Hope We Can Believe In

(Please click on link below):

Nazis, Racists, Bigots


Hard to fathom that so many extremists have emerged as viable candidates.

Is this all that we've learned about living?

To paraphrase another John Mellencamp lyric, America "once upon a time ago, was the way it was supposed to be?"

Or was that a shared delusion by the fortunate few?

Perhaps more apt is that what has always been wrong in America was not quite as obvious to some as it is now. When the supreme court absurdly declared that racism no longer exists, that "news" should have been released on the Cartoon Network.

There have always been American Nazis and American bigots as well, similar to underfed reptiles lurking in the shadows. But since the 2016 election, massive numbers of these creatures slithered out of dank alcoves to reveal their purpose in plain view, primarily because of the "success" of one terminally inept and unprepared presidential candidate — who has taken incompetence to uncharted lows. Thus, these venomous dregs of society have been welcomed in parts of the mainstream.

When a sitting U.S. president insists that there were good people on both sides in regard to the mess in Charlottesville, that's a vastly evil moment, equaled, if not surpassed, when that same sitting president claimed to trust an ex-KGB operative over the FBI and CIA.

If only this were a Netflix Original film — a dystopian fantasy in which Alex Jones, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Lou Dobbs, Tucker Carlson, Ann Coulter, Darrel Issa, among a cast of thousands, terminate Medicare, Social Security, the EPA, erect a barrier around the entire 48 states, construct gated communities within gated communities, force millions into what is essentially slave labor, and basically thrive with the mantra, WE'VE GOT OURS, FUCK YOU.

Information, particularly in the 21st century, rules. Thanks to the relentless efforts of a far right wing TV network, misinformation — lies — has become standard: most people believe what they want anyway, as long as it is what they want to hear.

Fact has no bearing, nor does evidence, particularly when the war is not ideology, but rather WHAT IS as opposed to WHAT WE SAY IT IS. Our culture has meandered into a dark realm where repetition is all that matters. Fox News and Trump are using the ultimate authoritarian tactic — It's not what you say that matters as much as how often you say it.

The wisdom of P.T. Barnum reminds us that some folks are going to get fooled all of the damn time. Sadly, this is not the only Ozian-circus metaphor. Lions, tigers and clowns, oh my.

Trump emerged because he understood that many of those marginalized yearned that a candidate drop the politician's mask and tell it like it is. Tragically, they believe Trump, whose association with truth is a coincidence that happens about as often as a certain comet comes into view every 75 years.

Some of the Trumpies are too "gone" to ever come back to reality; all the while having no clue that they endorsed their worst enemy — a charlatan con man who invaded the political arena for just one purpose: the power to make more money FOR HIMSELF.

That so many who truly need government assistance with medical care and eduction voted for a vile imposter who will rape their social security accounts to help pay for the tax cut for the .05 percent, while dismantling Medicare and funding for public schools, as well as destroying the environment. It is impossible to get more tragically misaligned with reality than that.

But in many ways, none of this shit is new.

Politicians on both sides of the aisle have always shimmied around basic truths with hyperbole and axioms intended to inspire and seduce. MSNBC is a cousin of Fox News with an agenda, though MSNBC does not engage with as much "construction" of truth as it does with revealing it. Fox News, on the other hand, particularly the morning and night crews, has almost as much disregard for fact as a certain orange-hued, petulant, stubborn, arrogant, corrupt, corpulent menace.

Please stay with me that the one positive from The Trump Error [sic] is that this phase of evil has revealed just how much serious change in politics is needed.

My view is that the first step is to remove the corporate aspect. Citizens United has always been a terrible idea, and it is just as obvious that most people in politics might claim an R or a D, even an I in some cases. But what really should go in that slot is $.

Billionaires are currently running the country ... into the ground, some fear.

Money and politics are an unhealthy mix ... such as a BMW, a quart of moonshine, and a winding mountain road.

What is baffling is why the Koch brothers can continue to get away with their crap. And even more puzzling is how Betsy DeVos became so bored with her life as one of the wealthiest people on the planet that that malaise inspired her to destroy education for the masses. This is a huge WTF.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has come along at the perfect time. She upset a powerful, old school democrat. And when someone is labeled an old school democrat, it means he's taking just as much corporate lobby money as those allegedly on the other side on the aisle. The path to the bank does have two sides, going in and coming out. Has nothing to do with belief.

Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.

Are we destined to get fooled again?

I choose to believe that the rise of Ocasio-Cortez is a sign that is clearly an omen. In essence, a blimp circling above us with a sign that reads:

Hope we can believe in.