Splish Splash, We’re Takin A Bath
Back home here at Blog Central the wailing and gnashing of teeth continues non-stop, the phone keeps ringing, the e-mails are shrill and frightened, the news cycle runs its usual 24/7 with stories ramping up the national anxiety. The scare tactics of the media certainly paint a chilly winter here. Deportations, climate warming denials, deregulation, rescinding trade agreements, tossing out Roe v. Wade, Rudy Giuliani as Sec. of State??, the list goes on and on, the empire is crumbling, the center cannot hold and what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
There are marches in the streets of our major cities. Even the high school kids are pouring out to protest. The Trumpsters are taunting the minorities, figuring, apparently, that the country is now back in white Christian control. The Democrats are in full route, the Republicans in full battle cry. No one has told them Donald is no more a Republican than he is a Christian or a pal of the blue collar worker.
A few friends are considering emigration. For some reason not clear to me, New Zealand seems to be the favorite landing spot. Why not Canada? They’re a stone’s throw away with the added attraction of a liberal leader. Too cold maybe? I have friends who are certain their jobs will be destroyed, friends who have decided to delay having children, friends who predict the stock market will crash and a world wide Depression will follow. Last night was a Super Moon. Who knows what malevolence will follow such a portent. Who knows what a right wing Supreme Court will do. Who knows who this Donald Trump really is.
Jeez, take a pill. Take a deep breath. Take a long walk. The world as we know it is not going to end. Remember that line about shrinking government to a size we could drown in a bathtub? Well, trust me, easier to say than do. America is a big fat cruise liner. Turning it in a different direction takes awhile. Stopping it, even longer. But c’mon, we lived through Richard Nixon, the Viet Nam War, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush and the Cheney mob and the Great Recession, the Iraq War and its weapons of mass destruction. And now you think it looks worse? Maybe we thought the Obama Years offered hope. Same sex marriage and gay rights. A black president. The possibility of immigration reform. Carbon footprint reduction. No more foreign wars.
Ho ho, ha ha. Presidents come and go. The real power brokers stay in town. Money talks, as a buddy told me long ago, and bullshit walks. We got a billionaire as president. Maybe we should’ve seen him coming. He says he’s not beholden to Wall Street. We believed him, I guess. Now we all get to take a walk.
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