Choking on Our Words
This essay was updated and expanded in May 2023.
My words are failing me. Writing, of course, is only a proxy for understanding the world. But, as it teeters on a precipice, I’m trying to find words that will make sense of it. No matter what our politicians tell us, the world is not black and white. Instead, it’s full of grays. We encounter these shades of gray daily but are often blind to them. And our words reflect that.
Reactionary rhetoric has subsumed logic and intelligent commentary. Truth and discourse are eroding. “Alternative facts,” said with straight faces, are maddening. Words are given no respect; we toss them around with little thought but with a lot of anger. And finding our voices has become more difficult. That’s why so many are yelling.
I’m an artist. And for the past seven years, politics has been my exclusive subject. Under the guise of the Chamomile Tea Party, I take old propaganda posters and remix them with new text and imagery about the sorry state of American political discourse. Finding the right words is critical to my work.
After the election, suddenly, I was amassing a substantial backlog of material for my posters, provided every day by Trump’s tweets and Mitch McConnell’s and Paul Ryan’s plans to remake this country into a rich man’s paradise. Each unbelievable pronouncement was more incredible than…
