December 21, 1989: A clueless dictator gives his final speech, though he did not know then that it would be his final speech. All around Europe, the regimes of his ideological comrades are falling apart, but believing that he still commands the loyalty of his people, he gets in front of several thousands of them to talk about unity, strength, and probably a bunch of other authoritarian communist boilerplate nonsense.
Until someone boos. By some accounts, just one person. But then others join in, and for those standing in the crowd, and for the nation watching at home on live television, the 40 year old communist regime suddenly does not appear to be invincible, nor inevitable. Ceausescu would be executed four days later, on Christmas.
Some time in the middle of Ceausescu reign, John Lennon said, “All you need is love.” But he beat his wife and children and only sang about revolutions that never actually took place. Give me a well timed boo, any day. Savage visceral hatred for anyone who would wield the state’s monopoly on violence against the innocent. And if we can’t pick the exact moment to jeer a crumbling regime into dust, we’ll just have to keep at it.
And if you think that I’m only talking about Donald Trump, then I only have one thing to say to you: “Boo!”
May You Live in Interesting Times 