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I’ve tried to write something the last few days.
Each time I sat down and put my fingers on the keyboard…I just stopped. Not because I didn’t have anything to write. I have so much to write. So much that the words can’t seem to come out of my head in any coherent or linear form (not that linear writing is something I’m competent at even in the best of times).
I read earlier today about Sheriff David Clarke (a Milwaukee sheriff who often guests on Fox News and whose prisons seem to have died of water depravation). He told people that the only way he would reach across the aisle to liberals (and, technically, he’s registered as a Democrat, which is advantageous in the county he runs in) is to wrap his hands around their throats.
Now, despite what some people think and have said to me, I don’t think of myself as liberal. I don’t think of myself as conservative. In fact, I’m pretty adamant on not labeling myself, to what is probably an annoying degree. I do tend to have many opinions that fall in line with general “liberal” thinking, but I have several “conservative” opinions, also. In the last election, I voted for Democrats, Republicans, and an Independent, based on what I felt was the right person for the job. But people insist that you have to be this one thing or the other, despite the fact that the majority of the American population identifies Independents rather than Republican or Democrat.
I’m not a Trump fan. Have never been a fan, although for much of my life I didn’t really think about him. The more I learn about him, the less I care about him. I did try to give him a chance, though. I mean, what else is there to do. But even now, in the last few minutes in which I’ve been writing this, he’s accused the media of lying about the size of his inauguration, claiming that it reached to the Washington Monument, even though we all have the ability to see this is not the case. He claims the media made up the tiff between him and the intelligence community, even though there are direct quotes from him about it. Not to mention the people who he has put up for appointments (barring a few that were actually good choices). Not to mention the positions he hasn’t even bothered to appoint someone for.
But I try, I try. And I see again and again people saying, “get over it,” “he won,” “he’s your president,” “give him a chance.” The fact that these same people have spent much or all of the last eight years complaining about President Obama doesn’t seem to matter to them.
And that’s the crux, I think. I don’t feel like I can assign myself to a label, and I don’t feel like I can talk to people, besides people who agree with me, because they won’t listen, they won’t engage, they won’t have an honest conversation. I saw someone link something that called Obama the worst president in history. In history? I want to ask them what about James Motherfucking Buchanan, but the sad thing is, I’m pretty sure they don’t even know who that is. And I consider myself far from a presidential expert.
I want to reach across an aisle. I want to find those who disagree with me, those who think Trump will be a great president, and I want to understand why. I want real information, not something that comes in a meme or a slogan, a catchphrase, a carefully concealed hint of racism. But they don’t come out. I don’t know that I could tell you the last time I had an actual exchange of communication with someone who didn’t agree with me on a political issue. I’ve had fights, disagreements, threats against me and my family…but an actual conversation, no. I want one. I want it so desperately. I want to understand exactly what they see, and I want them to understand what I see, but everything is so divided.
James Buchanan would know about that.
Each time I sat down and put my fingers on the keyboard…I just stopped. Not because I didn’t have anything to write. I have so much to write. So much that the words can’t seem to come out of my head in any coherent or linear form (not that linear writing is something I’m competent at even in the best of times).
I read earlier today about Sheriff David Clarke (a Milwaukee sheriff who often guests on Fox News and whose prisons seem to have died of water depravation). He told people that the only way he would reach across the aisle to liberals (and, technically, he’s registered as a Democrat, which is advantageous in the county he runs in) is to wrap his hands around their throats.
Now, despite what some people think and have said to me, I don’t think of myself as liberal. I don’t think of myself as conservative. In fact, I’m pretty adamant on not labeling myself, to what is probably an annoying degree. I do tend to have many opinions that fall in line with general “liberal” thinking, but I have several “conservative” opinions, also. In the last election, I voted for Democrats, Republicans, and an Independent, based on what I felt was the right person for the job. But people insist that you have to be this one thing or the other, despite the fact that the majority of the American population identifies Independents rather than Republican or Democrat.
I’m not a Trump fan. Have never been a fan, although for much of my life I didn’t really think about him. The more I learn about him, the less I care about him. I did try to give him a chance, though. I mean, what else is there to do. But even now, in the last few minutes in which I’ve been writing this, he’s accused the media of lying about the size of his inauguration, claiming that it reached to the Washington Monument, even though we all have the ability to see this is not the case. He claims the media made up the tiff between him and the intelligence community, even though there are direct quotes from him about it. Not to mention the people who he has put up for appointments (barring a few that were actually good choices). Not to mention the positions he hasn’t even bothered to appoint someone for.
But I try, I try. And I see again and again people saying, “get over it,” “he won,” “he’s your president,” “give him a chance.” The fact that these same people have spent much or all of the last eight years complaining about President Obama doesn’t seem to matter to them.
And that’s the crux, I think. I don’t feel like I can assign myself to a label, and I don’t feel like I can talk to people, besides people who agree with me, because they won’t listen, they won’t engage, they won’t have an honest conversation. I saw someone link something that called Obama the worst president in history. In history? I want to ask them what about James Motherfucking Buchanan, but the sad thing is, I’m pretty sure they don’t even know who that is. And I consider myself far from a presidential expert.
I want to reach across an aisle. I want to find those who disagree with me, those who think Trump will be a great president, and I want to understand why. I want real information, not something that comes in a meme or a slogan, a catchphrase, a carefully concealed hint of racism. But they don’t come out. I don’t know that I could tell you the last time I had an actual exchange of communication with someone who didn’t agree with me on a political issue. I’ve had fights, disagreements, threats against me and my family…but an actual conversation, no. I want one. I want it so desperately. I want to understand exactly what they see, and I want them to understand what I see, but everything is so divided.
James Buchanan would know about that.
