Christian Nationalists would strongly disagree
It is irritating to see so many silly attacks of the very idea of being “woke”. The right wingers always want to have a boogie man. They love to spread fear, hate and loathing. I grew up on a farm near a small WASP (white Anglo-Saxon Protestant) community. The townspeople’s beliefs didn’t affect my outlook much, but it did take me quite a while to become what might be called “Woke”.
When I had just turned 18, my parents took us to the fair. In one of the booths, you could register to vote. That seemed a rite of passage, so I registered. They asked which party to sign me up for. I had no idea. They stated it was OK to be an Independent but implied that wasn’t a good option. They pointed out that Independents couldn’t vote in the primaries.
Convinced, I asked which party Nixon belonged to and opted for the party in opposition to him. When I was in grade school, he had been in the news when he debated JFK. He was running for office again when we visited the fair. There was often a mean, vindictive expression on his face. That he was the Republican’s top choice gave me a bad impression of that party.
Unsurprisingly, it turned out that Nixon wasn’t a great man nor a good president. His use of the bigoted “Southern Strategy” to win southern votes was reprehensible. His successor, Ford, served as a patsy by pardoning Nixon of his crimes. As a result, Ford served only one short term.
Carter seemed a much better president, although Republicans trashed him at every opportunity. He was obviously a good man and a man of faith. He was blamed for the Iranian hostage crisis though. It was a rotten deal that the hostages weren’t released until immediately after he left the presidency. Almost like it was something that had been arranged. Hmmm.
Indeed, it was a few years later that Reagan confessed about the Iran-Contra Scandal. It was rather well-known back then that if he hadn’t had been shot, he probably wouldn’t have gotten a second term. I find it funny that now so many practically worship him as some sort of a saint. If he was alive today Republicans would dismiss him as some sort of liberal RINO (Republican in name only). The party has moved to the extreme right at an accelerating pace.
George HW Bush wasn’t much to talk about. He really blew it when he stated, “Read my lips: no new taxes”. The economy was such that he had to raise taxes. There was no sympathy in me at all for him when I learned that he’d been working with the dirty trickster himself, Karl Rove, on the nasty “October Surprise” that helped shoot down Carter.
Clinton created lots of jobs and did great things for the economy, but he was rather weak on morals. It is ironic was that the men condemning him for his stupid affair where all guilty of affairs of their own.
I’d noticed those things but was largely indifferent to political matters. Uninterested in politics, I’d let myself be talked into registering for a party to be able to vote in the primaries. However, I never researched the choices enough to know who to vote for. That seemed rather silly, so eventually I changed my party affiliation to “none”.
Neither party impressed me much. I’d often referred to most of the Democratic leaders as “gutless wonders”. The Republicans just seemed to march in lockstep in their efforts to create more and more advantages for themselves, their cronies and their rich donors.
Despite never voting in a primary, I always cast a vote in the presidential election. It seems like you shouldn’t grumble about the person we get if you hadn’t even bothered to vote for or against a guy. I have felt free to complain about every president and have done that since becoming old enough to vote.
The thing that changed me from an apathetic nature about politics was George W. Bush. He was known by some as “Dubya” because he did not have the extra middle initial that his dad, George HW Bush, had.
The human race is often baffling. There are some exceptional people who seem mature beyond their years but then there are many adults who never mature. One of the latter was our 43rd president, George W. Bush. One of the goofy, immature quotes from him is:
“When I was coming up, it was a dangerous world, and you knew exactly who they were. It was us versus them, and it was clear who them was. Today we are not so sure who they are, but we know they’re there.”
That statement, and others he made, helped to clarify what sort of person Bush was. He claimed to be a uniter, however, he was anything but that. Bush was very successful at one thing. He was a divider. He led this country backwards to a less civil and a less civilized place. Our nation became more and more about “Us versus Them.” It is the haves against the have nots; the whites against the blacks; the Republicans against the Democrats; and the people in power like it that way.
If only the Republican’s choice would have been McCain! He was decent man and I admired him, even when not always agreeing with him. Evidently, the Bush campaign made a big deal about McCain’s “colored” daughter and implied some nasty things about her. That might have been the reason Bush got the nomination and that was a big strike against him in my mind. Also, he strutted across the stage when he got up to speak. It seemed obvious that he had been a spoiled rich kid and I wondered why others couldn’t see that.
I had not realized at that time I could read body language better than some. In hindsight, that could explain why I knew that Reagan was beginning to get dementia even while he was president (a fact confirmed by one of his sons). After saying something about that, I was accused of just not liking the guy and was ignored. That was totally untrue. Reagan was a likeable sort. He had a great personality, but as president he was a mere puppet.
After 9/11, Bush and his war-mongering VP, Cheney, used the situation to their advantage. Without the intervention of the Supreme Court and some dirty tricks, Bush would have never even been president. Due to gerrymandering, voter suppression and various other means, he managed to get a second term. I was distraught.
Bush had stupidly sat there while our people were dying in the towers. He did absolutely nothing for quite a while after being told about the first plane hitting the tower. He hid the hijackers’ ties to his Arab buddies while trying to lay blame on Saddam Hussein. While Hussein was not a good guy, he had nothing to do with 9/11. Going to war with Iraq was because of the oil and it helped Bush’s war profiteer buddies.
The war with Afghanistan made a bit more sense because bin Laden was the real villain behind 9/11. However, once again, it was mostly done for political reasons (to help Bush win reelection) instead of anything else. Both wars were handled badly. Our troops weren’t given good living conditions, clean water, decent body armor and enough equipment.
Our troops were treated badly, and great numbers of them were dying. We averaged more than one casualty a day during those two wars. There were also untold injuries and many losses for our allies. At home, the vets found few jobs awaiting them. If they happened to be Muslim or have brown skin, they faced terrible discrimination.
The very worst thing was that our nation was resorting to torture. Sure, they called it “enhanced interrogation”, but it was just a nicer-sounding label.
I was ashamed that anyone in our nation would even suggest that torture was OK. Yet the reigning president at the time, George W Bush, decided that 9/11 was an excuse to use “enhanced interrogation” on suspected terrorists. Those in power also gave themselves the right to arrest people for almost anything using the so-called, “Patriot Act”.
The Republican propaganda has bragged about being the “party of Lincoln,” perhaps that is why Bush chose the USS Abraham Lincoln for his premature victory speech. “Mission Accomplished” - that was such a crock! The war continued and whatever mission they claimed it had been for was never accomplished.
It is ironic that I’d changed from being registered as a Democrat around the same time that my distain for the Republican party was growing exponentially. I’m embarrassed that for a time I felt the need to carry those feelings out toward people who still supported the party of torturers. I also unfairly bad-mouthed rich white men and businessmen.
After having a score of lousy bosses, I had a bad impression of most businessmen. The majority of influential businessmen in my hometown were racist, sexist guys who cheated on their wives as frequently as they cheated their customers. The rich men my hometown were white (any “colored” people had been run out of town). A good percentage of them were Republicans who used their wealth to buy themselves certain advantages. Perhaps not all of them were corrupt, but it is all too easy to assume when you grow up seeing so many disgusting examples in your own community.
After a while, I realized not all Republicans were bad people who supported torture, started wars for personal gain, and the other despicable things some powerful Republican leaders were doing. I greatly admired McCain, Olympia Snowe, Kay Bailey Hutchinson, and a few other Republicans. I’d had some hopes that they would gather the saner members of the GOP party together with some of the younger influential ones (like Meghan McCain and Shermichael Singleton) to make the party decent again. Alas, they mostly dropped out of sight, left the party or died without changing a thing.
Instead, the party (that impeached a president for adultery and lying) elected a guy who was a serial adulterer and who lied constantly. Having grown up with narcissistic personalities in the family, I recognized that in Trump right away. It is upsetting to see how low the “Grand Old Party” has fallen.
While still thinking that Trump was an awful person and a lousy president, I have tried to pay attention to “the better angels of our nature” and not resort to pettiness toward him and his followers. There are many crude images and jokes about the former president. An example was inspired by the fact that at the CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) gathering displayed a golden statue of Trump. Perhaps it was natural that it would be compared to the “Golden Calf” which Moses destroyed.
Despite not liking Trump, I never posted anything like that anywhere. In fact, I criticized those who posted images of Trump as a baby and other “low brow” humor.
Things seem to be getting worse and worse in the Republican party. Recently former CIA director, Michael Hayden tweeted that he agreed with this quote:
“I’ve covered extremism and violent ideologies around the world over my career. Have never come across a political force more nihilistic, dangerous and contemptible than today’s Republicans. Nothing close.” ~ Edward G. Luce
Sadly, I have to agree with both of them. Most of the remaining halfway decent people who are key Republican leaders either turn a blind eye to some of the revolting things the party is doing, or they are just apathic. I was guilty of being apathetic and not paying attention for many years, before my “awakening” to the political climate. Therefore, I try not to be judgmental…but it is hard.
It is also difficult to remain hopeful that things will ever get better. One of the really odd things that can give us a small bit of optimism is that the daughter of Dick Cheney, of all people, is showing some guts and a great deal of common sense. In almost all aspects of her politics, I disagree with her mightily, but her recent book, “Oath and Honor” is a courageous stand against the extremists that are now controlling the Republican party.
There are a few others who have shown that not all those leading the party have lost their sense of decency. They seem to be few and far between, but they give me hope that people will start to pay more attention to the fact that things have been getting really bad in the GOP.
When talking with those in other countries around the world, you can get a better idea of world politics and how the US is viewed by others. Our reputation has fallen.
We must counter ignorance and indifference. All of us need to keep our eyes open and be aware of what is going on in our politics. Those who genuinely care about keeping our nation’s historic democratic ideology need to look at exactly what the candidates are doing. Their actions now and in the past tell us more about who they are than their speeches do.
Each of us needs to be sure to vote when given the opportunity. We need to wake up and pay attention to the world around us. If we do that, together, we might be able get our country back on track.
