Chop off his head and mail it in a garbage bag

November, Willy Vlautin & OFF!

If we’ve talked about the presidential election this year you’ve heard me say in no uncertain terms that Trump is going to get his ass handed to him in November. I believed it then and I believe it now.

To me, the logic is clear: Trump’s politics are toxic. He lost in 2020. Orchestrated an insurrection to hold on to that power. Was exposed as a serial rapist and con artist. Probably stole classified documents. I could go on, but the further we go down the list, the more personal it gets, and the less useful these characteristics become as predictors of a presidential election. The people in the MAGA cult see what they want to see. He is a strongman, a savior, and a victim. They operate out of belief, not facts.

However, there is one thing about the Trump campaign and the GOP ticket that is bigger than even Trump: Dobbs vs. the Women’s Health Organization, which effectively overturned Roe vs. Wade and removed the constitutional right to an abortion. In typical GOP fashion, red states raced to see who could enact the most cruel policies, and it’s been an albatross around the neck of the GOP ever since.

Ever since Dobbs went down on June 4, 2022, the Democrats keep winning elections they aren’t supposed to win. Even during the midterms, which rarely go well for unpopular incumbents, voters turned out to support Democratic candidates, especially those who put women’s reproductive rights front and center. It’s been happening all across the country, in elections big and small, and it’s going to happen again in November.

I think the reason many people opposed to Trump are so cynical about the election is to avoid the feeling of sickening surprise we all woke up to the morning after Trump won in 2016. I’ve experienced that feeling twice in my life before: during the immediate aftermath of the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary where my friends’ daughter Avielle was murdered, and after Ronald Reagan was shot by John Hinckley Jr. on March 30, 1981.

Dead Kennedys, Reagan Youth, Wasted Youth

I was a thirteen-year-old eighth grader at Saint James Elementary in the Washington, D.C. suburbs of Falls Church, Virginia. News traveled differently in 1981 and when we were told the president had been shot, we were hustled into the church across the street where people were wailing for the president’s recovery.

Was Reagan alive? Was he dead? Who tried to kill him and why?

No one told us the answers to these questions and the uncertainty was sickening. Instead, they told us that if we prayed hard enough we could save him, which is a very fucked up thing to say to a child, but I could tell by the panicked look on the faces of the adults around me that this was very, very bad.

When classes were canceled and school ended early that day it felt like we were experiencing something historical—like Pearl Harbor. As a kid who was obsessed with American history, and it’s everywhere in Virginia, I always wondered what it would be like to experience something that future generations would read about in history books, to be a part of history.

That’s what March 31, 1981 felt like to me, and I didn’t like it one bit. It felt the same way on November 3, 2016. Something terrible had transpired and the only thing I knew for certain was no amount of prayer would undo it.

When a young, registered Republican tried to take out Trump with his daddy’s AR-15 the week before last, I felt weirdly hollow. The news travels faster now and before anyone could get down on their knees and pray for Trump’s speedy recovery, we’d all seen images of Trump bleeding, stumbling, and pumping his fist on an endless loop on social media. By the time Trump had changed out of his bloody shirt, the internet was awash with jokes and conspiracy theories.

For many people on the left, this felt like the final nail in the coffin for Joe Biden’s campaign, a decline that began with his failure to insist on an immediate cease fire in Gaza and climaxed with his disastrous debate performance. In spite of this, I still believed that Trump would lose and lose big. Trump was still Trump.

But as every sports fan knows, it’s easier to lose a game than it is to win one, even when you’re the overwhelming favorite. Now something incredible has happened. Biden has stepped down/been pushed aside and subsequently endorsed his vice president Kamala Harris. In approximately 24 hours she received enough delegates to secure the nomination and raised over 80 million dollars. In 24 hours!

The excitement behind her is palpable. To use a football metaphor, the aging QB with a penchant for fumbling the ball has been benched in favor of the back-up with a live arm and killer instincts.

Suddenly, the election looks winnable again. Suddenly, questions about Trump’s health, stamina, and fitness are front and center. Suddenly, things like Project 2025 are coming under scrutiny now that the media doesn’t have Biden’s age to beat into the ground. Suddenly, J.D. Vance looks like tool. (Just kidding, J.D. Vance has always been a tool.) Suddenly, there’s hope, a hope I’ve believed in and held on to from the start.

My point here isn’t to say “I told you so.” Things are going to continue to change. Both candidates will have good weeks and bad weeks. World events will have a say. Developments in Ukraine and Palestine will have an impact. Events that we can’t imagine—much less predict—will play a role on the great stage of life.

The historic, unpredictable events of the last week-and-a-half underscore the pointlessness of worry. “Worrying is praying for what you don’t want” is something you’ll eventually hear in recovery meetings if you stick around long enough. I refuse to worry.

What’s needed now is action. Donate to candidates that need help. Volunteer your time. Register to vote and vote early.

Most importantly, stop worrying.

Willy Vlautin’s The Horse

I reviewed Willy Vlautin’s new book The Horse for the LA Times. It felt like he wrote it just for me. It’s got casinos and drunks and broken-hearted musicians and even a little bit of punk rock. I’m not very good at getting readers to clink on links, but I know what you like, so here’s the punk bit:

The book is dedicated to L.A. singer-songwriter John Doe, most famously of the punk band X. Al’s memories of playing in a punk band with the Sanchez Brothers, who are infamous for getting in fights with each other, paint a picture of what can happen to those who were born to go too hard, too fast.

Throughout the book, Al recollects the titles of the songs he’s written for the bands he played in and the women he loved, and these catalogs of song titles serve as a secret text that runs through the novel. The songs he wrote for the Sanchez Brothers, “Uno, Dos, Tres — I’m Gonna Bust Your Face,” are especially spirited, but the number of songs referencing his ex-wife Maxine speak to the depth of his despair in a way that the lyrics never could.

Prove me wrong and preorder The Horse.

The penultimate performance of OFF!

I wrapped up my trip to New York last week by seeing the second to last OFF! show ever at Le Poisson Rouge on Bleeker Street. I don’t know why OFF! is breaking up, but I have some suspicions. At the moment, I have more feelings than thoughts about the show so I’m going to direct you to Kyle Decker’s outstanding review of the show OFF! played a few nights earlier in Chicago with some epic photography by Fleurette Estes.

It was a thrilling conclusion to four jam-packed days and nights in New York City with our friends Enrique and Selina and their kids Damian and Itzel. We rode multiple ferries, took countless journeys on the subway, and walked hundreds of blocks. We saw the Yankees play in the Bronx, ate pizza and bagels in Brooklyn, goofed off in Times Square, and enjoyed a righteous punk rock show on the Lower East Side that, in one form or another, will shape the lives of everyone who was there.

Thanks for reading! If you liked this newsletter you might also like my latest novel Make It Stop, or the paperback edition of Corporate Rock Sucks: The Rise & Fall of SST Records, or my book with Bad Religion, or my book with Keith Morris. I have more books and zines for sale here. And if you’ve read all that, consider preordering my latest collaboration The Witch’s Door and the anthology Eight Very Bad Nights.

Message from the Underworld comes out every Wednesday and is always available for free, but paid subscribers also get my deepest gratitude and Orca Alert! on most Sundays. It’s a weekly round-up of links about art, culture, crime, and killer whales.