I recently had a post go viral on Bluesky. As I write this, it has close to 11,000 likes and has been shared nearly 2,400 times. This has never happened to me before. Apparently I struck a nerve. I also gained a number of new followers on Bluesky who will inevitably be disappointed that I mostly post about metal music.
Here’s what I said in the post:
Watching episode of ER from 2001. Dr. Chen & Dr. Carter are trying to diagnose an unconscious preschooler.
Carter: “Could be measles.”
Chen: “Measles? Have you ever seen measles?”
Carter: “No, have you?”
Chen: “Of course not, nobody’s seen measles.”
I’d say, “That’s it. That’s the post,” except I actually wrote a whole thread where I follow this plotline through to the inevitable conclusion (parents are anti-vax, kid dies), ending each post by claiming to do something RFK Jr. has done, such as handling snakes with my bare hands and chugging raw milk. I thought it was pretty funny.
I have a couple of things to say about this viral viral post. First, “ER” was a great show. I’m currently in the middle of the story arc where Dr. Kerry Weaver is realizing she’s a lesbian and is really struggling. It’s breaking my heart.
Second, 2001 was 25 years ago. And of the major issues raised in the episode, including vaccines and LGBTQ+ legal protections, we’ve started to go backwards in the U.S.
I remember seeing this episode for the first time. My girlfriend (now wife) and I had just moved in together. I was 20, she was 23. Every Thursday night we would sit on our second-hand couch and watch ER on the 13 inch TV that she won at her high school graduation party.
We both understood Dr. Weaver’s pain very well. We were living it. We were in love and fully aware of the fact that it could ruin our lives. Because people hated us. And plenty of those people were in public office, in legislative bodies, the executive branch and in courtrooms. Neither of us had any reason to believe that we would be able to get legally married in our lifetimes. That we would become parents. That we would own a 65-inch TV.
And yet here we are, all of those things a reality. Also a reality that many of the people who hate us are still in power. Some of them are OGs, like Rep. Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), who has been in Congress since 1985, and Sen. Lindsey Graham, who started his career in Congress as a rep in 1995. But it’s safe to say that the entire Republican Party is not exactly clamoring to provide my wife and I with any additional legal protections and, in fact, would like to take away the ones we do have.
And for anyone who feels the phrase “Not all Republicans” forming on the tip of your tongue, save it. The party has had a very vocal and clear anti-LGBTQ+ agenda at least as far back as President Ronald Regan and that agenda has only gotten uglier under Trump. This is especially true for transgender people. The Republican Party is obsessed with hurting them, introducing and passing policy at the state and federal levels at breathtaking speed.
The U.S. is turning 250 on July 4. If that seems like a long time, it isn’t. Compared to most other countries, the U.S. is still in diapers. We’ve barely learned to walk. But, like all toddlers, we believe that we can do everything ourselves and we demand the rest of the world let us do it. This has only increased under Trump, largely due to his incompetence as a leader. The guy has zero diplomatic skills and has managed to piss off ally after ally. Frankly, they’re tired of babysitting us.
I don’t know what the future holds, but I would bet real money that if the U.S. Supreme Court gets a case that would allow them to overturn marriage equality, they would do it in a heartbeat. It would be just like abortion: no federal right, everything state by state. My wife and I could travel across the country and become unmarried and then married again, over and over as we cross state lines.
That’s not the future I want. Nor do I want a future where measles, smallpox and polio become nationwide epidemics again. But that is a future the Trump administration, especially RFK Jr., is happy to risk. They don’t care to give the rest of us a choice.
I can’t wish the U.S. a happy birthday. I simply do not feel happy about where this country is right now. So instead I will borrow from Dwight Schrute and say to the U.S., simply, “It is your birthday.”