Archive: Opinions

This week I have posted something ridiculous and, I hope, amusing on my Facebook feed each day.  It is my way of fighting the deluge of pro and anti-Trump posts my online friends have been unable to bring themselves to avoid posting.  I am so sick of election posts I have considered leaving Facebook altogether, but I don't want to lose touch with friends and family that I really care about.

Or to quote a joke from Woody Allen's Annie Hall, "It reminds me of that old joke- you know, a guy walks into a psychiatrist's office and says, hey doc, my brother's crazy! He thinks he's a chicken. Then the doc says, why don't you turn him in? Then the guy says, I would but I need the eggs. I guess that's how I feel about relationships. They're totally crazy, irrational, and absurd, but we keep going through it because we need the eggs."

Facebook has always been on the verge of indigestible with its onslaught of cat videos, religious and political rants, and invitations to "like" things that my "friends" like, even if they don't really like them.  And its intrusive, privacy invading approach to online life.  But that's the online real estate most of the people I care about inhabit -- at least the ones who do online.  So, yeah, I need the eggs, even though Facebook community is far from ideal.

And to all my dear Facebook friends: I actually already know what you think about politics and no matter how heartfelt, strident, and never ending your posts are, they are not going to change what I think.  Nobody has actually asked what I think, come to think of it.  I think people I know on both sides of the political fence just assume I agree with them.  Does that make me a political schmoo?

Editor's note: I am showing my age by asking that schmoo question.  Is it any wonder that I think mattress tester is a great job and that I prefer to trod shoeless?  I have always thought of schmoos as being so generic they have no... well... anything.  If you are too young or just don't remember schmoos, here is a Wikipedia link that explains what they are.

The funny thing is, most of the people I have talked to in the physical world since election day haven't had much to say about the outcome beyond the occasional sentence or two.  So I have been wondering why people I respect and pretty much know in real life think I would enjoy endless rants pro or against our next president in the virtual world.  I realize that this election has been particularly reprehensible in so many new and different ways that it riled up almost everyone in the world, let alone the United States.  Calling our next president Hitler is particularly offensive to someone of my upbringing, and accomplishes nothing, really except to make me rethink whatever I thought about the name caller before I knew that they thought I would think that is OK.

Enough is enough.  I am not seeing any constructive or realistic plans for making it better -- it being whatever, on the right or the left, is perceived as terribly wrong.  There is a lot of talk about doing unspeakable things to the Trumps, and futile hope on the part of otherwise intelligent people that the Electoral College will replace Trump with (fill in the blank -- Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Ted Cruz...) or that Trump will be put on trial for (fill in the crime) and put in jail instead of the White House.

It seems that the people who can make a difference don't choose to.  In Washington there are stories Trump's Alt-Right staff appointments, or Republicans and Democrats who are maneuvering for more power.  It all sounds like politics as usual to me, only a little nastier than usual.

I think it is pretty safe to say that Mr. Trump will be our President starting in January, and that whatever we all think of him, we'll have to live with it for at least four years.  Instead of this endless, worthless, judgemental grousing, it would probably be better for the country if people who can make a difference would actually step up and make one.

Trump himself should give it a try.  His appeal is allegedly that he is not a politician so it would not be politics as usual if he were elected.  Somebody should take away his Twitter account, and he should figure out how 'not politics as usual' can be better than 'politics as usual', not worse.  That would be truly inspiring.

I understand that working together to make things better is not standard operating procedure in Washington, but this election brought American Politics, already on the skids, to a new, unimaginable low.  Things don't get better if somebody doesn't make them better.  If leaders of all political philosophies got together to work out some positive things they could do to make America better it would actually be good for the country.

And best of all, it would make Facebook not entirely intolerable again.

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