Our love involved political conversion. This made it volatile, and eventually it was banned. I used to tell her, Republicans and Democrats see democracy differently: One thinks, I need just enough smart people to keep me in office. The other thinks, I need just enough stupid people to keep me in office. She would get offended, and I would say, Look. A Democrat is like a sexually frustrated drunk in his favorite fancy bar, praising the drinks and the people, spending wildly, a social dynamo, a positive force. The Republican in this scenario is a sober nerd, strangely immune to the charms of people, who thinks the drinks on the menu are too expensive. The USA is that fancy bar—which caters to Democrats. Of course the Democrat has another side—the hungover phase in which he worries desperately how he appeared during the drunk phase; quick to accuse everyone of not protecting his reputation; he says to the Republican: You were sober. Why did you allow me to say those things? You had nothing else to do—why didn’t you look after me? You should go to jail, not me! The Democrat defends his teetering reputation by condemning the less fancy bar down the street, guilty, he claims, of a host of sins never dreamed of by the wonderful patrons of his favorite fancy bar. My bar runs this town, yells the good Democrat, and he is right.
After we divorced, we met early in the evening at a quiet place to trade stories. We hadn’t spoken since the death of Joan Rivers. We discussed the deaths of JFK, Epstein, Poe. We drank tea. You were right, she said. The fly-over populists and the Bernie bros have more in common than we thought. This GameStop thing is a political moment—gently reminding us who the haves and have-nots are. Scolds—like Jack Dorsey or Mark Zuckerberg—represent the Democrat’s hungover phase. We need to ditch that fancy bar. We need to be sober whenever we spend. I wanted to kiss her, but refrained. It suddenly occurred to me we had only kissed when drunk—and I felt ashamed. I managed a weak smile. We sat there, observing each other for a time.