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NOT for the faint of heart, thou hast been warned: '(M)asturbating in front of female customers at branches of Dollar Tree… fast becoming a national phenomenon'. {The Guardian 20 July}
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/jul/20/dollar-tree-sexual-assault-gooner
Yes, thou read the above headline correctly. Disturbed women-hating men (‘incels’) engaging in the gamification of sexual harassment and sexual assault, then posting the video evidence online for the amusement and approval of similarly depraved individuals.
Dollar stores, with their chronically weak security, skeletal staffing, and tendency to be located in poorer or higher-crime communities, provide fertile hunting grounds for these predators (some of whom are employees). Similar incidents have occurred in other countries — I am not proclaiming that the former United States possesses a monopoly on sick people doing deranged things — but if ever there were a measure of how far this nation hath fallen, when women cannot safely shop for household necessities without becoming targets of sexual abuse, this would be it.
Do not read The Guardian article if one hath a weak stomach. It is genuinely horrible in detail. Yet women should know what is happening, and — wherever possible — exercise caution when visiting these establishments. Concealed carry whether it is legal or not to do so in one’s jurisdiction: guns, mace, whatever necessary. Best yet, just avoid dollar stores altogether — wherever possible.
And I stress wherever possible. Throughout large swathes of the former United States — in forever-neglected urban neighbourhoods, dying rural Trumpvilles alike, and increasingly everywhere in between — dollar stores have become the only practical place many people can afford to shop, or can physically access. Much hath already been written about the exploitative business model behind these chains, and I would encourage all readers to investigate it further. The very existence of so many communities dependent upon them is itself a damning indictment of America’s economic system and of the country's overall health.
America's problems are not exactly unique, though it is clearly responsible for the abomination that is the dollar store. Every nation possesses its own extremists, criminals, and cultural maladies. Yet my abiding impression is that most or all of those societies shall still possess functioning institutions and a sense of civic responsibility long after the final remnants of it have been stamped out here in Trumpistan (nearly there). We must accept decline as though it were inevitable, because y’all done made it inevitable, #Muricans. The rest of you in this world still have a chance to hang in for a bit longer, until climate change finishes the planet off, but another topic for another day.
Make no mistake, this grotesque behaviour is not merely the work of isolated deviants. It reflects a culture in which women are treated as objects to be humiliated rather than fellow human beings deserving of dignity and safety. The conduct described in The Guardian article is extreme, but it did not emerge from a vacuum. It grows in an environment where harassment is trivialised, empathy is in short supply, and cruelty increasingly masquerades as entertainment. An environment that gave rise to, and hath since been made immeasurably worse — to the point of no possible recovery — by President Donald J. Trump, his enablers, and his handlers.
All of this is profoundly sick. America’s modern culture is profoundly and plainly sick. What should one expect from a country that knowingly returned a man found liable for sexual abuse — among other things — to the White House? We have become a society in which people either actively despise one another or simply no longer care. In 2024 — knowingly so from past experience and in contempt for the most hated institution of any kind in white working-class America (the Democratic Party), and the (unfortunately politically untalented and personally untrustworthy) black woman who was leading the opposing ticket that year — the ruling plurality of citizens elected a government of wolves that are hostile to public safety, dismissive of civil liberties and human rights, and all too willing — eager, even — to subordinate ordinary people to powerful corporate interests. We should not be surprised when people who voted repeatedly for psychopaths begin acting like psychopaths. Nor that there be any remorse, even as their own lives deteriorate further.
Women should not have to plan an ordinary shopping trip as though entering hostile territory. Until this country rediscovers both the will and the ability to protect ordinary citizens from predators such as these, remaining aware of one's surroundings and taking whatever precautions available is the only prudent thing. No civilised society should require its women — nay, any peaceful citizens, period — to live this way. Trumpistan is not a civilised society.
linktr.ee/arthurnewhook
🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈
