America is an angry country. It always has been. Those who came before us cleared out the locals by any means necessary, then sanitized the genocidal slaughter as they self-immortalized their deeds into the stuff of legend.

After the sun dried the corpses, we set upon each other. Our history is splattered in blood and steeped in unrestrained hostility toward all living creatures.

People in countries all over the world trip out on America. Not only do we make films the rest of the planet flocks to see — we are living in them as well. America is so larger-than-life, our reality kills millions of us each year.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not complaining; I’m just saying that part of what the rest of the world considers to be exceptional about America is our ability to bring the pain over great distances at a high rate of speed, and our seemingly insatiable lust to do it again and again.

America has defined the size of the world. For now at least, things are as we make them.

Americans are hard on every possible thing in America, from our natural environment to city infrastructures. Our greatest contempt and top-shelf brutality, however, we reserve to unleash upon ourselves and one another.

Even after all the science, advances in medicine and technological breakthroughs, which have brought about possibilities that were once almost impossible to imagine, many of us long for the pungent ooze of a stagnant past. Ideas of equality and common decency often are seen as being weak or an abomination. Why? I don’t know. It’s one of those things that makes us exceptional.

When you think about it, some of the greatest examples of American music are, in many ways, blood diamonds. You think blues, gospel and soul came from everyone getting along and living comfortably? Billie Holiday’s tone came from all the hugs and free breakfasts? Jazz, America’s greatest single cultural export, came to be because Jelly Roll Morton didn’t spend most of his life being made to feel like a second-class citizen? To listen to this music, conscientious people might have to accommodate what they are unable to overlook and accept that which they cannot change.

Being an American is to understand where you come from and choosing whether you want to repeat the past or invent the future. A huge number of us have chosen the former. The proof is everywhere.

There are not just a few people opposed to same-sex marriage in America. There are millions and millions.

During the president’s recent visit to Oklahoma, protestors stood across the street from the hotel where he was staying, waving their Stars and Bars flags. Not racist; it’s a heritage thing.

Some think we’re cool

Countless Americans see the recent efforts to neutralize Iran’s nuclear ambitions as mere Neville Chamberlain–esque, Kenyan trickster commie-islamofacism — the workings of an arrogant, Israel-hating tyrant who despises America and wants to open the borders for all his buds in ISIS to stream in by the busload. In fact, they’re probably already here, draining your wallet to buy lobsters, steak and extra Qurans with SNAP coupons, thus robbing your children of their subliterate future.

This is who we are. The world outside of America gets it. Some of them think we’re cool, others think we’re violent morons, but they all know we are not to be fucked with. We are armed, we are dangerous, and we will come over there.

Every country needs a leader. A leader who not only personifies the spirit of that country but one who epitomizes it. It can’t be Obama, right? Biggest American blunder of the 21st century! All that peacemongering and compromise. America does not negotiate with terrorists — and almost every country in the world is run by terrorists! (Not Canada, although we could beat their asses and take their shit by next weekend. We’d be treated as liberators!)

So who’s it gonna be for 2016? Hillary the crim (probably a lesbian) and her lying, adulterer husband? She personifies the greatest nation on Earth? She is a billboard for our values and dreams? No way! If elected, she’ll build a mosque on the front lawn of the White House on day one and start on the concentration camps the next! No! Not Hillary!

In a nation of hundreds of millions of people, there is one man born to lead. A man who stands head and shoulders above the rest. A lone alpha who burns incandescent in a vast wasteland of darkness.

When asked to serve in Vietnam, he said no and took a deferment. He took a few of them, actually, because he is his own man.

He got married. The merger didn’t work. She was fired. So was the next one. It’s business, not personal — like America!

He has overcome adversity. Like bankruptcy. And with an almost Michelangelo-like genius, he conquered the K2 challenge of his hair.

He is what America needs. A man with so much self-confidence that, if you put him in the Oval Office, some of it will no doubt trickle down to you.

Who is this man who will put all other world leaders in their place? The same man who just read a cellphone number, allegedly Lindsey Graham’s private line, out loud so the world could hear. (Hey, I laughed.) This man is America.

So bend over, relax and hold onto something solid, because here he comes — here comes Donald Trump 2016. And when he puts it in, you’ll know who your daddy is.



Look for your weekly fix from the one and only Henry Rollins right here every Thursday, and come back tomorrow for the awesomely annotated playlist for his Sunday KCRW broadcast.

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