HOPE, FOR A CHANGE

LegalDispatch 108

Aug 16, 2024

Greetings from San Jose, California, where I’m attending GalaxyCon this weekend and just delivered the introduction to a forthcoming Marvel omnibus. Yesterday, I also turned in the script for the third issue of the yet-to-be-announced Star Wars Thing. It’s easily the craziest Star Wars story I’ve ever done and, perhaps, the craziest comic book script I’ve written as well.

My youngest daughter went through a phase (actually, she might still be going through it), where she would consistently ask me if she was my favorite child. One of my go-to responses to this query was: “You’re my favorite Sara. And you get to decide if there’s a comma in that sentence.”

Similarly, feel free to keep or omit the comma in the title of this week’s newsletter edition.

Watching Kamala Harris deliver her stump speech at one of her recent rallies, I was struck by an emotion that felt alien to me: Hope. (Trump supporters, please don’t tune out — there’s stuff in here for you, too, I promise.)

Initially, this struck me as a new emotion. Hope. There was a newness to it, a frisson of unfamiliarity. The sentiment felt alien, but I liked it.

And then I realized that I wasn’t actually experiencing a new emotion. Rather, I was remembering an old one. And I realized that I could be forgiven for having forgotten the sensation of hope because, well, it’s been eight years.

You see, I have this theory that even Trump’s most ardent supporters are tired and vexed by the long shadow he’s cast over America during the past eight years. Like someone in an abusive relationship, they may love love him sincerely, but are subconsciously miserable, slowly being ground down by the endless torrent of mendacity, negativity, fecklessness, and incompetence. Make no mistake, although Biden was elected in 2020 (no, really, he was), Trump never really went anywhere, remaining a central figure in American public life, continuing to spew lies and stoke flames of anger, resentment, and bigotry.

Again, you might love the guy or you may merely tolerate him in the name of lower taxes or because you side with him in the Culture Wars, but make no mistake: His presence is eating away at your soul every bit as much as he eats away at mine.

Yascha Mounk published a Substack piece recently which spoke to how I’ve been feeling for the past eight years. I commend the entire piece to your attention, but this was one of the many quotes that jumped out at me:

Popular culture was once ironic and self-aware, poking fun at the absurdities of elite progressives even as it affirmed much of their worldview; today, it is unremittingly censorious, ever ready to sit in judgment on anyone who has a divergent opinion.

For sure, Mounk was talking about the identitarian Left here, but the censoriousness of which he speaks and the Victim Olympics we’ve all been playing for the past eight years, those phenomena are symptoms of America’s Trump Era. By turns, he’s forced us or compelled us to hate ourselves, hate each other, and hate America. His entire campaign is based on the premise that things are terrible and will only get worse — IF he’s not reelected, of course, as though his prior four years in office never happened.

In contrast, Kamala and her running mate have laid out a platform steeped in hope and joy and, despite Kamala being a part of the current administration, a turning of the page and closing the chapter on Trump. The more I hear from them, the more I’m struck by how miserable I’ve been these past eight years. And I’m writing this because I suspect I’m not alone. America may not be perfect, life may not be perfect, we may not be perfect, but everything was better before Trump descended that golden escalator into all of our lives.

Bottom line, we didn’t always feel this way. And we have a chance, in November, to finally stop feeling this way. For my part, I’m going to seize that chance with both hands.

SHOOTING MY MOUTH OFF

Well, I warned you that I was doing a lot of chatting about In Any Lifetime and the torrent of interviews continues. (Brief digression: In Any Lifetime is selling incredibly well, but I’m an over-acheiver, so if you haven’t ordered it, I’d like to take this opportunity to encourage you to do so. You can get the book in paperback, on Kindle, or as an audiobook by clicking any of those hyperlinks. Thank you.)

This was a fun chat. You can check it out by clicking here.

I also spoke with The Inside Flap podcast…

You can check out that interview here.

Today, my interview with The Writing Table just went live.

You can find that podcast here.

And last but not least, you’ll recall that a couple of months ago, I returned to my roots on Long Island to chat with News 12 for their Summer Book club. You can watch that interview below:

THE ADVENTURES OF TIM COURAGE

Those of you familiar with my work or with this newsletter know that I am a huge fan of the TV show, Wiseguy. For the past several years, I’ve been fortunate enough to have become good friends with the series’ original showrunner, David J. Burke.

For the past couple of years, I’ve been helping David with his passion project, a graphic novel called The Adventures of Tim Courage. My role has strictly been as a facilitator, but it’s afforded me the opportunity to work with some of my favorite collaborators Sedat Oezgen (PROJECT RECURSION), Beni Lobel (Fragmentation), Yen Nitro (X-Men: Days of Future Past — Doomsday), and Dave Sharpe (my recent Green Lantern short stories).

We’ve reached a point where we’re finally comfortable teasing some looks from the book. Consider this a LegalDispatch exclusive first look:

More to come!

WRITER’S DIGEST UNIVERSITY

Next Saturday (8/24), I’m participating in Writer’s Digest’s annual Science Fiction & Fantasy Virtual Conference. I’ll be presenting my first-ever webinar (pray for me). It’s about writing for genre across multiple mediums.

You can learn more about the conference by clicking here.

LegalDispatch

HOPE, FOR A CHANGE

LegalDispatch 108

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