Breakfast of Champions
Breakfast of Champions
My friend’s thirty-something daughter called today to ask her what was this Brexit thing anyway, some kind of new breakfast? I guess my friend and I assume kids, grownup kids anyway, keep abreast of things like international affairs and presidential elections. At least she didn’t ask her who this Donald Gump was. And I’m pretty sure she knew Brexit was the most important meal of the day.
The Donald was in Scotland today congratulating the kilted ones for voting to leave the E.U. while he was promoting his golf courses and hotels. Trouble was, the Scots didn’t vote to leave the E.U., they voted overwhelmingly to stay. Facts can be such damn nuisances. No wonder we’ve decided to go with our gut hunches on everything from politics to science. Easier. Less messy. Ends most arguments. Less filling and tastes great. Kind of like breakfast cereal. Kind of like chocolate covered Brexit. Since the currency there had devalued, our presidential candidate was happy the British pound had gone to its lowest level in three decades so foreign tourists would find it more inviting to golf at his new course. He was, as he said, a winner. The American stock market and folks with 401-K’s, not so much.
I can’t go to the grocery store now without scanning my fellow shoppers, 50% who say they will be voting for a reality TV show host who has attributes most folks once thought of as reprehensible, but now, through the miracle of erasing ‘political correctness’, they think of as okay. Racism, misogyny, bigotry, bullying, arrogance, ignorance and … well, the list goes on and on … it’s okay once again to say what they think. I don’t really mind them saying what’s on their mind, I just worry about what is on their mind.
I listen to a lot of Hot Talk radio. It drives me crazy, but it’s obviously driven a lot of folks crazier than me. They believe this stuff I find maddening. They feed on the venom and the anger. They think Obama is a secret Muslim and believe me, they hate all Muslims. They love America, but they hate the government, the president, the Congress, everything but the military. They love the Constitution but they want Muslims banned from this country, they want gays put back in their closet, they want profiling, they want God, the Christian God, put back in their classrooms. Their parents or grandparents or great grandparents came from somewhere else, but they want immigration ended. They want government off their back but they want government to stop abortions, to stop homosexuals, to stop atheists. They want to make America great again.
These folks want to lay off the Brexit and go back to Wheaties, Breakfast of Champions. You know, the one with Bruce Jenner on the box back when she was a he. Back when America was Numero Uno and men were men and women did what they were told, no backtalk. Back to the Good Old Boy Days.
I don’t want to suggest that a person who listens to Rush Limbaugh and is voting for Donald Trump is ignorant. That might fall under lack of political correctness.
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