Chapter 5: Holier Than Thou
Over the past few months, I’ve noticed political discourse erode into a nuclear garbage heap of bullshit. The midterm is a referendum on Trump’s abhorrent policies and republicans are pulling out all the stops on a train of deception and deflection. Once again, their lack of any policy initiatives has led them to take out a spotlight on insignificant issues and polarize their base. To clarify, I don’t believe the people targeted by these campaigns are unworthy of significance, but that their fight for equality is valid while also unworthy of the vitriol directed their way. The Black Lives Matter movement started as a cry for justice in an unjust society, asking people to care about their neighbors without ever diminishing anyone else’s agency. Subsequently, people that identify as part of the trans community simply want to live their lives freely in this nation built to accommodate anyone and everyone. It’s dangerously ignorant to ascribe the actions of a subset of people onto their entire community. While those communities, along with people of Mexican descent, still draw a lot of ire from the right, two other groups have been at the forefront of this midterm season.
I’m not going to start this segment by defining communism, that can be done with a quick Google search and a basic comprehension of the tenets as presented. What I will do is critique how the word is used as a pejorative, irrespective of your beliefs as to whether the movement has a right to exist or not. Any time a person on the left proposes using tax money to benefit society, it’s deemed as such and no further argument shall be heard. It’s a stopgap term to quash what might otherwise be representation for our taxation. They’ve been using this term because we in the opposition have been sounding the alarm on rising fascism throughout the United States. From brutality tactics by federal agencies that have seen their oversight reduced, to an executive acting unilaterally, emboldened by obsequious zealots who use his waning indifference to enact their agenda.
Sharia law, as I understand it, is a set of principles and rules that Muslims follow for themselves. If you ask seven out of ten people at the local Dairy Queen though, it’s the number one issue facing Americans today. These are folks that have never been to a major city outside of their home state nor have they flown anywhere far enough that people start talking a slightly different variant of the Queen’s English (Charles is too new) than they’re accustomed to. Yet, they are experts in Islamic doctrine, proudly proclaiming with their entire chest that this piece of bacon is to Muslims as garlic is to vampires. In my life, I’ve met people of every major faith. I’ve alluded to this in a previous post, but one thing we as humans have in common is the desire to seek happiness in our lives.
Political advertisements without merit always employ scare tactics. They want to present you with an “other”, a group of people that seek to change your way of life. Yet, our way of life prevails because of its inclusivity. He came down that golden elevator so many years ago and slandered those I most closely identify with. His words, clear and direct, have been spun and explained by those he shares a cesspool with. And yet, we stand resilient, with hope and a prayer that things may finally start turning for the better. The irony of “Make America Great Again” is that it was already great to begin with. We’ve always been an experiment in democracy. A land, stolen from the indigenous people, forged as a haven for anyone and everyone for better or worse. This election seeks to restore America, bringing peace and healing to so many that voted against this, and those whose eyes are finally opening to the atrocities.
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!— Emma Lazarus, “The New Colossus” (1883), inscribed on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty
So says the once copper-clad lady in the harbor. To those that helped us establish a democracy from a monarchy, we welcomed your gift with open arms. Now that we are faced with a geriatric tyrant with machinations of nobility, we will endure and work to be that city upon a hill once again.
