I don’t write much. I used to be a news hound, I used to blog a lot, but lately I pound out long extemporaneous screeds just because “I need to be heard, dammit” — thinking that this free speech thing we were promised was the core of our nation was a real thing — and then catching myself that we are not that thing any longer. I have ADHD, probably was autistic my whole life and never was diagnosed, because kids born in the late 60’s were just “fidgety”.
I write pretty much the same thing. I can’t condense into a blog post how sick it feels to be alive in 2025; having been in the same house that my grandfather built in 1933 since 2002. I was here on 9/11, my father and my girlfriend were here that day; and it was a surreal moment.
My dad was born in the middle of the depression. My then girlfriend was born in 1977. She had a kid who was taken away from her because the child was born when she was still in high school; and now a whole generation has passed since that day. My father is long dead, the girl has seen her son grow up — disabled, on full government support — in the custody of the father; also on support. My dad was a lifelong Republican, the girlfriend … didn’t know, didn’t care about politics. Haven’t seen her in twenty years.
Looked her up, asked her how she’s getting along — and she’s dependent on full government support. But she’s not watching the news… and had no idea what’s going on. She found Jesus, you see, and the church she’s with… addiction, felony conviction… OK? People have no idea what is goin on. She voted for Trump. Twice.
And I find her a month ago on FB and ask how things are going… she’s just now — maybe — getting on her feet… has no idea that her $375 a month in SNAP is going away.
So I sent it to her last week.
Because… I don’t know. I know that nobody will agree with my reasons, so if i did explain it, what would it matter. I didn't’ want her or her 2nd kid without a father, living on this assistance and depending on it, to go without. She showed me the picture of a refrigerator full of food. I called her today and said “you may get your benefits this month; but they roll over so DO NOT SPEND IT, because December is not guaranteed, and who knows what happens in the future, so I’ll try to be there as much as I can..”
What else to say? What else to do?
My wife is MAGA, been married ten years… another person who said she didn’t care about politics when I asked, and somehow got zombied in by Trump. Owns a ****ing Trump bible, and she’s getting unpublished materials from the Oath Keepers from P.O. boxes in Idaho. I don’t know if I should call the FBI, or if they will be calling me first. I know — I know because she told me — that her strategy is to keep anything that she feels will piss me off a secret, because she knows how angry I get; and somehow that anger is solely MY fault… not hers for being a disingenuous liar who justifies the lie because my subsequent anger is somehow the driver here, not the lie that the anger is based on.
Yeah, I know. Everybody says I’m stupid.
But step back for a minute. Think of the two people I just described. The world goes on around them because of policies they barely understand; because of polices they clearly MISunderstand, but they think their views on things are as valid as anyone else because… “freedom” ...
We’ve bastardized freedom. No worry about integrity, legitimacy, verification, demonstrable evidence, whether or not the goddamn thing works or doesn’t work — everyone really proud to run into the street bragging about their freedom to tell us all what they think… yet still no idea how it’s all goin to work.
So if it does not work?
Oh, that’s easy — — blame whatever side you’re not on. See? Easy peasy.
Let’s face it — that’s what we’ve got here. The balance of the electorate is unabashedly dumb, but they have equal vote per capita as those who are smart and who understand how it all actually works. The Republicans have simply learned how to whisper sweet nothings to the stupid, and thus made loyal fans out of the people who have no idea they are being used like a square of toilet tissue.
...Until they get covered in _____ and flushed, then — then they just KNOW that it was anybody but the Republicans for their plight; it was “DEMONCRATS” who put them in that bowl with all that brown water and the solid logs.
Pennsylvania kept the Democratic majority last night, I think, in our Supreme Court. I’m so burned out. I’m so exhausted.
So it really is “the economy, stupid”. When people feel good, they vote the incumbent; when they do not feel good, they vote the challenger, against the incumbent. We really are, on balance, that fucking simplistic. We really are.
WHICH MEANS… that the stupid are still the people, on the whole, who are determining the path we take.
They don’t know much of anything, but they know what they know because.. well, they know it, OK?
My wife actually said to me, in the heat of the pandemic, with her mother in a nursing home —
”All I know is that I don’t know” as she refused to wear a mask.
Don’t ask about my marriage. I refuse to turn her life upside down by divorcing her, because she’s got about a year until she can retire with full benefits, and … then I can detach without hearing another story about how she had to leave everything behind because her ex threw her out.
Yeah, I know. I don’t read people very well. That’s how I got here, my fault — OK — I got that.
But I will do what I can — Rule 303 — and my conscience is clean.
I just wince, I weep, I just cringe inside that people, on the whole are this goddamn dumb.
Trump really has the advantage there; and if he dies tomorrow, let’s realize that the GOP has figured out that they only need a one-liner from George Carlin to ride out a democracy (even when they refuse to call it one, but rather a “Constitutional Republic”) — Carlin said:
”Think about how dumb the average person is,
and realize that half of them are stupider than that.”
Here we are, choosing our leaders by popular vote.
Simple math, folks. Simple people. “He who controls the stupid, controls the country”.
Sounds like a line from “Dune” about spice, but… iykyk
This may have some importance to our problem. (apologies to Richard Feynman for stealing his line)
Sorry for rambling. I just needed to be heard.
Peace be upon you.
Peace be upon us all… but I’m getting that feeling that it ain’t gonna be easy, if we ever do get there.
