POLITICS
Trumpism
"What's up man? You doin okay? We can do that. What time you thinking. Around 11 would be cool."
"I don't think I can do it that early. Im watching the kids. Is 4 too late?"
"No, that could work."
"Ok. My plans are kinda fluid at this point, so we'll do it sometime between 11 and 4 lol. I'll holler at you when it looks like I'm an hour out."
"K"
The 18 pulls to a stop just north of the Mellow Mushroom around 1. My brother and I find a table in the back away from the other patrons, for their sake.
Dad appears around 1:30. He looks haggard, tired. He's 68 years old and has major cardiac issues. He was fired by his employer of ten years a decade ago, likely violating laws against disability discrimination. He had little legal recourse in beautiful Alabama, a right-to-work state, and now collects SSI. He doesn't get out of the house much anymore.
On such occasions as these that he does we meet here, across from the university, and drink high-gravity craft beer with names like AndyGator and Crowd Control. They used to serve them in thick, frosted steins. The waitress explains that the bosses changed the policy. C'est la vie.
My brother and I have met Dad here on this particular day because I'm interested in writing a story about our family heritage. I intend the piece to be a portrait of a working-class family over the last 100 years.
Dad's grandfather helping to inspire, build, and maintain an experimental community founded on American ideals that have become passe, anathema even, depending on who you ask. The effect his extraordinary American ideals had on his son–Dad's uncle–who became a one-star Brigadier General in the U.S. Air Force. That legacy's transition to tragedy when the general's son, theatre kid cum star of a legendarily bad 1960s-era horror film, committed suicide at 24. The film becoming a cult classic 27 years later, when a popular parody skit show riffed on it. The widely held belief by fans that the character played by my Dad's cousin is widely considered to be the heart and soul of that film.
I intend to generate readership by appealing to the cult film community as a living embodiment of that character's legacy.
It can't miss.
My brother and I are already halfway through our first AndyGators when Dad takes a seat. We start discussing our family's history. The large, leather-bound book tracing our lineage back to 1587, illustrating our familial ties to Samuel Clemens, Henry Preacher, and Christopher Reynolds, a silversmith in Kent County, England.
Dad says I should talk to my uncle about their cousin, as he was much closer to that side of the family. He describes how my uncle stayed with them for a time, having stayed in trouble in his youth, and my family having had a long legacy of supporting each other.
He's jovial, engaged, joking and laughing. Seemingly in good spirits, despite the last several years of tension between us.
The restaurant bustles in the background. It has the kind of vibe that can only be curated by a psychedelic-themed neighborhood pizza joint that's existed across the road from a university campus for 50 years. A decade ago, when I was in school, we would congregate here, get drunk, and hit on the waitresses. Mellow Mushroom waitresses are some of the best at their craft, and the most patient. And of course, they keep the music on point.
The discussion turns to AI. "Use Claude, man. OpenAI is acquiescing to the military asking them to..."
"And I'm mad at Claude," Dad interrupts me, "They're happy to take advantage of the country they're in but they're not happy to support the country they're in. And that bothers me."
"What do you mean?" I ask.
"They won't support the military, they won't support the country they're in." He responds.
My jaw clenches trying not to hit the floor.
Dad has been a supporter of Trumpism since its earliest days. One of his most vehement arguments seeking to excuse Trump's obvious incompetence is that at least he doesn't want to get us into any more foreign wars. The Trump coalition agenda, and thus Dad's entire political philosophy, is moored on the suspicion of, and disdain for, the U.S. federal government–particularly its penchant for military adventurism.
Watching a person's formely-held, seemingly deep convictions dissipate in real-time that way has been deeply disconcerting, to say the last. Even before the nightmare of Trump's second term, witnessing all of the people who you respected in your adolescence forsake all that you understood them to hold dear will cause you to question your sanity. And I have. Oh, how I have.
"You should switch to ChatGPT, then, because OpenAI is." I offered.
"No, I shouldn't either." He responds.
"Why not?"
"Because Anthropic has about the best AI models out there."
The waitress takes our order. A steak sub for me, an Italian for my brother, Dad gets a small Holy Shiitake pizza. We don't let the waitress take the beer menu. Dad describes the use of Claude to augment the results of the LIGO project, an experiment which verified Einstein's theories about gravitational waves.
The discussion moves to physics. To the theories of Penrose. The collapse of the wave function isn't real. The legend of Feynman. There's only one electron, from which all things in the universe emanate. Quantum superposition. My brother compares the idea to Jesus feeding the multitudes from a single loaf of bread. Head Games plays in the background.
About M. I. Reynolds
M. I. Reynolds is an independent journalist, storyteller, and tech enthusiast committed to uncovering the Truth. Reynolds highlights working-class stories at the intersection of labor, politics, history, community, technology, and the arts. He entered the world of investigative community journalism after discovering that his great-grandfather, Virdie Reynolds, helped build, lead, and inspire the southern community of Fairhope, Alabama during the 1920s. His goal is to carry on the family legacy and inspire new generations of working class people through concise, intelligent storytelling.