Robert Reich – Paola Trimarco

Still surfacing from a deep night’s sleep, I checked my inbox to find an email from the US Social Security Administration. The subject header read: ‘Social Security Applauds Passage of Legislation Providing Historic Tax Relief for Seniors.’ That woke me up quickly.

This is an agency of the US government that used to communicate, like other government agencies, in dry non-partisan language. It gets worse in the body of the email:

‘The bill ensures that nearly 90% of Social Security beneficiaries will no longer pay federal income taxes on their benefits, providing meaningful and immediate relief to seniors who have spent a lifetime contributing to our nation’s economy. “This is a historic step forward for America’s seniors,” said Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano. “For nearly 90 years, Social Security has been a cornerstone of economic security for older Americans. By significantly reducing the tax burden on benefits, this legislation reaffirms President Trump’s promise to protect Social Security and helps ensure that seniors can better enjoy the retirement they’ve earned.”’

Since when do civil servants (as we call them in the UK) publicly praise the policies of any president or prime minister? Worse still – to allude to political campaign promises? Short answer – when that civil servant is Frank Bisignano, former CEO of Fiserv (a payment processing enterprise), a staunch Republican and one of the richest people in America. Tr*mp appointed him Commissioner of the SSA soon after retaking office in January of this year (yes, it’s not even 6 months yet).

This being from the SSA, the email got away with not mentioning how America’s most vulnerable would have their financial support lacerated. Medicaid in under another government agency: the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). I’m waiting for their email to all US citizens and suspect I’m going to have a long wait.

The next email I opened also had a thing or two to say about the One Big Beautiful Bill – I hate even writing in this hyperbolic language. But it’s clever to use the propagandist parlance in legislation so that, like it or not, we all start sounding like MAGA morons.

From Robert Reich:

‘It is a disgrace. It takes more than $1 trillion out of Medicaid — leaving about 12 million Americans without insurance by 2034 — and slashes Food Stamps, to give a giant tax cut to wealthy Americans. It establishes an anti-immigrant police state in America, replete with a standing army of ICE agents and a gulag of detention facilities that transform ICE into the most heavily funded law enforcement agency in the government.’

Reich continues by recounting how moderate Republicans were bullied by the president’s threats and insults, mostly via X and Truth Social.

I retreated from my emails and opened the Le Monde app. One of their top stories covered OBBB – they’ve avoided both the English language and the embarrassing phrase by abbreviating it. They’ve also taken a more objective tone and have expressed all the above – it’s a bill that reduces taxes on the better-off, funds anti-immigration policing and leaves America’s most needy worse off, and that the US president attacked members of his own party to get it passed. Even the purring beauty of the French language doesn’t help to make this more palatable.

What I’ve been reading

Helen Dunmore’s award-winning novel A Spell of Winter has provided the perfect escape from the horrors of American politics. Firstly, the story starts far away from modern America in England soon before the first World War and continues to a few years after the war. Cathy and Rob are siblings living with their grandfather and a servant in an old manor house. The children had been abandoned by their mother and witnessed their father’s declining health in a mental sanitorium. The children grow into teenagers, and their co-dependent relationship becomes incestual and later deadly. The story explores the power of class, of loss and of family. Secondly, the articulateness and sensitivity of the writing made this often disturbing and sad tale – some call it gothic – a delight to read. A snippet from Dunmore’s book: “The past was not something we could live in, because it had nothing to do with life. It was something we lugged about, as heavy as a sack of rotting apples.”

Quite different from the vulgar vernacular and semantic satiation coming out of Washington these days.

I follow Robert Reich, the former Secretary of Labour under Clinton, on Substack. With his constitutional expertise, Reich has been pointing out the authoritarianism and fascism being perpetrated by the MAGA White House. But this isn’t just a grand whinge. Reich also reminds readers of the powers we, especially Americans living in America, have for fighting these assaults on democracy using the courts, protesting in the streets and through boycotting anything Tesla. And there have been some victories. Most importantly, while the messages are serious and often alarming, Reich injects some levity with his weekly caption competition, where he provides the drawings and gives readers the chance to create and find humour even in the grimmest of times.

Okay, you’re thinking it’s easy to laugh at the ridiculousness of the actions and claims spouting out of MAGA. Jon Stewart, SNL and other satirists across the globe are having a field day. True, but still necessary for the soul. Having said that, I’m concerned that while humour is always good medicine, I think we shouldn’t forget the malaise. I don’t wish to be caught off guard, being entertained as world economies collapse and America spirals in fascism.

What I’ve been reading

A serious moment, but I’ll get back to humour.

My growing fandom of Leila Slimani continues with finally reading her first novel, Dans le jardin de l’ogre (In the Ogre’s Garden, available in English). It’s a hard-hitting and thought-provoking story about a female sex addict. Some reviewers of the book have used the word nymphomaniac, but I’m resisting that as nympho is often used lightly in a fun way, and there is little that is amusing about the life of this protagonist. Adele is a journalist married to a surgeon with whom she has had a child. Despite the appearances of midclass normalcy, Adele is in constant need of sexual gratification outside her marriage. It’s a tale of addiction and the solitude that comes with living a double life.

When I tackled this same subject some years ago, I chose to do it in a short story. Reading Slimani has made me wonder if this was the right format as I didn’t give myself room to work in the character’s backstory or develop the topic from different angles as Slimani does. The other difference in our approaches is that I decided to navigate this uncomfortable space by using some gentle humour, but in a way that doesn’t laugh at the protagonist. Addiction is serious business – ‘Every addiction starts with pain and ends with pain’ (Eckart Tolle). I ended up with two versions – a 3,000-word short story and with this flash fiction version that stops before the sex begins (sorry, reader).

LAUREN ON TOUR

She saw her name on a piece of cardboard, the letters in black marker. The woman holding the sign was in her mid-twenties, about the same age as Lauren but taller and bigger, with tanned muscular legs, bulging in cut-off shorts. As Lauren approached her, the woman exposed a toothy grin that looked like a horse neighing. “Hi, I’m Debbie.” She had an American accent. “Welcome to Korea. Is that all your stuff?”

Lauren’s voice was raspy from the flight, but she managed a “Hello. Yeah.”

“Great.” Debbie was too perky for Lauren at that moment.

Outside the terminal, the air was heavy with humidity. A driver from the college was waiting for them – a bit old, Lauren thought, but a possibility. Too bad her body smelled like stale bread and her hair felt greasy and flat. He bowed and averted his gaze as he speedily loaded the suitcases into the van.

Leaving Incheon Airport Lauren’s thoughts jumped around – Debbie and the driver – the bright lights from shops whizzing past – an image of a Korean man, not too muscular, with slender fingers, his eyes would be full of hesitation and awe – the grey high-rises of Seoul in the distance.

Debbie broke the silence and played the role of tour guide, speaking at times with great authority. Though the American had only been there a year herself, she was armed with statistics – population of Seoul, nearly 11 million. Lauren sometimes responded with “yeah,” and other times with “really,” until finally she was forced into answering some questions. She explained where her village was in relation to London, the only place in England where Debbie had been. Lauren avoided any mention her of family, but not wanting to appear unsociable, she explained that she was still fairly new to English teaching. Of course, she did not mention her real reason for being there.

“That’s cool. I mean, don’t sweat it. Lots of people here are teaching English and they have degrees in history or things like that.” Debbie spoke most of the time as if rushing to catch a bus.

Lauren raised her brows to show interest, but in her mind, she was being kissed on her legs.

“This place is cool,” Debbie said, brushing back brunette strands with her fingers. “But hey, it’s not exactly Harvard.”

Lauren just smiled. She returned to her own thoughts, wondering why Debbie was teaching in Korea. Was it all about the money – the tax-free income? Or was Debbie also operating under fabricated pretenses, living a double life?

The American took a swig of bottled water and said, “Yeah, I think you’ll like it here. They treat us well and like, hey, I’m here to help you. Not only am I your roommate – we’re sharing this great apartment – you have the bigger bedroom – and I’m also your mentor at the college.”

Sharing an apartment? Lauren felt as though she had fallen off a diving board and landed hard on her back. Her plans, her months of research, her fantasies – all gone in a flash. No female flat mate would put up with her.

Debbie’s eyes grew wide. “Oh, shit. They told you that you were going to have an apartment to yourself, huh?”

Lauren nodded.

“Yeah, they can be shitty on things like that.” Debbie took another gulp of water. She paused to check Lauren’s reaction, which was still a blank stare. “It’ll be fine, really.”

The next morning wasn’t the next morning, but the next afternoon. Lauren had woken up wildly alert in a strange bed in an unfamiliar room of bare white walls.

When she stepped out of the bathroom into the living room, she noted the linoleum floors and bright tubes of light along the ceiling. She started to think of ways that she could at least make her own bedroom cozy and sensual, a place to melt into a dark silk-covered mattress.

“Hey, Lauren, I’m in here,” Debbie called out from the kitchen.

The familiar aroma of coffee greeted her. Debbie stood at the cooker in baggy trousers with a halter top, exposing a fleshy chest, her feet in bright red flip-flops with matching toenails.

“Okay,” Debbie said, serving fried eggs and placing herself in charge once again. “So, like, you’ve slept for what? Some 12 hours?” Before Lauren could answer, Debbie continued, “Now you need to stay awake until midnight. Trust me. I know my jetlag.” She looked at her watch. “At twenty hundred hours, we go to Itaewon for serious clubbing and alcoholic beverages to be administered at regular intervals.”

Lauren chuckled, amused by Debbie’s delivery.

“At twenty-three hundred hours, you shall take melatonin and then I, being the best roommate in Seoul, shall tuck you into bed no later than zero hundred hours, otherwise known as midnight.”

“Aye, aye,” Lauren played along.

She finished her breakfast and went to her room to unpack. While separating work clothes from play clothes – lacy underwear, corsets – she thought about her research. Korean men and men from neighboring Asian countries could be found in the backrooms of discos and karaoke bars. For the Asian man, she – Lauren, the freckled Western woman – would be the exotic attraction. It would be easy – she wouldn’t charge them anything. She wanted to shock her American roomie. She wanted to say, “You know, women can be sex tourists too.”

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Finding humour in uncomfortable spaces