Rejoice, MAGA! President Joe Biden is going to hell (AKA Phoenix)

According to a viscerally perceptive and shamelessly profane reader named Dean S., I am exactly where I belong.

He wrote in part, “Comrade EJ, please, would you (expletive followed by an expletive followed by a REALLY bad word) please go directly to hell … ?”

OK, but according to The New York Times and many other reputable publications, I am already here.

So is Dean, apparently.

(Please, don’t tell him.)

Phoenix: Home of fire and brimstone

“Phoenix’s month in hell” read a recent headline in the Times. The article beginning, “This has been Phoenix’s July in hell … .”

It was a national and even international story.

The Guardian, its headline blaring, “‘Hell on earth’: Phoenix’s extreme heatwave tests the limits of survival.”

Scientific American with “Phoenix Roasts in Record-Breaking 110-Plus-Degree Heat.”

Even the Irish Times proclaimed, “Hell on earth.”

All of them referring to … here, where roughly 1.6 million of us lost souls seemingly reside.

In that case, Biden's going to 'hell'

The news got the attention of Washington, D.C., too.

So much so that something is going to happen next week that will anger and disgust climate change-denying MAGA minions, while simultaneously making one of their fondest dreams come true.

President Joe Biden is going to hell.

The White House announced that the president is visiting Arizona next week to discuss efforts to combat climate change in the Inflation Reduction Act, among other things.

Assuming we’re not all dead by then.

I mean, it’s not like we don’t know where we live. We’ve known for a long, long time.

Funny thing is, Arizona also is heaven

As far back as 1976, the great Edward Abbey, author of “Desert Solitaire,” “The Monkey Wrench Gang” and other books, a man who lived near a dry wash in the magnificent desert outside of Tucson, wrote in an essay for The New York Times:

“Arizona is desert country. High desert in the north, low desert in the south, 90 percent of my state is an appalling burnt‐out wasteland, a hideous Sahara with clip‐joint oases, a grim bleak harsh overheated sun‐blasted goddamned and God‐forgotten inferno.”

And yet, those of us who have been in Arizona for a long time … love it.

In part, because the Times and all those other publications are correct. This place is hell.

Another view: Extreme heat makes our housing problems worse

But only part of the time. The rest of the year, it’s heaven.

Those of us who live here understand that you can only appreciate one extreme if you’ve endured the other.

As with happy and sad. Love and hate. Good and bad.

'Nobody ... would want to live here'

MSN published an ominous-sounding article under the headline, “Hell on Earth: Is the Phoenix Heat Wave a Sign of What Awaits Us All?”

As if that’s a bad thing.

Reuters was kinder, with a headline reading, “Phoenix braves relentless wave of extreme heat in US Southwest.”

The suggestion of bravery is flattering, but I’m not sure it’s accurate.

Something Abbey wrote in 1976 for the Times is more on-target. He said:

“In Arizona, the trees have thorns and the bushes spines and the swimming pools are infested with loan sharks, automobile dealers and Mafiosi. The water table is falling, and during a heavy wind, you can see sand dunes form on Central Avenue in Phoenix.

“We have the most gorgeous sunsets in the Western world — when the copper smelters are shut down. I am describing the place I love. Arizona is my natural native home. Nobody in his right mind would want to live here.”

Yeah, that’s us.

Reach Montini at ed.montini@arizonarepublic.com.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Joe Biden is going to hell (Phoenix) and MAGA can rejoice