Rationalizing The Irrational
So, now it’s four days out. Four spins around the axis since L’il Duce‘s orange-tinged mushroom cloud blotted out the political, cultural, societal, and moral sun.
Four days since I wrote, “America, you disgust me.”
Make no mistake: I’m still disgusted.
To borrow a couple of terms from Lazy Journalism 101, I’m A) Reeling and B) Still Trying To Make Sense Of It All.
The red wine has flowed freely in and around Chez Big Mike et La Personne Aimée.
I’ve cast around madly for reasons. The wits and wags online and on dead-tree media are doing the same and, as usual, are missing the mark by a country mile.
[Note to loyal Pencillistas: The following list was edited Sunday, November 13.]
As a public service, I’m offering my Three Four Reasons we will be gagging on the phrase President Donald J. Trump for the next four years (or at least until he gets bored and turns the keys to the White House over to his coatholder, Mike Pence — at which point the gagging continues unabated).
- America loves wealth and the wealthy. Adores them. Idolizes them. Puts them on a pedestal right up there with mom, apple pie, the flag, and young women with big breasts. The wealthy are revered here even if they did nothing particularly beneficial to humankind to earn their billions. Perhaps especially if they did nothing in particular to benefit humankind, as in the case of L’il Duce. Simply falling into great riches, America believes, is a sure sign that almighty god has smiled upon the pinstripe-suited ape who did the falling.
- A certain percentage of Americans, not near a majority but enough when added to other demographics, are so terrified of growing old and dying and subsequently ceding their precious holy land to the young, the dark-skinned, the foreign, the same-sex-loving, and the opposite-sex-loving females that they’d have voted for the reanimated corpse of — yes, I’ll say it — A. Hitler as long as he’d promise to build a wall to protect them from those onrushing hordes.
- One vitally important factor in L’il Duce’s triumph is never really discussed and that’s this: Tens of millions of people voted for him because he was a TV star. That’s it. Put your slide rules away, sociologists. Turn off your scanning electron microscopes, cultural anthropologists. And pack up your Smith-Coronas, all you wits and wags. The reality television-addicted populace knew L’il Duce as the star of The Apprentice and that was good enough for them. TV — or the movies — makes anything real to most folks. Had George C. Scott opted to run for president in 1972, the only reason he wouldn’t have won would have been because a huge swath of America would have written in “Patton,” instead. In The Apprentice, our new president played “himself.”
- The depth and breadth of hatred for Hillary Clinton is as powerful as either of the preceding two bullet points. I was astounded to realize how toxic the odium is for a woman who, in reality, is nothing more than a run-of-the-mill establishmentarian. She represents the American status quo as much as any human being in the nation. Electing Hillary Clinton president after either a mildly left Democrat or a mildly right Republican would have been the equivalent of switching from Wonder Bread to Pepperidge Farm. Yet, the same people who drooled over Sarah Palin in 2008 –proving they’re amenable to a president with a vagina — reacted as though the aforementioned A. Hitler had donned lipstick, a highlighted blond wig and a pantsuit.
America’s Choice
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My pal Susan Sandberg wrote the other day that she feels she’s now a woman without a country. She offers that observation as though it’s something she should grieve over. It ain’t.
Me? I’m proud to consider myself un-American now.
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