As our great nation riots in the street and slaps digital
high-fives on Facebook, there are a number of people who contributed to the
popular vote in this country who are trying to figure out what the hell
happened on Tuesday. And as Americans,
we have a natural tendency to want to simplify and boil down complex questions
into succinct answers, because as a nation, we have the attention span of a
goldfish and are desperate to find out who won Dancing With the Stars before we forget why we were watching it in
the first place. We are our own worst terrible contradiction, I know.
The reality is that most complex systems that rely on the
active participation of millions of people, filtered through fifty state
bureaucracies and a host of exterior influences are way too complicated to
ascribe a one word explanation that magically covers the letdown like a tiny
little Band-Aid. This is not a toaster. We didn’t throw a rod. It’s our messy
modern America
we’re talking about. And there’s a lot of blame to go around.
To help focus or diffuse some of your rage, I’ve compiled a
handy Bestiary of Assholes, Shitheads, and Generally Horrible Institutions for
your consideration. I don’t know if I got everyone to blame on the list, but everyone
that is on the list is surely to blame.
Some of you may not see it this way. Some of you may find
yourselves on this list. Good. That was intentional. We all played a part in
this year-long train wreak, and while I don’t wish harm or ill on anyone, I
will say that you (the collective You, the inclusive You, the Royal You) gets
to bear the your fair share. But we’ll get into that in a minute. Let me say
for now that it’s possible—just possible—that President Trump will make good on
his promises to bring jobs back, replace Obamacare with something better, make
us safer around the world, lower taxes, and in short, Make America Great again.
If he does that—I’ll admit that I’m wrong and apologize to you all.
But if that doesn’t happen; in short, if the jobs don’t come
back (from vacation, presumably), and if I don’t end up with a better health
insurance plan than my current Bronze Level Option, and we find ourselves
re-engaged in the Middle East or North Korea, and they have to raise taxes to
pay for that war, and American is Not So Great when it’s all over—if THAT
happens, you’ll admit that you were wrong, and apologize to me, right?
Okay, let’s pick the scab and see what color the pus is.
A is for Americans
This would be the people that live in the giant swath of red
that sits between the East and West coast. What Los Angeles and New York City
call “flyover country.” This would include my little town, in North Texas.
There’s a lot of people hurting out there, economically speaking. We don’t make stuff anymore. Not really. Not like we used to. That’s a problem, and it’s something that wasn’t really addressed in 2008 and
2012—with good reason.
However, it seems to me that the people in the middle of the
East and West coast heard all of the good promises about jobs, and chose not to
hear any of the horrible, awful, nasty things President-Elect Trump said about
their fellow Americans. Or, maybe they did hear them, but since they weren’t
People of Color, members of the LGBT community, immigrants, or some other form
of hyphenated American, they figured it wasn’t so big a concern and voted only
for their own self-interests. Just like anyone else would have done. Does this
make them racist, too? Misogynist? Some people think so. I don’t. But the
unfortunate truth of the matter is, for every church going, decent person who
voted for Trump as (to their way of thinking) “the lesser of two evils,” there
was a guy in a dirty bunker with a tiny bust of Hitler on their television
saying, “Finally! Someone who gets us!” And the fact that he never addressed
the ugly underbelly of America is a real and legitimate problem for a lot of
people. Either way, it speaks volumes about the character of this country, and
shines a revealing light on one of our most enduring myths that we tell
ourselves.
B is for Bernie
The crushing irony of this is that Bernie Sanders was
considered a political outsider (like Trump) for months, until, you know, he
started to actually gain real support from real people. I remember all of the
flapping-head sock-puppet pundits snickering loudly at Bernie Sanders’ chances
in the primaries, because, well, tee hee, just look at him, I mean, really...
Barbie and Ken dolls, all of them. Who’s snickering now?
Bernie came from a place of sincerity. Of genuine public
service. Of principles and conscience. Of morals and ethics. If you were
looking for someone to shake up the political machine as it currently exists,
Bernie was your real Molotov cocktail. Maybe he still is. But this would have
played out very differently.
C is for Conspiracy Theories
Holy shit, when did we as a nation become so gullible? You
know what a conspiracy theory is, right? It’s an outlandish plot conceived to
explain an unpopular occurrence that cannot be disproven. That’s how they work.
When I was growing up in the 1980s, most conspiracy theories were in the closet
of the fringe element, the whackadoos who believe that the Moon landing was
faked. That Paul McCartney was killed and replaced with an actor and that’s why
the Beatles broke up. Shape-changing lizards are running the government. Fringe
nonsense. Here’s why people believe in conspiracy theories, and that’s
something to consider when talking about our country in the 21st
century.
Let me be very clear about this: every thing that Donald J.
Trump accused Hillary Clinton of doing during the campaign (well, except for
lying—see below) was actually a conspiracy theory. Here’s a list for you to mull over. And if your reaction to that is, “That’s just what they want you to think,” or
if you’ve ever used the word “sheeple” in an online discussion, then you are
actively dumbing down the country with your distracting nonsense.
D is for Democrats
When will you guys decide to stop bringing knives to the
gunfight? How about now, for instance? Two things need to happen if you ever
want to be viable as a political party again. 1. Stop worrying about making
grandstanding gestures for posterity and instead focus on passing legislation,
enacting forward-thinking public policy and getting stuff done in Congress. 2.
Stop going “high.” You’re fighting Republicans. You know, the men who run on
the family values platform and then get caught with fishing for dates in the
men’s restrooms? Why are you being considerate? They need to be hobbled. Get a
bat and start swinging for the kneecaps. We need twenty new seats in the Senate
in two years. Start now. Or better yet, do what Michael Moore says. Here’s his prescription.
E is for Election Reform
For the second time in my lifetime—since I’ve known my wife—I’ve
watched the electoral college nullify the popular vote. This is especially
egregious, since the popular vote was the bigger number. Something has to
change, and I don’t care what. If you won’t abolish the Electoral College, how
about removing the “Winner Take All” provision and divide the EC votes
according to popular percentage? And don't get me started on the whole mechanism of voting, either.
And while we’re at it, how about changing the rules so that
Third Party candidates aren’t left out of the process altogether. I think one
of the fastest ways to stop this polarization of the country is to give us a
few more nuanced choices. The reason why the Powers that Be are reluctant to do
this is simple: Money. They lose too much money when their respective parties
are gutted from people going to a group that better reflects their needs and
interests. The only way to fix it is to even out the process entirely and cap
spending on campaigns. Let the messages be about the quality of the ideas, not
the frequency with which the candidates are seen bashing their opponents.
F is for Facts
Ah, Facts...those things that were routinely ignored by our
President-Elect for over a year. Those things he never let get in the way of a
good story. I can’t remember the last time so many people chose to simply stop
thinking like a rational person and rely on “gut feelings” and “people are
telling me” and “I’m hearing.” What are we, imbeciles? You know, Santa’s not
real, either, even though you’ve seen his picture on Coke cans for years. Using
a gut check to pick a presidential candidate is not the dumbest thing you can
do on this list, but it’s pretty close.
It’s time to start valuing math and science and data again.
It’s time to stop playing fast and loose with feelings and opinions spoken with
an air of authority. Just because you, average American, didn’t go to college,
doesn’t mean you’re not smart. Certainly, you should be smart enough to know a
con man when you see one. It reminds me of an old joke: How can you tell when a
Politician is lying? His lips are moving! And the moral of this story is: a
Campaign Promise is not a Fact. See “L” below.
G is for Gender
There is no way you can convince me that some—some—of the
people who cast their “protest vote” for Trump weren’t just doing it because
she’s a woman. I just watched a cavalcade of racist vomit for eight years on
social media, when so many people were convinced that we’d licked racism
because of President Obama in the White House. To the lunatic right and the
ultra-conservative Christians and the just plain ol’ misogynists who have been
strident in their disapproval of Hillary Clinton this past year, let me say
this up front: I will not listen to your bullshit on this. If you think a
woman’s place is in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant, you’d best keep it to
yourself.
And don’t “Bible” me on this, either. We don't stone people to death for transgressions. There’s no Biblical argument
that makes sense anymore. It’s ridiculous, outdated, outmoded, and if you think
we won’t push back on this, think again. There will come a day, down the road,
when Elizabeth Warren will be offered up as a presidential candidate (or
vice-presidential candidate) and she comes without 30 years of conspiracy
theories clinging to her. She’ll get in, if it hasn’t happened before then. You
are on the wrong side of history on this. Change, or head to the tar pit.
H is for Hillary
You know, I get it. I really do. Hillary Clinton is a
divisive figure. I mean, she’s got the taint of Clinton Scandal all over her.
But let’s not forget who first sprayed that stink all over her in the first
place, right? I know a lot of you were alive in 1992. You must remember when
Rush Limbaugh led the charge against them, insisting that they had committed murder
in Arkansas .
They hadn’t, of course, and there was never any question about it in the eyes
of the law, but it started a 30 year full court press that culminated in some of the most hate-filled rhetoric I’ve ever witnessed aimed at a public figure.
And yet, despite all of the accusations, and the constant
investigations—7 or 8 of them, all led by Republicans—they did not find any
malfeasance or misconduct. Whatever you want to call it. The only thing that
Hillary Clinton is guilty of is being a career politician, with all of the
skills and attributes that come with that job. The same skills and attributes
that, say, Ted Cruz and Mitch McConnell have, by the way. If you don’t like the
way she did things, and think that she didn’t play fair, or think that she got
away with something, then congratulations, because you’ve put your finger on
the pulse of modern politics and found the institution wanting. Yeah. They all
do it. They all did it. Even your guy. Yes, him, too.
I is for Internet
Social Media is, without a doubt, one of our modern devils,
responsible for so much evil, pain, and strife, when it’s not distracting us
with pictures of kittens and baby otters and people getting hit in the junk
with softballs. Then you drop a petulant
narcissist onto Twitter and let him run unfettered, and he gleefully sets
himself to the task of trolling the 2016 Election, all while actively
encouraging the Russians to Keep. Hacking. The. American. Election. Process.
You do know that the Russians are the bad guys again, right? And by the way,
since when exactly did a meme, banged out in thirty seconds (eyes closed,
judging from the frequent misspellings) constitute a meaningful thought? Memes
are the bumper stickers of the Internet. And I don’t mean that in a good way. I
mean it as in, you should stop using memes to make your points.
Look, I know you’re reading this online, but want you to
understand something: this is not an ideal form of communication. It’s
advantages—speed, distance, flexibility, are outweighed by its disadvantages,
chief among them—anonymity, security, and obfuscation. There’s a reason why we
all seem to become mean, hateful and a little sociopathic, and that’s because
it’s a consequence-free environment that we mistake for meaningful discourse.
And if you’re a troll, it’s your preferred medium and mode of expression. So, why are we placing such emphasis on social media to help us with the most
important political decision we make every four years?
J is for Justices
The Republican controlled Congress, led by the
obstructionist Mitch McConnell, has held up the appointment of the ninth
Supreme Court Justice for—what? Six, seven months now? Thanks to the Republican
Majority in the Senate, and Tea Party dissidents like Theocrat Ted Cruz
shutting down Congress because they didn’t get what they wanted, the Supreme
Court was the only branch of our government that was still doing its job. And
it was doing, more or less, a good job, until Scalia died earlier this year.
In the final gesture of disrespect, Congress has ignored its
duty in vetting and approving President Obama’s Supreme Court nomination—a man
that even the Republicans agree would be great for the job—so that the honor
could go to the next president. Lovely. Once again, held hostage by Republicans
so that they can roll back Progress in this country to 1952.
K is for Kangaroo Court
Listening to people chanting “Lock her Up!” was one of the
most surreal experiences of my life. Now, in this election, at this time,
you’ve all suddenly grown the spine and moral fortitude to hold a politician’s
feet to the fire? And for what? Stuff she’s already been cleared of, from
multiple sources.
Oh, and all of you “nose holders,” don’t think you’re not
part of this, either. “I don’t like Trump, but I really dislike Hillary.”
You’d rather have the Elite Oligarch, the super-rich real estate
developer than the career politician who at least doesn’t want to burn it all
to the ground, is that your stance? All because you think she did something
wrong. You just can’t articulate what. Hmmm. We’re all right with war crimes
and war profiteering, but the email server is your line in the sand? Hmmmm.
L is for Lying
Never before have I watched a political campaign spew half-truths
and untruths like a firehose, hither and thither, with no real attempt by
anyone in opposition to call the liar on their junk. And let me be very clear,
here: I’m talking across the board, top to bottom, all along the spectrum,
about Donald Trump. I thought initially that it was willful ignorance at work,
where he’d just squint and omit the parts of the story he didn’t like. But then
he started reshaping the narrative in the most brilliant way; he actually
gaslighted the American public. He figured out that if you repeat something
often enough to people, they take it as the truth.
Clinton doesn’t get to skate on this, either, but I want to
make it clear that her “misspokes” and her “not well articulateds” and all of
the other awkwardly-worded things she said only made her look like she was
trying to get away with stuff, and it made her seem more untrustworthy. Pretty
frustrating, especially when she kept getting investigated and they kept
saying, “We didn’t find that she did anything wrong.” Of course she lied in the
course of her job. So did every single politician who ever held the office.
There was lies a-plenty to go around during the last Republican Presidency. But
that never was part of the Democratic narrative, was it? “We want to run a
clean campaign,” right? How’s that working out for you? And now it seems that
all of the hate and the bile and the venom was nothing more than campaign
rhetoric. In other words, more lying. But it’s okay if your candidate wins,
right?
M is for Media
Some of the media are already taking their lumps for this,
but to be fair, it’s the whole of corporate-owned and ratings-driven news that
needs to be nut-punched repeatedly until they agree to start treating the
American public like it’s a body politic and not bored Romans thirsting for
Christian blood in the Coliseum. We don’t need political analysis from your
lantern-headed mouth-flapping correspondents, whose only qualifications seems
to be that you’ve had them on the show before. Pundits and bloggers? Are you
kidding me?
How about stating facts, telling people what happened, and
covering the things that actually matter? Be useful. Stop slanting, shading,
and skewing your data. I hate that I see stuff on the BBC news that is never
talked about from any of the cable news networks. We deserve better than this.
You—the media—are considered part of the public trust. At least, you used to
be. Either start helping us all make good choices or get out of our way
entirely.
N is for Nationalists
This is where the shame lies. Shame on Donald Trump for not
immediately and stridently denouncing the endorsements of the guys living in neo-Nazi
encampments in the woods, making their own beef jerky and waiting patiently for
the coming race war that’s going to happen...oh...any day now... Of course,
these chuckleheads have been predicting something like this for thirty years,
to no avail. But now there’s a guy running for president, and he hates
brown-skinned people, too! Whoo-Hoo, boys, put on your clean overalls! We’re
going to town!
There’s already a “Mexicans Go Home” attitude that’s
floating around, and Trump’s not even in office, yet. I live in Texas . The “ex” part of
the state is a reminder that our culture and way of life is inextricably tied
to Mexico .
This is a real problem for me, and it should be for the rest of you, too.
Mexicans go home? They are home,
Gringo. Aw, it’s just such utter bullshit, this idea that all of these mythical
jobs are being appropriated by Hispanics, and our nation of white landscapers
and white custodial service workers and white day laborers and white construction
workers are starving because of it. Hogwash.
O is for Orange
Demented Cheeto. Walking and Talking Circus Peanut.
Parboiled Yam. The color now and forever associated with President-Elect Trump
will be orange, thanks to his spray-on bronzing solution. I am sure the glow is
healthy in real life, but on naked video, it makes anyone wearing that stuff
look foolish and stupid. But that ridiculous skin color is the very least of a
whole catalog of problems that are self-evident when considering this man for
the highest office in the land.
I never liked him. Not when he was a spoiled rich kid
millionaire. Not when he was a reality TV star. Not when he was an agitator for
the Republican party. And as much as I didn’t like him then, I hate the thought
that this demagogue is the president-elect. I thought he was a joke, a wastrel, who got
lucky. Born with a silver spoon in his mouth and somehow managed to keep the
money instead of pissing it away. This is no “Man of the People.” He’s the very
person most of us in the South claim to despise. I’m still baffled that a rich,
spoiled Yankee who is too big for his britches would somehow win my people
over.
P is for Pussy
Here is our National shame, laid bare, that such vulgarity
would find its way into the political discourse. And that even this—this tacit
admittance to, at the very least, sexual assault—wouldn’t dissuade you from
voting for Trump—well, that’s some deep blues, right there. You don’t have to
be from the Ivy League to know that’s no way to treat a lady, ever. “Locker
Room talk,” my ass. I know bragging when I hear it. He was trying to impress
Billy Bush. Billy Bush! Geez, Louise.
Already the children of the hateful people have been sent to
school by their proud parents and started yelling at the Hispanic kids to “Go
back to Mexico .”
How long do you think it’ll be before one of those kids “just can’t help
himself,” and decides to help himself, because, you know, this is apparently
okay, now, right? I mean, if the president can do it, and get away with it,
what kind of message does that send?
Q is for Qualifications
For decades now, I’ve listened to older Republicans lament
that “what we really need is a business man in the office. He’d be the one to
fix our budget.” The thinking being, we
need a guy who runs the government like he runs a business. Ruthlessly slashing
waste, eliminating redundancies, streamlining operations, etc. Not necessarily
running the busi—I mean, the government—with strong ethical conviction. That
part is never mentioned.
Well, be careful for what you wish for. Here’s your
businessman, kinda. Sorta. I guess. I mean, he’s a real estate developer, and
he’s worth millions, and he’s got a brand, of sorts, and despite all of the
failures along the way, he had enough money to run a protracted political
campaign, and, on top of all that, it worked. I will tell you this, right now:
he looks like a dog that just caught the car he was chasing. He looks worried.
He’s not being presidential, now. He’s looking for the exits so he can ghost at
the first chance. We’ll see just how far that business acumen takes him. If
only there had been someone else running for office with a laundry list of
credentials and actual experience in the White House…
R is for Republicans
You have a lot to answer for. I’m not sure when “the party
of principles” decided that anyone could rent space on your platform, but you
either need to eject the cranks and whack-jobs in your party or change your
name to something else. It’s bad enough that you let the Tea Party radicals in—and I think you already know that your punishment was Ted Cruz, the most hated man in Congress—but you only backed that Orange Horse because you didn’t like
any of your rank and file candidates. You even had a Bush in the mix, for
crying out loud! But you were afraid he wouldn’t win, because that’s all that
matters to you. You obstruct, you shut down, you drag your feet, you waste
millions of dollars on needless political stunts, and you have the temerity to
blame the Democrats because stuff doesn’t get done at the Congressional level.
And while we’re on the chopping block here, you need to
jettison the social and moral backwater stance, too. If you want to be the
party of fiscal responsibility, that’s fine. Be that party. But don’t also lump
“family values” into it. You’re always one disgraced Senator away from looking
like idiots. And no one trusts you because you always end up looking like the
very worst kind of hypocrites. That word is in the Bible a lot. You should look
it up.
S is for Scandals
Hopefully this will be the only Presidential election ever
where the manufactured scandals got all of the attention and the actual
scandals were patently ignored by the voting public. Democrats? You had to know
that every ounce of Republican-based dirt reserved for the Clintons over the
years would be trucked out and used against Hillary Clinton, right? You had to
know that. I knew it. We all knew it. Dogs knew it. Did you think that her
record of public service would protect her from a manufactured
murder-conspiracy? The opposition just fielded a Reality Television Candidate!
And yet, this guy was tangerine Teflon. Things he actually
said and actually did—stuff that, in any other year, under any other
circumstance, would have gotten him booted from his own reality show, fired
from a corporation, turned him into a social pariah—none of that mattered,
because the folks in Trump’s camp were “tired of Hillary (or Killary, or
Shillary, or, you know, ‘that c*nt’) getting away with it,” whatever “it” was.
Oh, yeah, all of those scandals over the years. The ones that Republicans
investigated multiple times, using millions of dollars of the taxpayers money,
only to find nothing. Unbelievable. People were more willing to believe that
Hillary Clinton murdered people than to admit that Donald Trump was
demonstrably guilty of sexual assault.
T is for Third Party
Dan Savage is right. Before you start throwing wide-eyed, earnest-looking imbeciles at us every four
years, how about fielding a few candidates at the local level, hmmm? Maybe work
up to state senate? Congress? We don’t know anything about your party, because
we’ve never seen it in action. Why keep swinging for the fences and missing?
How about you assholes get some people on base, first? Because all you’re
really doing, in the end, is jacking up the big game by insisting that you have
a turn at bat.
It only really matters during times of extreme duress, like,
you know, the past twenty years, now, when those people who voted for third
party candidates actually made their point at the end of a barrel of an
important gun. I say this as someone who voted for Ross Perot in the 1990s, to
no avail, and who saw a lot of people try to defend their choice for Nader in
2000, when the election was too close to call, and now, sixteen years later,
staring at the 1.7 percent of the vote that sure did tell a story, and that
story ends with a Trump presidency. I’m not saying you Green Party and
Libertarian Party people are wrong; we do need to break up the two-party
system. But this was not the year to try that, obviously. Put the work in,
first, and you’ll find a more receptive electorate in, say, 2020 or 2024.
U is for Undecided
Really, undecided? You have been on this Earth for how long,
exactly? Oh, all of your life. Right. Gotcha. So, then, why is this something
that happens every four years, as if you have emerged from a chrysalis state,
newly-minted, full of wonder and gentle good humor at our funny Earthling ways?
The thing about experience is that it’s supposed to stick with you. Moreover,
you should ideally use that experience to make informed decisions.
I don’t buy that there wasn’t enough for you to hang an
informed decision from July onward. There was plenty of substantial, concrete
information to base your choice on, without even cracking the surface of the
muckracking and filth that coated this election like fried chicken batter. I
don’t know where you’re at, or what this says, that so many people who were
registered to vote simply didn’t, and even more people stayed home because they
didn’t think it would matter one way or another. Maybe this will go away in
four years, or even two. But I think as long as nothing above changes, we’re
going have to deal with the Undecideds for a while longer.
V is for Vocabulary Words
“Dog Whistle.” “Micro-Aggression.” Clinton pulled a good one
out of her hat: “Basket of Deplorables.” Now, we all know what she really meant
by that, and it’s willfully ignorant to pretend anything different. But the
first thing Trump said that actually got the attention of his base was that he
was tired of being “Politically Correct.” And while everyone looked shocked and
horrified (or cheered because they could say vulgar things in public again), no
one looked past what that really meant; namely, the notion that the Extreme
Left loves to talk down its nose at people who are not in the same Pullman car
on the Train of Progress as themselves. This usually manifests itself on places
like Twitter, where they actively lock horns with the Internet trolls, but it
spills over onto all over aspects of American life. People who simply aren’t up
on the latest Mercurial changes in terminology get labeled “racist” or get
admonished for “mansplaining.” No one catches flies with honey on the Extreme
Left. Everyone has a flame thrower, and they burn bridges daily. Patton Oswalt has the right idea about this phenomenon.
There is another culprit here, as well. The media just loves
its jargon, doesn’t it? If it’s not phrase-making it’s phrase-borrowing. POTUS.
SCOTUS. “Full-throated endorsement.” “Down ballot.” How about you stick to
reporting facts and learned opinions and leave the wordsmithing to the
professional poets and dreamer of the world, hmmm? Instead of trying to show
you have insider knowledge, work on delivering the news in the format and with
the simplicity of a sixth grade Spelling Bee. Especially now our president, who
uses words like “bigly,” and can’t articulate complex thoughts and must rely on
hyperbole and repeated phrases for emphasis, isn’t much of a “reader.”
W is for Wall
This was the whole of Trump’s political platform, writ
large: “I’m gonna build a wall. And Mexico is going to pay for it.” This
statement has been walked back, reworked, and massaged from every possible
angle, and no matter what metric you use to examine it, it’s clear that the
idea is ludicrous in the extreme. Anyone from Texas who thinks that such an
idea is practical, and yet doesn’t read science fiction, or have collections of
old issues of Popular Mechanics where those vastly impractical airships of the future
are shown as concept drawings is just delusional, because we know what the
border of Texas actually looks like. For the rest of the world, trust us on
this; there’s no way a physical barrier could ever run the length of the
Texas-Mexico border, never mind the rest of the United States. But that’s one
of those “Big Concept” ideas that seems so easy to so many. Yeah. Just, you
know, build a wall. With cheap labor, so it don’t cost as much. You know, like
those undocumented… oh, wait…
Now people are insisting that this wall was actually a
“metaphor” for some sort of combination of security systems and plans and
programs that would be implemented. Pfft. Whatever, dude. You know what he
meant. I know what he meant. Stop trying to make him smarter after the fact.
It’s pretty obvious that immigration is a hot button topic, but there’s so many
other ways to handle the volatile and uncertain situation that involve
diplomacy, good policy, and thinking long-term. I realize these are not
strengths of the incoming President. And I’m not a political junkie. But I have
been watching this clown since the 1980s. I know an asshole when I see one.
X is for Xenophobia
Speaking of assholes, I’m shocked (and this is my own
confirmation bias showing, here) that the various disenfranchised white people
are clumping up around Nazi flags. Still. To this day. In 2016. I honestly
thought that there wasn’t a member of the KKK under the age of 85. This is my
naiveté, I know. However, I wasn’t blind to the number of people who don’t like
all Muslim people because of what happened on 9-11. And it’s an extremely
touchy subject.
In so many ways, I feel like we’ve come full circle by
jumping back in time a hundred years, to when Immigrants were pouring into this
country to work the factory jobs, and, well, you’ve seen this Schoolhouse Rock short, I know. We all have. Of course, what that lovely cartoon never
mentioned was the “No Irish Need Apply” signs and the anti-Jew and anti-Italian
and anti-immigrant sentiment that was a nasty backlash to what amounts to most
of our ancestors moving to America so we can be having the same arguments 120
years after the fact.
Y is for Youth
Oh, you precocious little Special Snowflakes. We, the
members of Generation X, were once like you. Our guy was Bill Clinton, in 1992.
We used to be the Youth Vote. And with the help of MTV, we Rocked It. And then our guy got caught…well, it doesn’t matter. We realized, because we
grew up jaded, that all of these bastards had feet of clay. They were fallible.
Imperfect. Human.
That’s why your principled stance really stuck in my craw.
But I can’t make you do anything, really. No one can. No one ever did. But your
insistence in voting for a third party candidate or worse, not voting at all,
despite a cavalcade of credible information on both candidates, just baffled
me. Maybe this is a good thing. You need to see for yourself what’s happening
next. What’s coming up. Then, maybe you can put cause and effect together and
make better choices next time. Provided we can beam that information to you in
140 characters or less.
Z is for Zeitgeist
The zeitgeist, for those you unfamiliar with the term is “the
defining spirit or mood of a particular period of history as shown by the ideas
and beliefs of the time.” What that means on this list is, we are all to blame
for what happened. Our need to be entertained instead of informed and
enlightened. Our muted anger and frustrated feelings of having no control.
Media streams blasting at us from so many directions. Stress. Fear. Cynicism.
We have turned into really shitty people, you know that? It
didn’t happen overnight. All of this innovation seemed like a good idea. From
the late 1980s on, there’s been a slow, glacier-like creep towards becoming
bored, entitled, ignorant, naval-gazing, self-important turds. We didn’t used to be
this way. I’m not romanticizing the past, either. We’ve been our better selves,
but usually only for a short time—during Christmas, or national tragedies. We
profess to be a Christian country, but we are the most un-Christian-like people
when it comes to the way we treat others. It’s no wonder that the current
champion of the oppressed is a rich, bigoted, narcissistic, borderline fascist with
no impulse control and a sense of entitlement to rival English royalty. He's us, write large. He is the Uber-American.
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Sorry if I got any of that on you, personally. But this has been building up for almost a year, now, and I needed to lance that boil, because it was killing me, literally. We all made ourselves sick, worrying about this stuff. And in the end, we missed the mark, but good. I don't blame any one thing on this list, so much as I see it for the Gordian Knot that it really is.
So, what's the answer? I don't know. I have no earthly idea. Everyone is saying, "Get Organized! Rebel! Resist! Fight Back!" Yeah, great ideas. Pick a monster and have at it. There's a lot to throw your weight against. Me? I'm wearing my safety pin. I'm going to continue to comment on the things that matter to me. I'm not going to make assumptions about people, but I will not stand for open displays of bigotry, intolerance, or hatred. Your answer will undoubtedly be different, and your path is not my path, and, provided no one is hurt and no laws are broken, I wish you well. One thing is certain: this was only the first of what feels like a five act Shakespearean tragedy. Let's all hope that's not the case.
