Advanced Brain Rot

I know it's important to stay balanced. On the other hand, the scales in our country are tipped so far right now (with the emphasis on "far right"), it can be hard to recognize what balance truly is. There's certainly an argument to be made for the stance that fascism doesn't deserve a seat at the bargaining table. With that in mind, I keep myself mercifully insulated from much of MAGA culture, getting my daily dose of psychotherapy from a medical cocktail of Stewart, Colbert, and Kimmell. That said, it CAN be useful to understand the opposition ("know thine enemy"), EVEN when they're batshit insane.

Still, it was a nonconsensual encounter when I came face to face with a pro-Trump meme on Facebook recently that so completely missed reality, that I had to sit there and stare at it agape for full moments before coming back to my senses. My respect for the person who posted it (without any apparent explanation) plummeted, though it wasn't that high to begin with, in the modern political landscape. Still, I was curious enough to check the comments - big mistake, I know, but I guess I was hoping to get some kind of context for the meme, to see if there was some angle I was missing, that could help make it make sense. And what I saw was eye-opening, but not in the way I expected. Not in a good way, either, mind you.

At the tail end of a government shutdown (induced by an utter and unprecendented refusal of the Republican majority in Congress to prevent Americans' healthcare costs from skyrocketing), in which scores of federal workers have gone unpaid for well over a month, and at a time when many working families were facing the prospect of not being able to afford to FEED their kids, this meme said "stop Trump - before we all end up with jobs." Honestly, I thought it was supposed to be sarcastic, but it was too simplistic. There was no clever jab. No subtle reference. And the comments confirmed it.

At this point, I expect the MAGA Republic to twist everything that comes out of the political news cycle to their advantage, no matter how many pretzels they have to bend reality into. What I wasn't expecting was just how out of touch so many of those people were. And I don't mean that they don't know what's real or what's fake. I mean, they're not even paying attention to what's going on. They're not twisting facts, only because they're not aware of the facts in the first place. The overwhelming majority of comments on that post included one or more of the following phrases: "end SNAP", "lazy freeloaders", and "get a job". (I mean, it's no stretch to imagine these people cheering Trump on when he recently demanded that air traffic controllers work without pay). Like, this is SO far removed from anything even remotely like what's happening in the country right now.

You can't even argue to these people that Trump and the Republicans are historically piss-poor at giving regular people an opportunity to work for a living wage, because they're heads are so far up their asses they can't even tell if it's day or night! I can't help imagining them all as frail, 80 year olds who can't see or hear, and are so locked in to what their textbooks said when they were in fifth grade in the 1950s, that nothing else is able to penetrate their thick skulls. I know this isn't a kind assessment, but I won't say it's not fair. It speaks for itself.

I don't love the Democratic party unconditionally. They have LOTS of problems, and I'm happy to point them out. Because we NEED to work on them. But what I've seen lately within the anti-Trump protest movement is at least people responding to reality. We don't all have the answers, and we're not all immune to misinformation or letting our emotions rule the day (although our anger is righteous). But at least we're trying! We're not locked into one outdated worldview that resembles nothing in the world today, and unwilling to let anything else shatter that delusion about what's important. I mean, what is it that traumatized so many people so badly, that to this day the ONLY thing they care about (above and beyond what's in front of their eyes) is some mythological free-loading "commie"?

I can't even. Are these people so dumb, and so adled with age? And why are these people disproportionately represented at the polls? I swear, you should have to pass a cognitive test, as well as a civics test (on modern events) to be allowed to vote. I know that sounds bad, but what else can we do? How else can we stop idiocracy? The people running this country have a tenuous grip on reality (at best), and positively no clue what's going on. It's like the train conductor has put a blind-fold on himself. One thing you don't learn as an intelligent person - probably because you never encountered anyone smart enough to know and teach you - is how much you'll be gobsmacked in life by how incredibly dumb the human animal is, time and time again. The breadth and depth of stupidity is consistently appalling.

Addendum:

I've had a little more time to process this, and it occurs to me that these people literally believe that people are on food assistance because they're too lazy to work. Children are going hungry, and these people are celebrating because they think they deserve it! They want SNAP to end, because they think it will motivate people to get a job. They SUPPORT Trump cutting off funds, as if it's good for the country's wellbeing. They are so deluded! They don't understand how SNAP boosts the economy. They don't understand how many people on SNAP already work. They don't understand the extent to which the working class is exploited so the rich can get richer.

And there's no consideration given to the federal workers forced out of a job, or to work without pay, not to mention the key issue which is affordable health care. What's humane about people not being able to afford to get treated when they're sick? They must think people only get sick because they deserve it. Which is ludicrous - don't they have personal experience with these things? Most of them are working class. Nobody goes through life without having health problems, and knowing people with health problems. How can they be so absolutely dumb, when that stupidity is so incredibly dangerous to humanity?

You just get stuck in your bubble of empathy, and you forget that there are actually human beings out there - a lot of them - who do not have empathy, and do not experience any guilt or shame about not having empathy. That's not rhetoric. That's not exaggeration. That's cold, hard reality. These people are dumb, and mean, and they're being tapped like batteries by people with power and authority to hurt the entire country. And I feel like I'm just pissing in the wind here, because complaining about it doesn't change shit, and the injustice just continues on. (While these asshats - including people in my own family - that are hurting people and destroying the country, are laughing gleefully at my frustration).

And what little satisfaction accompanied my realization of these things - putting pieces together and understanding better how the opposition thinks - has been completely replaced now by an utter and abject despair. I'm so sick of this country's politics, and the very real wounds it's causing in people's lives, even cutting off former friends and tearing families apart. The divide is real. Welcome to the fall of the United States.

Losing Friends Over Politics

A lot of people seem to treat morality and ethics as pretty much interchangeable. But I think there's a meaningful difference between the two. I've written about this before. In my conception, morals are essentially the private beliefs (no matter where they originate, or how many people with which they are shared) a person has about what constitutes "righteousness" or virtue. It should be used as a guide for one's actions and choices in life. This is a function of religion in my view - I know there are people who disagree, but God isn't a collective concept. It's a personal relationship that nobody else gets to define but you.

Ethics, on the other hand, are the general rules we agree to follow in order to co-exist peacefully with one another. Take the golden rule, for example. It governs how you treat others, not the decisions you make that determine the direction of your own life. Because these are guidelines we are all expected to follow in order to keep things running smoothly, they need to be collectively agreed upon (to a reasonable degree). There are some who think the state should meddle in matters of religion, but the document our democracy was founded upon disagrees - and so do I.

It doesn't seem right, then, that politics should be off the table of polite discussion, the way that religion is. Religion is personal, and powerful. It doesn't require consensus. But politics is about how we construct the society we all must live together in. If you're afraid to discuss your political beliefs because you think you might lose friends or family over it, then I think maybe you need to reconsider your political beliefs and what they say about you as a person. If you're not working together with the rest of the people at the table, then maybe you don't deserve to share in their company.