A charismatic stranger rides into town. She enters a bar, orders a beer, and sips it silently. A man sidles up to her, takes a stool, and asks the usual questions: Come here often? Whatryadrinkin? What's your sign? (Does that still work? Has it ever?)
She ignores him until he asks:
"So who'd ya vote for? I'm a Trump man myself. Yup. The Donald. He's exactly what America needs right now."
She pins him with a leather-awl gaze.
"Why?" she says.
"Why what?"
"Why is he exactly what America needs?"
"Well, he's a big success in business. He's a winner. America needs a winner for a change. Someone who can clean house and make America Great Again."
"How's he a winner? What's he done?"
"Well, for one thing, he took the money he got from his daddy ... about $100 million or so, and worked it so now he's worth about $4.5 billion. I'd say that says business smarts in spades."
"You know if he'd put that money in an index fund and reinvested the dividends, sat on his ass and done nothing but eat bon bons, he'd be worth over $12 billion today. And he got over $850 million in tax subsidies in New York. Probably a lot more in other states."
The woman proceeds to illustrate for her companion Mr. T's lifetime of cons, scams, fibs, and infidelities. Promises made, commitments reneged. This takes the better part of an hour. Other bar patrons gather round. Many cheer her on. People come in from the street to listen. The crowd grows, they move outside. More people gather as she lists the depredations of each member of the new administration, from Pence on down through the cabinet. On to congress she blasts senators, house speakers, congress critters in general. And through it all she cites facts from reputable sources. Reputable sources, not internet sources, not Reddit opinions, not bumper stickers, not Hannity or Rush, not Madow or Olberman. No, she's done her homework. She's dug through archives, legal records, dry-as-beef-jerky government reports. She knows her shit.
In a few days, a movement forms with our heroine at the head. She gives a stirring speech from the steps of the Lincoln memorial. Millions from across the land join in marches, demonstrations. They're met by riot police, water cannons, tear gas grenades, dogs, National Guard troops firing rubber bullets. But the movement persists. They know their cause is just. And in the end ....
We wake up and realize we've been conflating the Civil Rights movement with what we wish could happen now.
Stay angry, stay pissed off, and be a duck
We'll not experience a unified, cohesive movement against the Trump train. We who voted otherwise are too nice, too deferential, too prone to evaluate the pros and cons of every issue. Many of us are content to let the man do his thing, hoping he'll spool out enough rope to hang himself with. Others have already succumbed to fatalism ... it is what it is, the people have spoken, that's the way the process works. And so we'll glide off into our private lives again, weathering the storm, hoping that next time things will turn out better. We'll keep our heads down, do the best we can, and survive. Robert Reich has an excellent discussion of the syndromes we may be suffering along with suggested cures here.
The alternative is this: Millions of ducks.
Each nibbles a little here, a little there.
Each nibbles a little here, a little there.
And we are those ducks. And we have to keep nibbling. To do so we have to stay involved, stay angry, stay pissed off. There will be plenty of fuel for anger in the coming years. Don't shut off the news flow. Pay attention to it. Evaluate every news story critically. Ask yourself questions about where the reporter got his or her facts. Try to ferret out different perspectives on any single item. Like our heroine in the fever dream above, the heroine who never was, know your shit. Know the Constitution. You can read it for free on the internet. It's the real one. Maybe brush up on your high school civics. Amass facts. True facts. Facts are the ammo in your armory.
And most important: Subject the Trumpers in your life to the Socratic method. Pin them down. When they make a statement, ask them why they believe that, make them support assertions with chapter and verse. O'Reilly doesn't count as chapter. Limbaugh does not count as verse.
Maybe it's time to not be so nice. Maybe it's time to admit that while everyone is entitled to an opinion, some opinions are crap.
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