RBG

[Editor's note: It's pretty easy to write a generic blog post for Puke on Your Birthday. Anyone can do it. Let me show you. Let me take you step-by-step through the process.]

 

[pick an image from the first six or seven results of a Google Image search]

[First, get angry about something that every like-minded person in your hivemind is also angry about, then take that thing and selfishly apply it to your own personal emotions.] It's so depressing for so many fucking reasons that, when Pam told me that Ruth Bader Ginsberg had died, the very first image that popped into my head was a smiling Mitch McConnell. [Move to the next paragraph after making a stark statement.]

 

[Begin explaining, but make sure you start with disparaging yourself, because remember, this is all about you.] Primarily, it's depressing that I have become so fucking callous and jaded that a human is dead and sympathy is like the third or fourth emotion that I felt. [Clarify that the person you are talking about is the hero, and you yourself are the villain.] A good human being, at that, if all accounts are true. [Make sure you don't cite your claims—no room for that in a blog post.] A valiant champion of human rights—women's rights, more importantly—and a believer in the democracy that I wish for my country. [If this is a eulogy, make sure you clarify with the usual "I didn't know her, but..." stuff that's important so you don't come off as that conceited.] I didn't know her personally and I am not well versed in her life and legacy [Don't miss your opportunity to make a parenthetical sidebar about some petty bullshit] (and, if we're being completely honest here, I kind of held her at a bit of an arm's length the past few years, as her deserved popularity occasionally dipped into memehood, which is something I've never been comfortable with, but that's neither here nor there). 

 

[Time for a short declarative sentence that serves as a rebuttal to what you just said.] But I should be. She seemed like a wonderful person, and regardless of anything to do with politics, a good person is dead, and she deserves to be mourned. [Bring it back to yourself, and how this made you feel.] It took me a second to recoil in horror, doubly so, after realizing that that was not my first reaction. These last four years, and to a greater extent, these last six months have hardened my emotions well past I would ever want them to be. [Not good.] Not good.

[Here's where you pivot and make the case that it's okay to feel these emotions, if the general populace will allow it.] And yet, the acknowledgment of the fact that I'm not following through with one my new year's resolutions [don't forget to go back and hyperlink to previous blog posts] is clashing violently with the bare, painful truth that, as an American citizen, and as someone who gets inordinately upset when life is factually unfair, that this is actually one of those moments when I should be upset [repeat the same thing two or three more times for emphasis, and make sure you smash that italics button], when I should be angry, when I should be fucking pissed and when I should want to smash a fucking brick in McConnell's face if I had the opportunity [always remember that anyone could be reading this, so maybe cool it down a bit with another parenthetical addressing the hypothetical boogeyman] (relax, FBI reading this, I would never have the balls or the blind angry stupidity to actually go through with such a desire). 

 

[Do a bit of explaining at this point, just in case someone is reading this and doesn't know what you are talking about—don't worry, you can reverse this in a couple paragraphs when you acknowledge that of course everyone knows what you're talking about.] As you've no doubt read about already (or, depending on your persuasion, [take a deserved dig at a couple shitbag conservative talking heads] learned from a gleefully bloodlusting Hannity or Carlson), this means that the Republican Senate gets to approve pretty much anyone trump picks to be on the Supreme Court. This will give Conservatives a very clear majority on the highest bench in the justice system. 

[That "righteous anger" that you spoke about a minute ago can begin to show itself in your choice of words in this paragraph. Use a word like "galling."] It's particularly galling, however, because almost the same exact thing happened during Obama's final months—a sitting Supreme Court judge passed away, allowing Obama to choose someone for the Senate to approve. He chose someone, and the Republican Senate basically did nothing. They made up some bullshit about not approving judges in an election year. Clearly, they didn't want to approve a liberal judge [quick, do something to prove your liberal bonafides] (Merrick Garland, Obama's pick, wasn't even that liberal), and made up a lie to delay as long as possible. It worked. And now, after using that logic to ignore a Democratic president's pick, McConnell plans to do the complete opposite. [To really hammer home your point, don't be afraid to use some short rhetorical questions.] Election year? Who cares? They are in power, they do what they want.

[Okay, here it is, the point where you reverse again, blaming yourself for even typing all this, which is probably some sort of defense mechanism against the hypothetical reader who you can just picture rolling their eyes at this point.] I don't know why I'm typing all this. If you give a shit enough to care about any of this, then you already know the sorry tale, and reading it again on some [don't forget to shit on the idea of a blog!] shitty blog is just serving to make you angrier. It's making me angry just fucking typing it. 

[Maybe let the blog post start to go off the rails a bit at this point—you can start to question yourself, because that will mean the true point will land harder when you decide to snap back into focus.] I honestly don't even know why I'm doing this. Maybe it's just my first reaction whenever I feel helpless—I run to Puke on Your Birthday. If so, that's sad, but what can ya do except just ignore me like you hopefully usually do.

[Remind everyone that you are writing for yourself, and indulging a suicidal tendency by publishing private thoughts on a public internet website—all this is another defense mechanism.] I think the exercise is also helpful as a reminder to myself that I could easily go too far with all of this anger and hate. [Give an example at this point of how dark your mind is while writing this.] Like, I woke up thinking about burning bridges if trump wins—not talking to uncles, cursing out cousins, avoiding certain friends for the rest of my life—and sometimes I need to take a step back and wonder what the fuck I'm even doing here.

[Okay, here's the tricky part—you have to walk the tight rope of not wanting to sound so sure of yourself and your beliefs, but blowing the dog whistle to all those who agree with you that, yeah, no matter what you write here, you believe in it too.] It's so easy to hang my hat on leftism (democratic socialism, liberalism, whatever you wanna call it) because I tell myself that the ultimate goal is making sure that all humans live comfortably / have basic needs / don't die, and that, I tell myself, is an unequivocal good thing. I still believe that, and any non-asshole should have an easy time believing it too. 

 

[You started with how you are right, but now pivot and say how the fact that you believe you are right about the point you are trying to make consequentially makes you look bad.] But sometimes I feel like it's easy to get lost in it, i.e. sometimes it's easy to slip into an "us vs. them" mentality, which itself is almost antithetical to the whole point of the anger in the first place. [Make an oxymoronic statement to show how mixed up you are in the head.] Everyone deserves basic human rights and dignity, even if they are a dumb fucking trump supporter. [Don't forget, this is all about how much you suck, drop another insult directed at the self.] Directing hate toward the simply ignorant makes me the bad guy. I don't want to be the bad guy. [Acknowledge that you've made this point many times before.] I don't know how many times I can say this without starting to sound like the most verbose hypocrite you've ever known—there's a difference between being right and being good, and I cannot seem to find the line most of the time.

[Maybe it's time for some clarifying statements, i.e. did you really mean what you just said, or are there exceptions?] There's room for empathy for everyone except those who lack empathy for others. I admit that assuming that every trump supporter lacks empathy and is thus "evil" is a terrible, terrible thing to think, and completely unconstructive. [Pull no punches.] Some people are just truly dumb, and wouldn't even consider how their actions (i.e. voting Republican) could negatively those less fortunate. [Pull no punches even when you are making broad generalizations—don't worry, you can backtrack later to say that the fact that you pulled no punches also makes you an asshole.] It just doesn't occur to them because they are brainwashed by conservative media and don't have the ability to use critical thinking skills and logic to figure out what's really going on here. My point of writing all this is not to say that these people suck—they do, but my point is that the people that suck because they are fucking idiots deserve love and forgiveness. They do. [Acknowledge that everything you just typed is easier typed than followed, and that you are a hypocrite for even typing it.] I'm struggling with that, and always will (because I too am an asshole), but it's a truth I can acknowledge.

[Acknowledge that you may have lost the thread at this point] Jesus, where was I even going with all this? [and admit that you don't even really know what the point of this blog post is by answering your own question with an answer that begins with "I guess."] I guess I was trying to say that the unfortunate passing of Ruth Bader Ginsberg makes me sad and angry for all the wrong reasons. I should be able to silently mourn someone who made this world better. Instead, I'm angry at the people who are using her death as an excuse to consolidate power, and I'm angry at the people who allow those people to do it.

[And if you really don't know where this blog post is headed, then you could always throw up your hands and admit that you are exhausted from thinking about it enough to write about it in the first place.] And at the end of the day, I'm just fucking tired of being angry and sad all the goddamn time. I guess that's my point. [Don't forget to make a completely unnecessary reference to some indie rock band in some lame attempt at earning that cred] I was so happy at 7:30 PM last Friday night because I had just downloaded a wild new pop punk album, but then by 8 PM, the scary reality of my country's dying democracy smacked me on the back of the head yet again. [Make an assumption about future behavior even though you are writing in advance.] I haven't slept much since. [Make another indie rock reference but make it more oblique this time, but also link to it in case anyone wants to feel good about themselves for getting the reference.] I'm seeing enemies everywhere. Maybe they really are everywhere, I dunno.

[Start trying to bring this home, since no doubt at this point you've rambled enough. Don't forget that this is all about you.] Nothing about this makes me anything but depressed and pissed off. [Okay, it's probably time for a run-on sentence, which serves both as a symbol of how rabid and breathless your beliefs are but also serves as a stalling mechanism before you really start to bring this to a close.] Not the fact that a noble hero and role model passed away, not the fact that her grave will be immediately pissed upon by hypocritical scum, not the fact that I'm so fucking numb to real human emotions that my snap reaction to an actual human death was more anger and more bitterness at how unfair it all is, that I didn't even stop to consider how unfair this was to Ginsberg, how she tried to uphold an entire democracy on her frail 87-year-old shoulders, and almost crossed the finish line, and how she is used unfairly by both sides, either as a torch she never should've been forced to become, or as a craven opportunity to strip away the very rights that she herself worked so hard to uphold in her lifetime. [Make sure your high school English teacher doesn't have your phone number.]

[It's time to make a call to inaction.] I think the main thing that I need to focus on now is to stay off the internet. [Write a tacit reminder that you acknowledge how pointless this blog post is, and have the whole time.] There are no new takes in this scenario. I knew the second after I found out about her passing that the Senate was going to shove a new judge in there. It's inevitable. [Gotta add more rhetorical questions here, the laziest way to make a point, on a blog that traffics in lazy writing.] Why obsess over it? Why listen to tired liberal takes about Republicans being hypocrites (though true) and tired conservative takes about "all politicians being corrupt so who cares" (much less true)? 

[Toss off another niche pop culture reference if you can, the more absurd the better—remember you gotta hang a lampshade on the self-deprecation at every turn.] The best I can do is wear Ted Mosby's Sensory Deprivator 5000 as I walk into the voting booth, and then pray that Joe Biden grows some fucking balls and packs the court. [You're definitely nearing the end by now, and hopefully by this point you've plucked a true point and purpose out of thin air. Write it here.] Because that's really what's going on here—the death of RBG is also the death of the old slogan "they go low, we go high." I wish our country could survive following that creed, but looking around, it's clear that we can't. Pack the courts, get rid of the filibuster, go nuclear, whatever ya gotta do to save the democracy. [Now make it more compact, and make sure to include a choice swear word to really make your point as stark and plain as possible.] They go low, we go lower. Fuck it. 

[But you can't end it on that curse word, so maybe string some pithy sentence fragments together that serve as a cheap way to pull the ripcord.] R.I.P. Ruth Bader Ginsberg. R.I.P. basic human dignity. R.I.P. sanity. R.I.P. America.

[Now come up with some ludicrous format to present these raw emotions in a completely unreadable fashion. Make sure it's meta—the kids love meta. You could even acknowledge how meta it is by breaking the fourth wall at the end of the blog post and talking directly to the audience [I'm sorry guys, I know this is a defense mechanism [Now try to really escape the labyrinth by closing the brackets for good after sharing how you really feel [I feel nothing, that was the point. I'm numb. This is over.]]]]