I have been labeled a Liberal and a Conservative by different people over the years. I've also been called a Troll and an Anarchist. In truth, people keep trying to slap some label on me to make me fit into their world but really when it all comes down to it I'm just an asshole. I say what I think and what I feel with very few buffers between where my brain starts and my mouth finishes. This tends to really honk a lot of people off and amuse an even larger number of people. I am perfectly okay with either outcome.
So ever since the Toupee that walks like a man was elected to be POTUS, I have seen a lot of “Never before in the history of history has a President and his family been subjected to (Insert your favorite horror here).” Having lived through the 8 years of Obama's regime, I personally find that statement extremely amusing and often wonder if people are stupid or simply suffering from some serious Dementia that effects their memories. However, the cries of outrage from Trumpservatives does have some minor echoes of reality in them, just not in the way they like to think. Sherman, set the Wayback Machine for about 10 years ago, please.
Now, in America's long and somewhat checkered history, one thing has pretty much remained a constant. No matter who was elected to be POTUS, they all had a couple of things in common. That's right, in the 45 different regime changes America has undergone, with two exceptions (Maybe three, just because I have a degree in history doesn't mean I actually know anything about it) these folks were all A. White and 2. Old. Okay, old is a relative term. They were well on their way to middle age even if they hadn't made it there yet.
So imagine it, in almost 250 years of existence, Americans almost always had an Old White Dude running things. One time, we had a young White Catholic dude running things and that upset some folks so much, he got killed. Still, even with the YWCD in charge, things were usually kind of civil. Sure we got snarky at times and even ugly a few more times, but for the most part, things went kind of smoothly. We almost never saw the level of hatred and vitriol that we have seen over the past 10 years. So what happened to change this?
Simple, the Status Quo got destroyed. Not just a little, but utterly and completely to the point of instilling mass panic, people hiding under beds and dogs sleeping with cats. (Well okay, maybe not the last one.) Note, what I am about to say it not meant to imply racism or even intolerance. It is just meant to show my point. The one true indicator that to most people's minds kept this country on a somewhat straight path was destroyed in one fell swoop. We elected a Black Man.
Ahh, I can hear the cries of outrage now. One side is saying, “We aren't racist! We didn't care if he was Black! He was just the Anti-Christ who invaded from Africa to make us all Gay Muslims!” The other side is saying, “Electing a Black Man was the first real sign that this country was moving away from the Dark Ages and into the Utopian Socialist Paradise that it was meant to be!” Well just calm down! This little rant has ZERO to do with racism and more to the fact that Americans are sticks in the mud who despise change. (That's better than being racist...right?)
So here is what happened. Election #1 occurs and a somewhat youngish Liberalish Black...ish man runs for the presidency! After over two centuries of Old White Dudes running (Ok Jesse Jackson did run that one time, but no one took him seriously), suddenly SOMETHING NEW happens. People on both sides get shook up and that is when the panic starts. Then HE ACTUALLY MANAGES TO GET ELECTED! That is when pretty much everyone hits DefCon1. Supporters of this radical new norm pull out all the stops defending him and opponents pretty much do the same thing.
So for the 4 years of the first round, all hell breaks loose because all of the “rules” both Liberals and Conservatives have lived by since the beginning are rendered null and void. Lies, insult, and threats previously considered improper and wrong are flung over and over again. Defensive lies and a laundry list of excuses are fired back. Suddenly our nice quiet lives were in the midst of an all-out battle of B.S. and quite simply, the majority of Americans didn't know how to deal with it so they just monkey piled on the side that seemed closest to the way they felt and hung on for dear life.
Towards the last half of the 1st 4 years, things had actually started to quiet down a bit. The Right was steady in it's belief that soon another Old White Dude would be elected and things would return to the way they should be. Most of them weren't even concerned by which side won at this point, just that some OWD would win. The Left was mellowed out for pretty much the same reason. Either the Black Dude would win or another OWD would win so really they faced a Win/Win situation. Then, the unimaginable happens, at least from the viewpoint of the majority of Americans. The Youngish Black Dude wins again!
Again, keep in mind this really has almost nothing to do with BlackGOOD/ BlackBAD. Nothing to do with Racism...well okay almost nothing to do with racism. It is just that the nice simple worldview that pretty much all Americans had was once again busted into tiny little bits and tossed to hungry wolves so they could devour it completely. Our brains had been programmed by centuries of “well that is just the way things are” and once again we were shown that things could change. So the vitriol and lies that had faded were brought back with a vengeance.
During the second 4 years, we saw a level of rage and Meme making that hadn't ever been seen before in the history of Memes or Rage. People on both sides pulled out all of the stops and bombarded the entire world with Tweets, Twits, Snaps and...well pretty much everything else. Oh, the world trembled under the social media onslaught as everyone cried out in terror.
Now, you'd think that after the “norm” was returned that this would all die down. After all, we had two centuries of being fairly courteous and not going ape poop over whoever was elected to be the current American dictator. I mean if we could be somewhat human during Carter and Ford, then we should be able to return to that after the Scary Black Dude was gone, right? Well, there are to obstacles to that. One I will cover here and one I will cover in the next rant. The one I will cover here is a simple one.
Once the cat is out of the bag and the horse is out of the barn, it is practically impossible to get them back in again. (especially the cat, those suckers hate bags) Eight years was all it took for both sides to forget civility and the rules of engagement. Suddenly our lizard brains realized that we didn't actually HAVE to play nice. We realized that we could say or do whatever the hell we want no matter how horrible and cruel it was and nothing bad would happen. So yeah, an Old White (Orange?) Dude was elected President. Even better the OWD beat a WOMAN, (Not meant as sexist. Goes back to the 200+ years of OWD mentality.) but the rules of engagement had changed and there was no going back.
People hate change. Change scares people because they aren't sure how to deal with it. The longer things remain the same, the more scary change is. Even people who claim to want things to change often just want more of the same with just a different face. When Obama was elected, the way things always have been was destroyed and everyone is still just trying to find out where to go from here. No matter how much people may want things to go back to the way they were, it will never happen. Donald Trump is actually proof of that in his own way. (More on that in the next rant.)
America is changing. For the good or for the worse only time will tell. I won't even make a guess, but in my mind, any change is good in the long run. The change means chances at progress. Not changing means the doom of stagnation. Sure, shaking things up can be scary and perhaps even destructive, but forest fires are sometimes needed to clear out the old and useless deadwood and allow new growth to start.
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