Remember what we got to think about when we didn’t spend so much of our waking (and sometimes sleeping) hours thinking about that racist, sexist, xenophobic, homophobic, pathologically lying, pathologically narcissistic con man currently inhaling Big Macs in the White House? Yeah, neither do I.
What makes this moment in history particularly exhausting is the incessant drum-beat of bad news. Oh, he screamed on Twitter that the black and brown female freshman Democratic congresswoman should go back to their countries, and then doubled down in a press conference the next day, yet all you hear from GOP lawmakers is crickets? And the day before that his Vice President spent 90-seconds looking at the deplorable conditions migrants are being kept in in America’s new concentration camps, then turned his back and actually told us to not believe our lying eyes about what we all literally saw.
Like I was saying, incessant bad news. And, before anyone says it, no I do not care about how well the stock market is doing, not one little tiny bit (and, yes, I don’t care even though I have a 401K like every other poor slob who wishes they had a real pension instead). I don’t care about how “great” this economy is because it’s not great for everyone.
In fact it’s mostly just great for the already rich, the super rich and the obscenely rich. Or those who delusionally believe they’re destined to be one of those three. (It’s that insane ‘I’m poor and my whole family is poor and generations of my kin have all been poor, but when I get stupid rich I don’t want to be taxed too much”-mentality. ) Also going great? Corporations! Can someone give a workshop on how to incorporate myself so like Amazon, Chevron, General Motors, Halliburton, Netflix and 55 other U.S. companies I could have paid exactly ZERO in taxes this year? Cool, thanks. Now that’s settled.
The bad news I’m talking about is related to our shared humanity. The principles that invisibly tether us together. Love your family. Be kind to others. Take care of children. Love the planet.
These bedrocks of our shared humanity have taken a real hit these last two and a half years. And what makes it worse is how widespread the issues are. Corruption. Bigotry. Greed. Cruelty. So much cruelty. Every which way we look this administration is violating the rules, tenuous as they are, we’ve established to keep our government from becoming an unscrupulous farce of epic proportions. You know, kind of like the Trump Foundation.
Look, you individually may not care that Muslims have been banned from entering our country, patriotic trans men and women are being stopped from serving in the military, families are being ripped apart one another at the border, kids are being kept in cages without soap and toothpaste, 125 far-right judges have been given lifetime appointments and two right-wing Supreme Court Justices have been confirmed who will easily serve another 25 years each. (Not you, I know you care. But, the other you.) Or maybe you don’t care that Trump never divested from his real estate properties or never put his business in a blind trust and instead spent an extra $102 million in just two years playing golf at his own properties. I mean, they made Jimmy Carter sell his peanut farm, but whatever.
And, if you don’t care, hey - it’s still a free country. At least for a little while.
But there are no more excuses. If you support this “president,” you support a racist. You support a misogynist. You support a xenophobe. You support an absolute garbage human being. You know it, we know it. Heck, at least those dumb red hats make it easy to see you coming.
Still I guess the good news is, despite the rampant lack of empathy, general indifference and all-our bigotry of a solid 45 percent of this country, I still believe (and the math bears out) that more of us still care.
So now is the time for us to buckle down. Yes, we’re all tired. We’re all worn down. But we aren’t alone. Not at the ballot box. Not in the hall of congress. And if you’re wondering what the future of this country looks like, look no further than Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rep. Ilhan Omar, Rep. Ayanna Pressley, and Rep. Rashida Tlaib.
I agree with you 100%
ReplyDeleteRepublicans put him in there and tell him what THEY want. Nothing happens in a vacuum.
ReplyDeleteI'm with Maureen Dowd on this.
ReplyDeleteScaling Wokeback Mountain "Pelosi told me, after the AOC Squad voted against the House’s version of the border bill and trashed the moderates — the very people who provided the Democrats the majority — that the Squad was four people with four votes. She was talking about a legislative reality. If it was a knock, it was for abandoning the party." https://www.registerguard.com/opinion/20190716/maureen-dowd-scaling-wokeback-mountain
Beautifully written
ReplyDeleteThe problem with the Squad is it shows how fragile the Democratic Party is right now. It does not have an identity other than wanting to beat Trump. The centrist Democrats do not want to be associated with the Liberal wing and vice versa. Personally I think the AOC Squad needs to remember that the House picked up Seats in the last election because a lot of centrists who voted for Trump sided with the Dems. You don't want to alienate those people because the next election is going to come down to those 6 or 7 swing states (Pa/Michigan/Ohio/Arizona/Florida etc) that will decide the electoral college. The moderate vote that can go either way will decide who is President.
ReplyDeleteDorothy my parents think he is doing a good job because the economy is booming and their investments are doing well. When I tell them that not everyone is doing well, my mother says to 'worry about yourself'. Its frustrating that people don't see the bad.
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