more trouble in paradise

As part of my ongoing series on “how weird it's getting out there,” this past weekend I was selling my books at yet another art show. At a refreshment tent a volunteer, once again a normal looking white guy in his thirties or forties, with whom I exchange greetings once a year looks at me and says, “there's something I have to ask you.”

Alarmed, I say, “Well, what?”

He looks askance at other customers and says softly, “wait 'til there's nobody around. Just hang on a minute.”

This leaves me lingering long after I had assumed refreshment would be mine. He looks at me apologetically as new people arrived. Finally I give up hope for my original purpose and say, “Come on. Let's just go over there.” He agrees.

“We've spoken before and you strike me as an intelligent guy,” he says with angst on his face. 'I want your opinion on something.”

Then I knew what it was. Here we go again. “I think I know what this is about,” I say. “The election.”

“Yes,” he said, relieved I had been the one to say it. “What do you make of it?”

The guy is loathe to speak of the election in front of other Americans. And judging by his tone, he fears the dissolution of his country. I gave him my now honed stump speech, including how candidate choice is no greater indicator of peoples' character than their favorite football team and actually holds equal significance. “If a player on your favorite team rapes somebody,” I elaborated, “you don't change teams, do you?” This was by way of helping him leap the fissure growing between the losers and the winners, to reassure him that half of America is not validating the asinine behavior of Donald Trump. They just had a different take on the event; that there is no need of a new bigotry where Clinton voters and abstainers look down on Trump voters. But how easily we appear to slide into bigotry in whatever form it may take.  And how we enjoy it.

The people who aren't upset? The Trumpets. They're feeling alright for now, content to leave detractors twisting in the wind on the moral high ground.

truth and consequences

Yesterday I sold my novel Paradise Interrupted to a perfectly normal seeming man for his wife at an art & craft show. He returned a half hour later all overwrought.

“We have to talk,” he said, motioning to meet him around behind my canopy.

My only thought was that somehow what I wrote in his book had offended him or his wife.

“Whatever you say stays here,” he assured me. “Nobody else will know.”

“Okay, shoot,” I say.

“I'm sorry but there's something I have to know,” he says. “I have an obsession. I can't stand to give money to anybody who supports Trump. I have to know who you voted for.”

I was glad to hear this was all it was. I told him he had an unhealthy obsession and he'd better get ahold of himself.

“I know, he says,” almost in agony, “but please tell me.” He cupped his hands in supplication.

I told him its not this important, it's just like having a favorite football team. You root for the team and some perfectly wonderful people will be rooting for the other side.

“Please, just tell me,” he said, “Nobody else will know. Please.”

At this point I figured I should give the guy what he needs so I said, “I'm a flaming liberal,” which he took to mean I had not supported Trump. He was as relieved as if I had just saved his little girl from drowning, repeatedly shaking my hand.

This is the effect on just one man of Tuesday's vote. Spread it across the country and you've got some problems. How many people are now crippled in their ability to shop? To even think straight.

On Tuesday a sea change took place in this country and selling my books as I do at weekend festivals, I am positioned to observe an illuminating effect: to wit, the distinct political halves of the population just swapped sides like a reciprocal wildebeest migration.

 

Since Obama took office I have been beset by the occasional Republican who feigns interest in a book, then grills me on my slant. When I say I like the man, they slam down the book and stomp off saying they can't do business with me, thereby thinking I have been roundly punished. I wondered at their motivation and it took Trump getting elected to reveal it.

That won't be happening for awhile because it's the Democrats' turn to do it. This weekend for the first time ever, Democrats held my affiliation hostage to a book purchase and Republicans were content knowing the White House soon will live up to its name. Turns out it's no more than anger at being on the losing side. To manifest itself to the point of punishment, I conclude, requires true loathing for the winner. For Democrats it requires a despicable lout such as Trump and Republicans simply needed a half-Negro man superior in every way to any candidate they have put forth in the modern era.

One could conclude it was this slight that fueled the result we see now, and it would be not restricted to the voters but must include people of influence over them. I suspect the useless- information-overload-to-the-brain society we occupy today has bred a nation of loony tunes, it's just that simple. It's a sea to shining sea nuthouse and the pecans are in charge.

the solution

In 2000 thirty thousand votes errantly cast on the infamous butterfly ballot for Pat Buchanan but clearly intended for Gore, went unchallenged even though Buchanan himself disavowed the votes.  Without those votes, Gore still had Florida but the U.S. Supreme court stepped in and took the office away from a perfectly fine candidate who had won both the popular vote and the electoral college vote and handed it to Bush, resulting in the Middle East horrors that have ensued ever since. 

Here's what needs to happen now.  The Electoral College does the job for which it is intended (correcting elections that go egregiously wrong) and extracts the winner who is a man barely fit for society let alone the presidency and gives the election to Hillary Clinton who. by the way, won the popular vote.

As they say, turnabout is fair play.  And we walk out of this cloud back into the light of day.  As for protest, why would anybody who claims the government is letting him down be sorry to see a giant fascist turd deprived of the chance to far more deeply let him down?

L.I.F.E.

Concerning the recent dumping of all sexual deviants into one bucket called LBJHFQTGIFRIDAY or whatever it is, I think "queers" was less insulting.  In fact, I wonder at the need for a label at all unless it's just to homogenize all who bear it into one identifiable blob, easily dismissed as composed of identical parts.  Although it will be handy for the arm bands they soon may be required to wear.  

underwhere

Nobody underestimated Donald Trump.  They underestimated the power of stupid.