Packing Up the Circus

Republican Rusty Bower, refusing Trump’s commands to “find votes” and fix the election,  says: “I don’t want to win by cheating.” This is what we should expect from any functioning adult human being, and yet, because it is so rare these days, particularly in a party hell-bent on winning “by any means necessary,” it feels like Mr. Bower should be elevated to sainthood.  This is the adult version of the current Self-Esteem education of children, where teachers say “I like the way you didn’t hit your neighbor over the head with the xylophone mallet. Great job!” When the bar is so low, simply being a normal functioning adult—or kid— suddenly merits high praise.

 

Once upon a time, there lived a group of people who could recognize hypocrisy, call it out and refuse to accept it in anybody, but particularly public officials. Once upon a time, a video tape of a President clearly telling officials in Georgia to “find” 11,000 votes so he could win would be jailed or at least,  never allowed to run for office again. Once upon a time, crooked politicians had to hide their misdeeds behind several smokescreens. Now, with a public stupefied by a tsunami of such misdeeds and incapable of outrage, unable to insist on accountability, they can publicly decree “I could shoot someone in Times Square and get away with it.” A long time ago, a lie was considered unacceptable, especially when spoken by someone in power. 20,000 lies later, who cares anymore? And though, as Will Rogers quipped, “Schools ain’t what they used to be and they never was,” there was a time when scientific and logical thinking was valued and any assertion needed to be backed up by actual facts, evidence or at least, the coming together of multiple points of view clearly articulated by those in the know. Now it’s perfectly fine to spin conspiracy theories about Italians changing votes via satellites and Jewish space lasers and call that newsworthy, with the contemporary byline, “If I choose to believe something, it’s true.”

 

How I long for the days when the stories about those who lied, who cheated, who stole, who chose to hate people they never met because of differences, were seen as flawed adults who eventually faced consequences instead of getting elected to positions of power and idolized. When winning by cheating was seen as weak instead of strong, when asking for Presidential pardons so the members of the “good ole boys” club could do whatever they wanted without penalty was unacceptable, when those who broke the law went to jail, when deliberately breaking one’s oath to defend the Constitution was seen as treason and treason deserved punishment. 

 

In short, I’m so damn tired of these fools wrecking havoc as they drive recklessly in their clown cars allowed to keep their driver’s licenses and now upheld in their antics by the ringmasters in the highest court in the land. The circus used to be fun, but now the elephants are stampeding, the trapeze artists are falling and there’s no net, the bullies are stealing popcorn from the kids and the Freak Show has become the norm, hosted by Fox News.  Time for the whole damn show to pack up and leave town.