Here's an observation I'm pretty sure the lady mentioned won't mind me offering.
Rachel Maddow lost her shit last night.
In the final minute of her show, she was handed information that she was unable to read on air. Unable to read because she could not prevent herself from crying.
She apologized, as gracious people do, even if there is no fault involved, and handed her show off to the next show's host.
The information is available anywhere and everywhere. I'm not going to get into that here.
In fact, I only mention Maddow's response because it is, at this writing, the most up to the minute addition to "the list".
And it's that list that is the subject of this piece.
At some point, the list becomes too long to read in its entirety in the time available in the limited brain cells of those who need to hear the list. And, of course, irony is alive and well, as always, in the fact that those who need to hear it will be willing to hear it only if and/or when hell freezes over.
At some point, even those who still have their wits about them and have the ability to reason, not to mention possessing any semblance of a brain, a heart...or a soul find themselves mentally exhausted trying to absorb it all.
In a nation fighting to weather through an historically record setting downward spiral, the unspeakable becomes possible at any moment and the outrageous becomes standard operating procedure.
So, outcry, exclamation, commotion, even garden variety commentary on the situation starts to sound, at some point, out of a need to try and stay sane, like white noise or that sound the Peanuts gang heard whenever teacher started to speak.
Because, again, at some point, it really becomes to much to bear. Too much to process. Too much to even allow in.
Therein, of course, lies the critical danger. Because the fight, actually, any fight, is always lost by the next to last participant in that fight. And always won by the last man standing.
That's where that expression comes from.
And because all of us who still have our wits about us, have the ability to reason and still possess any semblance of a brain, heart...or soul continue to weather the daily, even hourly, now, battering that comes with each new addition to the list, daily conversation and, most especially, social media is saturated with outcry, exclamation, commotion and, still, if only for the time being, garden variety commentary.
They are part intellectual exercise, emotional relief and psychological catharsis.
But, ultimately, they are like a glass of water splashed against a massive brick wall. Sometimes you just wanna splash water against a wall. But, deep down, you don't delude yourself for a second that it's going to do a thing to bring the wall down.
Put another way, we offer all we have to offer about what we truly believe to be happening, what we wish would be done about it, what we hope and/or pray will be done about it and, and here's where it gets tricky, what we think/believe and/or assume will be done about it.
When,in a pile of cold hard truths that we are both angry at and tired of facing, the cold hard truth is we simply don't know what will be done about it.
Or how it will play out.
I'm a pretty intelligent guy. And I don't offer that to tickle my ego, strut my stuff or shine any kind of light on myself at all.
I offer it by way of underscoring how difficult, impossible, actually, it is to determine what is going to happen next.
Or ultimately.
Because, and, again, only to validate the point and not celebrate my own savvy, if a pretty intelligent guy can't figure it out, then it's clearly not possible to figure.
And, yet....
It's important, at this point in our plot, to take a moment, or two, and a breath, or two, and put a stop to the wasting of time and energy pointing out and re-pointing out (and re-pointing and re-pointing) what we all already know.
And spend that time and energy focused on what we do now. And what our approach, actions and behavior should be from this point.
Allow me, if you will, to get us started.
We don't know how all of this is going to end for Donald Trump.
In the spirit of live by the all things are possible, die by the all things are possible, Trump's end, at least as it applies to his current gig, all things...are possible.
He could be re-elected in 2020.
He could be defeated in 2020.
He could resign at any time.
He could be impeached.
He could die a natural death.
He could be assassinated.
He could be overthrown.
We don't know how all of this is going to end for him.
But, and, so as not to discourteously speak for you, allow me to phrase what follows as follows:
I do know, though, how it is going to end for those who continue to support him.
You're going to be disappointed, if only in some small way, because he is a demagogue, a con man, a hustler, who got elected by pulling off the most massively successful con ever pulled in the history of grifting. And the most successful element of that most successful con was taking a tried and true technique of every politician who ever asked for a vote and elevating it to a previously thought unachievable art: telling you exactly what you wanted, even needed, to hear. A technique that he continues to employ, each and every day, if not each and ever hour, via the 21st Century dream tool of the demagogue: Twitter. Your disappointment will come, if only in some small way, when his inability to make good on 99.9 % of his promises touches your life directly.
Perhaps you're a coal miner who believed in 2016 there would be a new job for you in January 2017.
There won't be.
Perhaps you'll arrive at the local hospital to be with your Mammaw or Pappaw to see them through their life saving surgery, only to find that cuts to Medicaid and Medicare have resulted in ending payment for that particular surgery. You'll head for the management office to get an explanation,
There won't be one.
Perhaps you, or an elder loved one, will open their monthly envelope from Social Security, delighted that now there will be money for the cable or rent...or food.
There won't be.
Perhaps you'll feel safer now that North Korea and it's psychopathic supreme leader are America's sparkly new BFF.
You won't. They're not. And they won't be.
Perhaps you'll have to say goodbye to a son or daughter or mom or dad as they ship out to fight a war we shouldn't be in, a war that never would have started had there been someone with some, any, kind of experience in the world of global diplomacy. Or even someone with an ability to see any other point of view but their own. And you'll do your best to come up with some rationalization for sending that son or daughter or mom or dad into harm's way.
There won't be one.
And if you're one of the many, many, many more than many of us wanted to believe there were in 2018 America, one of those who's not only satisfied, but, pleased, even celebrating that national parks are being reduced, industrial pollution is now once again free to flow into public water and air, that Nazis and white supremacists, at least some, are "very fine people", that your healthcare is, at best, no better and, at worst, worse than it was the day you voted, that you're fine with almost all of the nations that are NOT our enemies consider America damaged goods and is a country to be ignored for the foreseeable, that you're just fine with children, toddlers, infants being taken away from their parents for no other reason than to be used as hostages in a political negotiation to acquire funding to build a wall that, first, will never be built, second, won't accomplish anything if it is built and, third, will eventually come to be the most symbolic of all the available symbols of a presidency spawned in vanity and ego, grown in a Petrie dish of fear, ignorance, prejudice, bigotry and simple human stupidity and, still, validated, endorsed, even celebrated on a daily, even hourly basis, an illiterate rejection of our better angels and a celebration of our darker sides.....if you're one of the many.....you're going to lose.
If you're one of the many who are mocking Rachel Maddow because she was moved to tears by the unspeakable.
You're going to lose.
Eventually...
fear always loses.
Ignorance always loses.
Prejudice always loses.
Bigotry always loses.
Heartless and callous and cruel always loses.
Stupidity always loses.
The dark side always loses.
It may take awhile. Good people may suffer great loss. Even life.
But you're going to lose.
And here's something you won't hear now....and if you hear it, you'll neither believe it or accept it....
Those of us who still have our wits about us and a semblance of a brain, a heart and...a soul.....we're not going to forget.
We won't seek revenge. Or retribution.
Good people with their wits about them don't do that.
But you'd be well advised to seek out others who feel the way you do.
Because, if you don't, you're going to be very lonely.
And that's sad.
The kind of sad that makes decent people feel like crying.
Not Rachel Maddow moved to tears by the unspeakable crying.
But crying.
I just know it.
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