Discourse
We’ve all heard it’s best to stay away from two topics when conversing with neighbors: religion and politics. The Missus and I met a fellow a few nights ago who did not get it. We had gone to a local restaurant (outdoors, of course) to catch a band we like. We were sitting at a high-top, and this guy was sitting alone at the bar nearby. When political conversations start, I generally shut up and let her carry the load because she enjoys it and is much quicker with the facts than I am. He started chatting, and neither of us remember how it got political, but the evolution of the conversation was weird.
Him: The covid thing will be over after the election.
Mrs. F: Yeah, probably.
Him: Uncle Joe and Cousin Kamala have it figured out.
This is what he actually said, and we read him to be, well, on our side based on that phraseology. I mean, pretty facetious, right? Yeah, well…
Mrs. F: [Chuckle.}
Him: Trump’s gotta go. That guy is so wrong in so many ways.
Mrs. F: How so?
Him: He completely screwed up the pandemic.
Now, we’ve heard this on the regular media for months. And we often yell back at the TV what the Missus politely asked this fellow:
Mrs. F: What exactly should he have done differently?
Him: He should have shut everything down, like China. They handled it.
Mrs. F: He really doesn’t have the power to do that, constitutionally. That’s why he let the states decide that.
Him: But it’s a pandemic!
Here’s where it starts to go off the rails. He said that word, which I’m sick of, like it’s a magic totem that explains everything. (Oh, Lord. Did I just culturally appropriate something?)
Mrs. F: Well, China can do it because they don’t have our constitution. We can’t.
Him: IT’S A PANDEMIC!
You know, like “GODZILLA’S COMING!” I swear his lips moved two seconds after the sound came out. At this point, we now know he’s on the other side, and was being coy early on because, I suppose, where we now live he’s vastly outnumbered.
Mrs. F: [Polite pause, trying now to disengage.]
Him: THAT GUY IS SO WRONG IN SO MANY WAYS.
Mrs. F: Like what?
Him: THE PANDEMIC! HE SHOULD HAVE DONE IT LIKE CHINA!
He’s getting louder and faster, but saying the same thing, and the Missus is trying to now talk to me and ignore him. We’re new around here and try to be polite to everyone because you never know who you’re talking to or who’s overhearing you, right? He pauses, and we think we’re free. Then he has a new thought. Damn.
Him: You see those flags?
He’s pointing to a fishing boat at the dock with a pair of Trump 2020 flags fluttering from the flying bridge.
Him: That guy should burn them now. If he burns them now, he’ll be a hero. If he burns them after the election, he’ll just be a sore loser. I’d rather be a hero than a loser.
This was a new one on us, and that quote is verbatim. The other stuff, we have heard forever. But we must have missed that episode of Morning Joe. By this point, we’re both trying hard to ignore him, but he’s lonely. Understandable.
Him: And at least we don’t cheat and lie.
At that, yours truly looked up and the Missus and I both smiled and shook our heads sadly because, of course, we think it’s them that cheat and lie. (See: impeachment, servers, DNC, Kavanaugh, Hunter, et cetera, et cetera.) The Missus couldn’t resist one last volley.
Mrs. F: How so?
Him: THAT GUY IS SO WRONG IN SO MANY WAYS!
Mrs. F: [Silence]
Him: DOITLIKECHINAITSAPANDEMICFORGODSSAKETHATGUYISSOWRONGINSOMANYWAYS CHEATANDLIECHEATANDLIELIKECHINAITSAPANDEMICFORGODSSAKEBEAHERONOTALOSER
Louderandlouderandfasterandfaster. Memorized MSNBC talking points cranked up to 11. Louderandloudernandlouderandfaster.
Blissfully, as I’m pretty sure he was about to work RUSSIA and COLLUSION into his babble, a woman he knew - and who apparently actually liked him - approached and distracted him and the Missus was finally able to turn away and end the encounter.
I swear I am not making that conversation up. Okay, maybe the very last part isn’t quite a quotation. But it’s close. And, if this is the quality of debate these guys are capable of, we’d better not let them take charge, and we should be embarrassed if they win.
And do they really call her Cousin Kamala? What would Uncle Ben and Aunt Jemima say? Oh, sorry. They’ve been disappeared.
Heard a good quote the other day regarding the filibuster and court nomination blatherfest that is apropos here: The left starts a fight, then gets mad when the right wants to fight back.
As I said, we have found that here in our new digs about 80 percent of the population thinks like we do (based on informal observation of yard signs, boat signs, mask resistance, everyday conversation, and high percentage of Home Depot shoppers who know what they’re looking for). That was also true of our last neighborhood. And it’s true of most communities we interact with. And we live in a Blue state, although its blueness is dictated by three dense population centers and the resultant monotheistic legislature. Everybody around them is red; they’re surrounded but they have the numbers. We don’t pick places to live by polls and politics, but it seems that deplorables like us, who value a little freedom, a little joy, and a lot less fraught-ness, are all over the place. We just don’t answer polls, and maybe sometimes we lie to polls because we like messing with the preprogrammed system. Look out for the Silent Majority, kids. We’re still here. In 2016, we were merely frustrated. This time, you’ve really pissed us off.
Last thing on politics, I swear. As we go to press, the latest news is reporters asking the President whether he will accept the results of the election. This, from the people who have, nearly fours years in, refused and resisted the results of the last election, and who have conveniently forgotten St. Hillary’s “Don’t concede. Don’t ever concede.” pep talk of just a few weeks ago. Really?
There’s a great op-ed in Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal titled Before Reporting Became ‘Journalism’ about the contrast between what reporters used to do (report the facts, subdue their egos, and let the readers think for themselves) and how they write and behave now that they consider themselves Journalists (stir up emotion and blatantly push their point of view). (Note: The WSJ is paywalled.)
And, yes, the Journal’s news section is guilty of much the same. That’s a discussion for another day.
If you want to have all the holiday joy sucked out of you in one crashing moment, read the CDC’s guidelines for Hallowe’en and other festivities: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/holidays.html. Scroll down to Fall Holiday Celebrations and cry in your bowl of miniature Milky Ways.
Okay, one more thing. In Baltimore, which has historically had one of the nation’s most robust Columbus Day parades each October, the move is on by elected officials to relabel Columbus Day “Indigenous Peoples Day.” As the Missus correctly points out, without Columbus, they wouldn’t be Indigenous Peoples. They’d just be some folks somewhere that nobody ever heard of.
Keep smiling, but don’t talk to strangers.