In America we get to choose our leaders. The other side of that coin is that we deserve the leadership we elect.
The American people in enough gerrymandered districts vote in jabbering clowns who pander to their basest, ugliest instincts. And so we get pond scum like Newt Gingrich, Jim Jordan, and the uniquely loathsome Ted Cruz twisting the legislative process into a grotesque self-parody. We get a serial bankrupt, pussy-grabbing, four-flushing cheat and sociopath for president. We get a Supreme Court filled with knuckle-dragging troglodytes and a card carrying member of a Margaret Atwood dystopia.
Democracies don't have a long shelf life. Athenian democracy, the granddaddy of them all lasted less than 200 years. The United States is the only extant democracy that has lasted longer ... but not by much and it seems unlikely it will see its semiquincentenial. So it goes.
It is a statistical verity that half the people are dumber than the average guy. We have voters embracing "alternative facts", Q-Anon fever dreams, and the bizarre notion that Donald Trump has ever for a nanosecond thought about anyone other than himself. We have voters who ignore history, who scoff at expertise, and who somehow imagine that theirs is the road to "making America great again". Ronald Reagan told them that government isn't the solution to the problem, it IS the problem. And they believe it.
President Biden could have given your speech. Daniel Patrick Moynihan could have given the speech of his life. It wouldn't have mattered because words don't matter anymore and ideas don't matter anymore. Identities matter. Tribes matter.
In an address at the end of his presidency George Washington warned of the dangers of political factionalism. We can be Americans. Or we can be Democrats and Republicans.
I like it! Nice updates, Bob. Though while I suppose I would not be surprised to learn Trump shot 18 holes with ol’ Il-Sung back in the day, I think you meant Jung-Un? 😁
In America we get to choose our leaders. The other side of that coin is that we deserve the leadership we elect.
The American people in enough gerrymandered districts vote in jabbering clowns who pander to their basest, ugliest instincts. And so we get pond scum like Newt Gingrich, Jim Jordan, and the uniquely loathsome Ted Cruz twisting the legislative process into a grotesque self-parody. We get a serial bankrupt, pussy-grabbing, four-flushing cheat and sociopath for president. We get a Supreme Court filled with knuckle-dragging troglodytes and a card carrying member of a Margaret Atwood dystopia.
Democracies don't have a long shelf life. Athenian democracy, the granddaddy of them all lasted less than 200 years. The United States is the only extant democracy that has lasted longer ... but not by much and it seems unlikely it will see its semiquincentenial. So it goes.
It is a statistical verity that half the people are dumber than the average guy. We have voters embracing "alternative facts", Q-Anon fever dreams, and the bizarre notion that Donald Trump has ever for a nanosecond thought about anyone other than himself. We have voters who ignore history, who scoff at expertise, and who somehow imagine that theirs is the road to "making America great again". Ronald Reagan told them that government isn't the solution to the problem, it IS the problem. And they believe it.
President Biden could have given your speech. Daniel Patrick Moynihan could have given the speech of his life. It wouldn't have mattered because words don't matter anymore and ideas don't matter anymore. Identities matter. Tribes matter.
In an address at the end of his presidency George Washington warned of the dangers of political factionalism. We can be Americans. Or we can be Democrats and Republicans.
Factionalism won. Suck it, George.
I like it! Nice updates, Bob. Though while I suppose I would not be surprised to learn Trump shot 18 holes with ol’ Il-Sung back in the day, I think you meant Jung-Un? 😁
Oh, dang. Thanks for noticing. I'll fix