We’re going to have a new national holiday next year, which is going to be called, rather clumsily, Juneteenth National Independence Day.
You can quibble about the name, and I’m prepared to (wouldn’t Emancipation Day been more to the point? Or Freedom Day, as the pic suggests?) but you can’t quibble about the sentiment, and Joe Biden won’t—he’ll be signing that holiday into law as soon as he gets over his jet lag from his European jaunt—even though we won’t get that day off until next year. June 19th is only two days away as of this writing, and a Saturday this year besides.
We need more holidays here in the US in any case, as I have previously pointed out. The US will only have 12 even after Juneteenth is instituted. Cambodia has 22. India has 21, and no, one of them is not Extend Your Car Warranty Day. So, we needed to catch up. Putting Juneteenth in between Memorial Day and the 4th gives us a brace of summer holidays to match the winter triad of Thanksgiving-Christmas-New Year’s, at a time of year when it is much more comfortable to drink outside. I know progress when I see it.
And a national holiday is an easy lift for Congress, eager to sponge after the votes of black Americans. Easier than actually making it a snap to let them vote, for example, or to figure out how to keep cops from killing them on videos. Republicans are dead set against both of those things, but Juneteenth grubbed up votes from both sides of the aisle, with no one opposing it in the Senate, and only 14 Republicans in the house against it.
These 14 Republicans, all from outback districts in the South and West, claim that the new holiday is “divisive,” and that they were just listening to their constituents when they opposed it.
I believe that, but I also believe that their constituents were actually saying things like, “We already got one (N-word) day. Why do they get two?” These are not people who crab about divisiveness, because they are the same people who are always talking about Texas seceding, or re-arranging state borders so they can quit being out-voted by them college-educateds and people of color.
What holidays would make these people happy? Sure, Trump Day, but what day would that be? The ex-Caucasian-in-Chief just had a birthday, and what with Juneteenth on the books, making the 14th a holiday as well would be crowding up the month. Same with making the day he had sex with Stormy Daniels a national holiday, because that was in July of 2006 and would push up against the 4th.
Maybe Put A Flag or Four On Your Pickup Truck Day, Pal could be considered, and it would have the additional benefit of limiting redneck goon fake patriotism displays to one day a year. That would probably be its downfall. Also, people calling it Small Wang Road Rage Day.
January 6th as Fake News Day? Naw, Democrats would want to call it Big Lie Day. That’s never going to get through Congress.
We can wait for Trump to die. Some of us would want to use that occasion to build a giant disco over his grave, so that as many people as possible could dance on it at the same time, with cheap beer and roomy, no-gender restrooms located centrally in the structure for obvious reasons, but some people would feel a sense of loss at Trump’s demise, and a holiday would console them. And I would certainly drink, set off fireworks, blow off air horns and yell, “Trump’s still dead!” at my neighbors all day long.
We currently don’t have any national holidays from President’s Day in February until M-Day kicks off the summer, so if Trump could gulp that fatal cheeseburger sometime in March or April, it would give us a break from that current long stretch of soulless work days.
But, hey, let him know he doesn’t have to wait that long on my account.
You can quibble about the name, and I’m prepared to (wouldn’t Emancipation Day been more to the point? Or Freedom Day, as the pic suggests?) but you can’t quibble about the sentiment, and Joe Biden won’t—he’ll be signing that holiday into law as soon as he gets over his jet lag from his European jaunt—even though we won’t get that day off until next year. June 19th is only two days away as of this writing, and a Saturday this year besides.
We need more holidays here in the US in any case, as I have previously pointed out. The US will only have 12 even after Juneteenth is instituted. Cambodia has 22. India has 21, and no, one of them is not Extend Your Car Warranty Day. So, we needed to catch up. Putting Juneteenth in between Memorial Day and the 4th gives us a brace of summer holidays to match the winter triad of Thanksgiving-Christmas-New Year’s, at a time of year when it is much more comfortable to drink outside. I know progress when I see it.
And a national holiday is an easy lift for Congress, eager to sponge after the votes of black Americans. Easier than actually making it a snap to let them vote, for example, or to figure out how to keep cops from killing them on videos. Republicans are dead set against both of those things, but Juneteenth grubbed up votes from both sides of the aisle, with no one opposing it in the Senate, and only 14 Republicans in the house against it.
These 14 Republicans, all from outback districts in the South and West, claim that the new holiday is “divisive,” and that they were just listening to their constituents when they opposed it.
I believe that, but I also believe that their constituents were actually saying things like, “We already got one (N-word) day. Why do they get two?” These are not people who crab about divisiveness, because they are the same people who are always talking about Texas seceding, or re-arranging state borders so they can quit being out-voted by them college-educateds and people of color.
What holidays would make these people happy? Sure, Trump Day, but what day would that be? The ex-Caucasian-in-Chief just had a birthday, and what with Juneteenth on the books, making the 14th a holiday as well would be crowding up the month. Same with making the day he had sex with Stormy Daniels a national holiday, because that was in July of 2006 and would push up against the 4th.
Maybe Put A Flag or Four On Your Pickup Truck Day, Pal could be considered, and it would have the additional benefit of limiting redneck goon fake patriotism displays to one day a year. That would probably be its downfall. Also, people calling it Small Wang Road Rage Day.
January 6th as Fake News Day? Naw, Democrats would want to call it Big Lie Day. That’s never going to get through Congress.
We can wait for Trump to die. Some of us would want to use that occasion to build a giant disco over his grave, so that as many people as possible could dance on it at the same time, with cheap beer and roomy, no-gender restrooms located centrally in the structure for obvious reasons, but some people would feel a sense of loss at Trump’s demise, and a holiday would console them. And I would certainly drink, set off fireworks, blow off air horns and yell, “Trump’s still dead!” at my neighbors all day long.
We currently don’t have any national holidays from President’s Day in February until M-Day kicks off the summer, so if Trump could gulp that fatal cheeseburger sometime in March or April, it would give us a break from that current long stretch of soulless work days.
But, hey, let him know he doesn’t have to wait that long on my account.
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