A Friend Indeed

Last week there was a frenzy of unfriending on Facebook as the gulf between left and right widens to the point where one side can no longer hear what the other side is saying. Most of these people are only friends in the loosest sense of the word anyway. They are just people seeking out kindred spirits, potential mates or allies in a cause, or to see what the opposition is thinking.

I’ve resisted the trend, although I can barely stomach the hate I see coming from both ends. Accusations of treachery and treason are hurled back and forth with wild-eyed abandon. Even little old ladies have become bloodthirsty harpies, vowing to send the enemies of the republic to the executioner’s axe without blinking an eye.

I’m still looking for the good guys in all this chaos. Is it the Trumpublickins, who back their leader’s scheme to sabotage the post office in a last ditch attempt to foil voting by mail and hold on to power? Whose remedy for unrest is faceless jackbooted thugs and savage beatings? Are they the party that can’t seem to come up with another stimulus bailout as millions are about to be evicted and cut off from unemployment?

Or is the woke Marxist-inspired revolutionaries who plan to remake the nation in a spending spree that will bury future generations under a mountain of debt and inflation? New cultural corrections will rewrite history without mercy for the founding fathers and their progeny, whose addiction to slavery and racism made the words “all men are created equal” ring hollow for two centuries.

The moderates will say they can keep it under control with Uncle Joe at the helm, but I wonder if they even believe it themselves. The Democrats are counting on the excesses of Trump and his cronies to sweep them into power. Once there, they can fiddle with the constitution to keep themselves from being outed again by the hated electoral college.

Or maybe not. If voters follow the historical trend, the Dems will only have two years to navigate the maze of constitutional amendments required to achieve their goal, and by then they may have alienated enough taxpayers to get booted again. Schizophrenia on steroids.

And that all depends on whether the nation can keep from descending into civil war. Let’s hope the kids in my cartoon can rise above their parents’ stupidity and right the ship of state before we emulate the examples of Rome, France, Russia and countless banana republics.

And that all depends on whether those kids even have a clue where those nations are on a map.

As Bette Davis might have said, “Hang on. It’s going to be a bumpy decade.”

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7 Responses to A Friend Indeed

  1. Chris Peterson says:

    First, I have to preface my remarks by stating that, having spent 3 of my 4 years in the military overseas, the LAST thing I want to see is a civil war here at home, knowing that there is never anything “civil” about it. Especially one, as in all wars, caused and supported by the radical idiots on either side.
    But that is also exactly why I don’t see any such thing happening; the radicals on either side are a tiny sliver of our society, both those who seek anarchy by attempting to shanghai otherwise peaceful protests, and those who confusingly rise up for liberty in opposition to those who seek equality.
    Ultimately, there will be no insurrection unless Trump loses the election, in which case he will no longer have the reins of power, which would be necessary to win such a conflict. Remember, only 20-some percent of the population identifies as Republican and far less than that would be willing to die for Trump, much less the 40% being so obese that walking across the street is an undo hardship. The “silent majority” are exactly that; the majority, and they’ll have nothing to do with such idiotic behavior as long as Netflix is still running.
    All that, and the fact that, as before in the Civil War to end slavery, there really is no power in the farmland; it was all concentrated in the cities, as it still is today. Even deep south cities like Birmingham, Alabama are liberal these days. And in a civil war, taking over places like the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge will just get you killed.

    It would be basically the same characters and, believe it or not, for the same reasons as the last civil war, with exactly the same result. So let’s think of some other way to put the radicals in their place before they put themselves in a grave.

    • RL CRABB says:

      A year ago I might have agreed with your assessment, but all the rules have changed since we entered the Covid Twilight Zone. I don’t know how it is in your neighborhood, but down here people are extremely agitated. Businesses are hurting and sales taxes are already down to recession levels. Many restaurants are making due with outdoor dining, but what happens when it gets dark at 6 o’clock and the weather changes? The only people who are doing well are the realtors who are making a killing selling to those who are desperate to escape the cities before the winter flu and civil unrest season hits.
      I’ve heard it said that we are only two weeks away from a revolution when the food runs out. Here’s hoping it doesn’t come to that.

      • Michael Anderson says:

        Completely accurate and excellent analysis, Bob. The good news is that most of the Gadsden clowns are too soft to do much harm. Yes, they have scads of ammo stacked in the basement but they like them their heated milk at night, with a sweet kiss 💋 and tucked tightly into bed.
        Postmodernism ended at the beginning of the 21st century, and I would describe our new age as Idiocraticism.

        Attorney General: Brawndo’s got what plants crave.
        Secretary of Energy: Yeah, it’s got electrolytes.
        Joe: What are electrolytes? Do you even know?
        Secretary of State: It’s what they use to make Brawndo.
        Joe: Yeah, but why do they use them to make Brawndo?
        Secretary of Defense: ‘Cause Brawndo’s got electrolytes.

  2. Steven Frisch says:

    Ironically although the new Idiocracy has adopted some of the tenants of post-modernism, most notably their skepticism of all things “establishment” and an embrace of nihilism with its rejection of knowledge (both tenancies that in the early post-modern era they would have critiqued as Leninism), the Idiocracy has much more in common with Romanticism with its embrace of authoritarian and nationalist tendencies, its worship of things long past, and its rejection of rationalism. I guess it was to be expected that our local philosophers would choose the worst of the three most recent intellectual and cultural movements in their rush back to their Hobbesian nightmare.

  3. Steven Frisch says:

    “Or is the woke Marxist-inspired revolutionaries who plan to remake the nation in a spending spree that will bury future generations under a mountain of debt and inflation?”

    Hate to disagree with you but the entire “Democrats are the spenders’ meme is completely inaccurate.

    Statistics would show that since 1981 it is Republicans who have run up the debt and deficit and Democrats who have slowed its rise or reduced it, with one notable exception, President Obama, who increased the debt at the beginning of his administration, but drew it down faster that any Republican over the last 4 years of his Presidency. If one looked at debt as a percentage of GDP as an accurate measure the Top 10 are:

    1) FDR (WWII) (1000%)
    2) Wilson (WWI) (727%)
    3) Ronald Reagan (186% increase)
    4) George W. Bush (101%)
    5) Barack Obama (74%)
    6) George H. W. Bush (54%)
    7) Gerald Ford (47%)
    8) Jimmy Carter (43%)
    9) Richard Nixon (34%)
    10) Bill Clinton (32%)

    So far President Trump is on a pace to increase debt by 375%.

  4. RL CRABB says:

    You’re right about past administrations, but I’m basing my prediction on the promises I hear from progressives. The New Green Deal will cost trillions. Medicare For All will cost trillions. (Even if it saves money in the long run, the upfront costs will be staggering, not to mention all the job displacement.) Reparations will no doubt cost a trillion or two, if you count the cost of all the lawsuits from those who believe they are owed but get rejected for one reason or another. Massive infrastructure upgrades will be expensive.

    I have no doubt that a reelected Trump would gladly add even more trillions, if for no other reason than to keep voters from straying from the Republican camp.

    I offer no alternatives, just to say Americans will be shouldering an even heavier debt than our parents did in WWII. It’s unrealistic to believe that only the rich will bear the load.

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