It is a rare weekend, where Amber is not burdened by working one or both days (though it is also the eve of Columbus Day, which she must work because ailing pets have more respect for the indigenous people of the Americas than state employees do). I suggest openly that we do something with someone. Amber gives her typical "I don't know" until Chris has suggested a firm plan.

We have not seen him since the summer, a fact that is visually evident given his longer hair and salt-and-pepper beard, which suits him. Sarah T. looks as she always does and thus would give no indication as to the passing of time. He has been buried under work and personal projects, but he says he did not realize how much he missed seeing people, us in specific.

Prior to seeing Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 11/9, we eat at the local noodle house, dependable fare given that I basically only order one combination of broth, noodles, and protein. The conversation hovers over pop culture, television shows we've enjoyed. Chris, the homeschooled son of physics professors who deprived him of the cultural touchstones of fluffy 90s television, does a fine job of keeping up, though I'm mindful of potential deficits in his knowledge of vampire slaying and solipsistic doctors.

When the conversation finds its way to politics -- all conversation of even acquaintances finds the gravity of this topic whether anyone means to or not, and Brett Kavanaugh was just announced to be confirmed to a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court -- Chris says he wants to avoid the topic because it is depressing. However, we are going to see the latest Michael Moore propaganda, so it is only a momentary reprieve.

Though I enjoyed Fahrenheit 9/11 and Bowling for Columbine to the extent one is supposed to -- they enraged me but gave too nebulous or ineffective a target -- I am not a fan of Michael Moore. His pandering and omission does more harm than good when it comes to getting his point across, unless said point is to utterly demonize his opponent (some of whom, granted, are demons whom CS Lewis's Screwtape would adulate). I read one of his books -- I can't recall which -- and found his rhetorical posture downright condescending. He does not merely preach to the choir but stokes them into believing they are surrounded on all sides by villains. I deride that tack on the right wing, finding it ridiculous that these ideologues have so fervent of followers, and I would find it intellectually and morally disingenuous to look the other way because the perpetrator was on "my side." When I tried one summer to run a documentary filmmaking elective with my residents -- the state did not care to bless us with promised equipment and my students did not care period -- I showed them one of his lesser documentaries to point out all the flaws in propaganda, the logical fallacies and pandering which served as his backbone. He was too small a step up from Project Veritas in places. His stunts are cringeworthy in their pointlessness ("I am going to try to perform a citizen's arrest of an elected official!" "I am going to try to get this person to drink poisoned water!" "I am going to fill a truck full of Flint water and then... spray it on the governor's lawn?")

That said, I am a leftist, socialist lowercase-democrat, coastal elite (by dint of having a middle-class job and a college education, which I think ought hardly to qualify me). It is almost inevitable that I would watch the next entry in his oeuvre so that I might exercise my forearm by furiously shaking my fist at the screen.

The only place it played was the wealthy enclave of Rhinebeck. As such, the theater was nearly filled with late middle-aged people who, in their cable knit sweaters and shawls, were visibly liberal at a distance. Then again, one could hardly expect Trumpian conservatives to fill the seats to watch their god-king excoriated.

People literally clapped at points, as though this were a theatrical production and Moore could hear their agreement. I admittedly clapped once, and alone, because it seemed like the thing to do and the topic of this buckshot documentary landed on the plight of teachers. To my surprise and begrudging appreciation, Moore spent a small portion of the time tearing into the spineless compromise of the Democrats, how they bear more blame than they are given for giving us this cancerous growth on the soul of our country. He sheds light on the fact that Obama went to Flint -- willfully poisoned by Governor Scott for profit -- which the residents thought might signal that he would declare a state of emergency and save their families from further lead poisoning and Legionnaire's Disease. Instead, he touched a glass of the water to his lips in a stunt to show how safe the water was to drink -- multiple camera angles make clear he did not actually let any of it into his mouth -- and then left. As one resident put it, "When Obama got off that plane, he was my president. But he wasn't my president after he did that." (I am paraphrasing.) Then, he apparently told the military that they could perform bombing and shooting drills in Flint without bothering to tell the residents. There was a surfeit of abandoned buildings and it already looked so dilapidated, so what could the harm be?

The audience became noticeably less enthusiastic during these interludes and did not understand that this documentary found reason to neglect to mention that the government did declare a state of emergency in January of 2017 -- possibly too late for Moore to recut his movie to better match the facts. I can give no such excuse for suddenly and without prior notice including Michigan in Jade Helm 15 exercises, which would be fine fodder for conspiracy theories since the rest of the (well-prepared, well-informed, still conspiratorial) states are in the Southwest.

The movie ends. The four of us sit in silence until the credits are over, until minutes after the house lights rise. When we get up to leave, there are maybe fifteen people who remain as though they are waiting for the post credit scene where Thanos says he will do it himself.

We leave, and I want to rant about what we've seen. What else is the point of a Michael Moore joint but this? However, there is no convenient place to do this at this hour, in the mist of an early October night. We stand on an empty porch near my car until Sarah grows worried I, in my grumbling, will wake anyone who may be asleep on the second floor.

"We do look like we may be casing the joint," Chris notes.

"We are white thirtysomethings in Rhinebeck," I argue back, "the police will not care."

They concede my point, but we move one building over, to the porch of a bagel place, the only person within a man mopping the floors who decides on sight that we aren't a threat (by dint of being white thirtysomethings in Rhinebeck).

When I left Fahrenheit 9/11 fifteen years ago, I was fired with righteous fury because it all seemed so obvious. The battle lines were drawn, and I could see the solution to Bush through democratic involvement and direct action. Coming out of this movie, I do not see a clear path and I don't think there is one. I mostly joke that we ought to roll a guillotine in front of Congress and remind them that revolutions have found a cure to this sort of problem before, but that is a statement of exasperation and hopelessness. I do not actually want them dead -- or, rather, I don't want them killed but I may not weep at their obituaries -- but I do want them to understand that they should fear us, the wronged citizenry. That is the only glimmer of light in the whole movie: when people realized we number in the millions and they, in the hundreds. When we stand up, they back down, only they convince us to fight one another while they vote themselves more raises and tax cuts. I don't believe either party in large part cares about the electorate. We are their dupes. Obviously, I reserve a larger part of my indignation for what passes for the Republicans, those who degrade themselves to prop up Trump after saying he would destroy our nation if elected and we would deserve it.

I do not think there will be some magical blue wave that will right all the wrongs a malignant narcissist perpetrated upon us these last two years. Too many irrevocable actions have been undertaken, most recently Kavanaugh being installed for life, and the Democrats are close to quislings at this point. They would be just too happy to have their own malignant narcissists rather than living up to their names. Our country has faced dark times in the past and has almost defined itself by overcoming these, but we have given too much and too readily in an act of politics we treat as a game rather than the strangulation of our republic. I could envision the restoration of our country after the corruption that followed 9/11. I cannot imagine what it will take when we continue to vote for national tragedies based on the violence of their empty rhetoric.

It is only a few minutes of my despondent prattling before Amber says, "So..." and I understand from that solitary syllable that she has had enough of this and would like to go home to rest up before studying her Sunday away. I hug our friends and say that I would like to see them sooner than two months.

I don't expect the world to end in the meantime.

Soon in Xenology: Superpowers. Pico.

last watched: Bojack Horseman
reading: It Can't Happen Here
listening: Yeah Yeah Yeahs