Thursday, November 08, 2018

To the Deplorables


Your anxieties and difficulties are worthy of respect. NOT your politics.

We have a racist, autocratic president and a once respectable political party whose professional class has rolled over and died to cling to his coattails and a cable network that has basically become state TV on his behalf.

The ARE deplorable.

As for just plain folks who enable that apparatus, they are ALSO deplorable by association, albeit to different degrees and in different domains.

There are those ATTRACTED by his racism and autocratic disregard for the Constitution and a cult-like attachment to Trump as a person that makes issues of true and false, right and wrong irrelevant. We'll call them the CORE deplorables. (Or, as I term them, the 5th Ave. Club.)

There are those who like his policies on immigration, federal judges, taxes, trade, etc. and will do a Paul Ryan shrug to the rest. We'll call them the TOLERANT deplorables: racism and autocracy off-putting but, so long as they get what they want, they'll tolerate it.

And then there are those who are just plain too occupied with trying to keep their heads above water to spend any time even casually investigating what Trump is actually doing and considering its moral implications. The ones who would vote for Jack the Ripper if he had an (R) next to his name on a ballot.

I am empowered by God in Christ to love these people but I cannot respect their politics because ALL the deplorables have one thing in common: racism, ideology, and / or self-interest HAVE PUT THEM OUTSIDE THE ARENA OF RATIONAL DISCOURSE.

Friday, November 02, 2018

THE DAY AFTER I VOTE


THE DAY AFTER I VOTE I plan to re-register as None (No Affiliation). [Turned down three times for ordination, I'll settle for being a None. 😀 ] I was going to wait and see how things went with the election before making a decision about party affiliation. Maybe, I thought, if the Republicans get really, brutally, humiliatingly defeated at the polls they will come to their senses and throw the racist, autocratic, conspiracists bastards out of the party as William F. Buckley and true conservatives did to the wing-nutty John Birchers. I now suspect it will not work that way because the Republicans who will be swept out of office (and replaced by Democrats) will be PRECISELY the moderates who have been cowed to do much more than shrug when asked about Trump. The Republicans who survive, for the most part, will be PRECISELY the ones for whom racist demagoguery works in their districts and states. They will double down. So, while my decision is open to review in the future, for this particular historic moment, I'd rather not have to bear the moral stigma of a Republican voter registration. Why not register as a Democrat? Because, until America decides between the Constitution and right-wing ethno-centric autocracy, I have no stomach to get involved in intra-tribal warfare between centrists and progressives in the Democratic party. You all pick your candidates and I'll vote for them.

A 13 year old kid has a few items on his shopping list

  A 13 year old kid has a few items on his shopping list: Beer ❌ Cigarettes ❌ Racy Magazines ❌ Lottery Tickets ❌ Gun — No Problem! Another ...