The Word always creates. And words always create.
The idiot, by definition, is simply a man who has talked himself into a world all his own.
-Robert Farrar Capon, Hunting the Divine Fox
I have been thinking quite a bit lately about how and why people believe the things they do about the world. Watching the recent debates and the corresponding kerfuffle on the interweb it occurs to me that we are now living in a world where the different tribes actually seem to believe their own worldview. At the dawn of this spasm of corruption and mendacity called the Trump administration, Kellyann Conway coined the phrase "Alternative facts," and we all chuckled. But as The Smiths once said, "That joke isn't funny anymore." Last night Mike Pence told Kamala Harris that she was entitled to her own opinion, but not to her own facts. At which point I nearly lost my ever loving mind; it was hypocrisy of the highest order for a man representing an administration whose rejection of all kinds of facts has led to botched handling of pandemic, moving in the wrong direction with regard to climate change, the diminishment of our national standing in the world, and possibly significant erosion of our national security, not to mention the baseless accusations about election fraud throwing our very democracy out into fast moving traffic.
Now, in all humility (even though I'm not feeling particularly humble), I must admit that perhaps it is me who is the idiot who has talked himself into a world all his own. Maybe it is Trump and his sycophants who are right about all of the things they seem so certain about. Maybe all those pesky environmental regulations are not so much about clean air and water as they are about socialism taking our freedom away. Maybe there is a reason other than racism to act with such callous disregard to all the black and brown people who are crying out in the street for justice. Maybe the abortion issue really is worth sacrificing just about every other moral value in order to win what at this point will be mostly a pyrrhic victory. I do have most of the scientific community on my side, including some parts of it that have never actually endorsed a political candidate before (Scientific American, The New England Journal of Medicine). I have a large majority of the most reputable journalists, including some rather conservative folk, on my side. And I have what is probably going to be a rather sizeable majority of the American voters on my side (but with the electoral vote situation there is still cause for alarm). On the other side there is Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Rush Limbaugh, and a smattering of white supremacists, none of whom I particularly want to have a beer with.
Four years ago, we as a country made a choice between two worlds. One was the politics-as-usual world that Hillary Clinton embodied. It was pantsuits and empty promises. Nobody loved it, some people resented it, but it still won a majority of the voting population. Donald Trump represented a world of rich white guy power tinged by the orange fake tan of someone with boundless vanity and very little self awareness. He also had a plan on how to exploit the narrow crack that opened in the door of the electoral college, the "blue wall" crumbled because Hillary didn't even look for the cracks. For almost three years the experiment of Trump was annoying but not disastrous, and then nature came crashing through like the Kool-Aid man with little Corona virus stubby nubs all over him. All of the sudden someone who had "alternative facts," wasn't just maddening, he was dangerous and deadly, to over 200,000 Americans at this point, including himself and most of his closest team.
Now we have a choice again. Biden is boring, and Biden has been hanging around the government for pretty much his entire adult life. Biden has some quirks, but they're normal old man quirks, not raging narcissist quirks. Biden has been Veep, Biden has been a Senator, more importantly though, Biden has been through a crash course in humanity and compassion. He is far from a Socialist, or even a Leftist, trust me, I know some Socialists and Leftists, they do not like him, or Clinton, or Obama, or pretty much any establishment Democrat. The last six months should have taught us in stark detail that sometimes the boring adults need to be in charge. It is fun to go to the zoo and watch monkeys fling poo at each other, but it is far less fun when they decide to throw it on you.
At this point the word is normal, please give us normal, enough with the novelty, enough with the constant barrage of unhinged and often blatantly false tweets, enough with the self-dealing and flexing. I want me some boring normal Joe, and I'll take the first Black Woman VP as a little sauce on that. Like that time when my gall bladder went bad and was making me sick, the doctor told me to go on the BRAT (bread, rice, applesauce and toast) diet until they took the stony little bugger out, we need to cool things down and all get back in the same world so that we can heal and start to live up to the standard of e pluribus unum, out of many one.
