Quick thoughts on the madness that seems to grow and fester apace in the USA these days……….
The most disturbing thing about the Trump assassination attempt to me isn’t that it happened, because honestly, who could really be surprised, given the level of rage and violent rhetoric we’ve seen over the last decade – including from the target himself (and his followers, and his lackeys). Google “bloodbath” or “hang Mike Pence” or “kill Pelosi” sometime.
No, the most disturbing thing was my reaction to it. The initial breaking headlines did not make me gasp. When I first read some of the details, I conjured up all kinds of conspiracy theories – the same kind of conspiracy theories I have criticized in people on the other side of the political aisle.
And there was another, darker reaction that I won’t share here but that I bet a lot of others were feeling, too. And I can guarantee you that if the target had been Joe Biden, plenty of people who oppose him would have been thinking the same thing.
Now I have to decide at what point in my life I walk away from these kinds of thoughts. There are a million more productive things in life than consuming yourself with hate, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t store plenty of hate. I’m not proud of it, but I don’t necessarily apologize for it, either.
I’m hardly alone, and this problem is hardly new. If I were laying bets, I’d bet it will still be around 1,000 years from now and 2,000 years from now and all the way up until humankind finally cannibalizes itself and does the world a huge favor by disappearing altogether.
All we can do is change ourselves. In my case, that train is long overdue. We’ll see what happens.
I’m no wild-eyed patriot, but I still bought an American flag for the new home and hung it up outside the front porch for the Fourth of July. We want our kids to learn about the USA and develop an affection for it. Some part of me still longs for the American myth we all learned about as kids, the one that always seems just out of reach, but many of us still reach for anyway.
Go figger.
Vance Cariaga 