I Don't Get the Insanity

“There comes a time in the course of human events when no amount of cursing will suffice.” – John Barrymore. Maybe.

That quote popped into my mind recently. I think this is one of those times “in the course of human events.”

I just don’t get it. I do not understand how so many people – millions of people – could get so many things wrong. Yes, I’m talking about anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers, Trumpers, seditionists, white supremacists, hate-filled evangelicals, conspiracy theorists.

The insanity has taken on a life of its own – Trump was the beginning nexus; now he’s superfluous to the movement. Oh, they still love him and believe he is Jesus’ anointed to lead us out of the valley of the shadow of libtards, but if he crosses his tribe, they’ll turn on him as fast as he turns on people.

Like the time a few months ago when he encouraged people at one of his rallies to get vaccinated, and the crowd booed him. He has not said anything about getting vaccinated since. Even Jesus’ anointed can be thrown under the bus.

That’s the people, the voters. Then there are the politicians – omg, the politicians – who persist in their suicide mission of telling people not to mask or vaccinate; their attempts to keep everyone who does not agree with them from voting; and their ongoing effots to manipulate the country for their own power and greed, and then lying about it. Lying about everything.

I heard a Republican strategist on the radio the other day. He told us that Republicans are willing to work in a bipartisan fashion, and it is Democrats who are slowing down or blocking legislation because “the thin slice of left wing progressive extremists is insisting on their pie in the sky agenda.”

So, everything is the Democrats’ fault because they are all Satan-worshipping-cannibal-pedophile commies who won’t allow the Republicans to pass their legislation for the country’s good.

Lies, lies, lies. And projection. I keep saying this because I believe it: if someone persistently accuses you of something, or rails against something (like being a pedophile), I tend to look at the accuser and ask myself, hm, where did they get those ideas?

I suspect the accusers are the pedophiles, like all those pastors who railed against homosexuality and then got caught propositioning a kid in a public bathroom. Whited sepulchers, the lot of ‘em.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness.” – Matthew 23:27, ERS

It makes me dizzy when I think about how many people are retailing these lies, and how many people are swallowing the lies whole, and there is no way to reason with them, or, at this point, trust them.

One of the privileges of being an American is being able to gripe about the government without getting thrown in prison. So I have complained plenty, but I do not wish to have the government overthrown and replaced with a rotten theocracy/fascist dictatorship. Or whatever it is the rapscallions want, these self-described “patriots” who are trying to bring down the country.

It makes me sad. Polar ice is melting, oceans are rising, storms are becoming more deadly, wildfires rampage every year. There wasn’t a “wildfire season” for most of my life, but now there is. All this is knocking on our doors, saying, “Yoohoo, climate change,” but some people are still too busy trying to amass power and wealth to pull together for the good of all living things, not to mention humans, or to rebuild a survivable planet.

Some people are trying to do that, against all the odds, against all the resistance to reality.

I have tried to be comic relief and social worker combined for myself and others, because so much of how we experience life depends on our attitude.

Now I ask myself, “What can I do in the face of the hopelessness I feel for my country?” and other countries which are caught up in the fervor for authoritarianism.

The answer to what I can do always comes down to, “Write, and sing.” Those are my skills.

Most days I do not want to do anything but read British mysteries and watch streaming mysteries, movies, and baking competitions. Sometimes, though, the energy regroups and says, write something, or record another song. There’s a little life in the old girl yet and a long life has shown me that you never know.

So let us encourage one another. Do what we can. Live our best lives. Pray. Laugh. Have lunch.

Yes. Don’t forget to have lunch.