Nighttimer: you and I have such different perspectives and philosophies that we can look at the same things and you see bad and I see good. I will always appreciate, however, that you explain your points with evidence of Trump's policies and
actual information rather than simply attacking me personally or quoting some blowhard.
celawson, there are only a few people on this or any other board I can say I honestly wish I had the chance to sit down with or have a drink, smoke a joint or break bread with and you are on that short list. For what its worth.
I shouldn't respond. It's Monday and I'm a little fucked up off a combination of good bourbon and cheap beer. I'm sitting here with my stomach growling in misery and my vision blurred off the alcohol. But I just came from the hospital where my younger brother is lying in a bed being incubated with a fucking tube down his throat because he had his birthday on the 11th and nine days later he had a stroke and I've been trotting back and forth to the ICU since then.
Emotionally, I'm a wreck.
So I
shouldn't respond. I have nothing of particular worth to add to this topic or any other one here. I'm just too far outside the norm and my approach is too goddamn hard to figure out or deal with for some folks here. Not that I'm losing any sleep over it. I read this quote by
Christopher Priest, the talented and outspoken comic book writer who took on the thankless task of taking a lame-ass third-stringer like the Black Panther and making him so cool he's now the star of a $200 million superhero tentpole that has my daughter who could give two shits about a Black Panther comic book totally hyped and geeked for a Black Panther movie (
Yes, White America. Black folks can be total nerds who read comic books too. Including Superman, Captain America, Batman, Wonder Woman, Thor, and all the other whiter than a glass of milk super folks. Every so often we get a Luke Cage or Black Panther to interject some color into the proceedings. Who knew?).
Priest puts it right out there in the first fucking sentences.
"I'm an asshole. I’m abrasive. I am so sure that I’m right about virtually everything. I can sing you an aria of reasons to not like me,” says comics writer Christopher Priest, his bass voice rising to the brink of anger but never quite tipping over. “Not liking me because I’m black is so juvenile and immature, because there’s many reasons to not like me."Sound like anyone you and I know?
I'm still a little bit buzzed and I'm still balancing my pain and distress with the pure pleasure of a Luther Vandross deep dive on Spotify, but allow me to arouse myself from my misery/stupor long enough to respond to something celawson said. Not now, not today or yesterday but six months ago. Back when I quoted some infamous words uttered by one Donald John Trump.
That was August 24, 2017. Here's what I said to you.
Four days later you responded.So, how was dinner?
Six months later I'm not expecting any answers from you, celawson. Your silence
was the answer. I don't know you well enough to say definitively, but I believe there's a part of you that is totally embarrassed by your pig of a president. Any decent human being would be, but while I'm still only guessing, I believe you've reconciled yourself to take the bad of Trump with the good he does for the causes you've previously referenced. That part I understand. That part I get. Eight years is a long time to live under the administration of a president whose beliefs and policies are the antithesis of everything you personally believe in and hold dear.
Barack Hussein Obama was my president. Not necessarily yours, though you attempted and probably struggled to accept him as the only one you had at that time. Now that Obama is gone its time for a Republican and a conservative to fix what Obama broke and right the wrongs of the past eight years. Which is exactly what I was hoping for on January 20, 2008 when Obama took the Oath of Office.
My job used to require me to sign out a car and travel across the great state of Ohio. I will always remember until I draw my last breath how on the road from Columbus to Toledo, my GPS failed me and forced me to travel on two-lane roads all the way. When I wasn't blasting heavy metal out of the car stereo, I was counting how many "Trump/Pence: Make America Great Again" signs I passed. Oh, there was the odd Hillary Clinton yard sign here and there, but they were outnumbered by Trump signs by two-to-one.
That's when I realized something was happening in rural Ohio those of us who reside in urban Ohio weren't hip to.
Something was going out on there. We just didn't know exactly what until November 8, 2016 had come and gone and the paradigm shifted.
Being a thoughtful and decent person, you probably thought Obama wasn't so much a bad person as much as he was a terribly bad president whose liberalism mixed with amateurism made for an awful combination that put the nation's statue and very safety at risk. Even when Obama was trying to do the right thing, he didn't inspire confidence he was doing it the right way or for all Americans, including those who didn't vote for him.
Say what you will, but whatever else one can say about Trump, nobody could say he lacks confidence.
Which is not to say Trump hasn't been a total failed abortion of a president.
I believe you're not a White supremacist, celawson. You just decided to support one. That's your right to do, but the hidden fee of that ticket you bought is whatever evil, mean, petty, foul shit Trump gets into, is evil, mean, petty and foul shit on your hands as much as they are. You don't have to be a White supremacist to say, "
Fuck it. I'll go with the guy who is one. "
I'm not expecting you to defend or justify your decision to me or anyone else. But you can't take the good you say Trump does for you while being oblivious to the bad he does to everyone else. You are Trump's base and I am not. Trump is interested in making you and yours happy while he makes me and mine miserable. Well, elections have consequences and those of us who aren't included among the winners are excluded among the losers. So, congratulations on after eight years of wandering in the wilderness to once again feel there's
someone in the White House who shares your concerns and is looking out for your interests.
There never has been a president whom truly represented all Americans because America is not a monolith. It's a nation of 323 million who can't agree snow is white. It's also a nation where one man is exclusively concerned about Whites.
I don't feel at home in your America, celawson. I've never despised a president the way I despise Trump. A few weeks ago I had dinner with family and friends and someone said after Trump's "shithole" remark, "I'm not saying someone should take him out. It just wouldn't bother me if someone did."
I didn't agree with the person who said it. But I didn't vocally disagree with the person who said it either. Mostly, I just focused on my chicken wings before they got cold.
Maybe that makes me an awful, terrible person, but so is Trump, so I don't give a fuck. I'm just trying to get through now and to later when I can walk into the voting booth and cast my ballot against each and every mother's son and daughter with a "R" beside their name. Partially out of spite. Partially because every Republican deserves to be scourged for allowing their party to be co-opted and corrupted by a reality show conman. Partially because if I can't vote Trump in 2018, I sure as shit can vote against every Republican who has aided and abetted this gross monstrosity passed off as just another normal right-turn that comes with a conservative presidency.
It's not.
There's nothing normal about a candidate who grabs women by the pussy going on to become president and then behaving just as recklessly, crazily and foolishly as he did before he got the gig. Chances are any chance we will ever meet for that dinner, that drink or that joint are somewhere between slim and none, so this is as far as we'll ever go, celawson. I don't understand how you balance your basic decency with a man who treats women like objects, stirs up racial resentment, wages war on anyone not blessed with being White and wealthy, has zero compassion for the poor, the needy, the uneducated and the downtrodden because they're sad losers and cheats on both his wife and his taxes. All I can do is speculate is your relief in avoiding Hillary Clinton and Obama Lite for another four years has led you to conclude a deal with the devil isn't so bad as long as the devil is cutting taxes, supports Israel and talks shit to the United Nations, NATO and our erstwhile allies around the globe.
If Make America Great means making it great for the few who supported Trump and making it lousy for the many who didn't, I want no part of that America. More to the point, I'm committed to making sure that America never comes to pass.
Thanks for taking the time to read through this celawson. Respond if you wish or don't if you don't. Makes no never mind either way. What you didn't say six months ago speaks far louder than anything you ever could say today.
As James Baldwin put it,
"I can't believe what you say because I see what you do." You voted for Trump and everything else that came with it.
I hope you can live with it because I'm trying to do my best to make sure I live through it.
Take care of you and yours and I'll do the same for me and mine. By any means necessary.