in Southern Arizona all have thorns and/or scorpions. Help!!