Things I am weary of

            There some general, apparently widespread beliefs going around that I am increasingly weary of. I disagree with them, but you may disagree with me. Mostly these ideas are found on Facebook, and while many may dismiss that particular social medium as a font of misinformation, I find, read judiciously, it’s informative and helpful. Certainly, it helped me see these trends in thinking, but maybe that’s a negative.

The general public doesn’t care about the shenanigans going on in our government these days. I don’t find this true at all. Republican senators turn a blind eye to quid pro quo, witness tampering, and other unlawful acts by the administration, and trump’s supporters applaud his every move. But polls show that more than half the nation wants him removed from office. I quote from a meme I saw today:

“I am so tired of him. Truly, so incredibly tired. I’m tired of people pretending that he’s not a hateful, lecherous, narcissistic, megalomaniacal, despotic, rapacious, compulsively lying, lifelong common man. I’m tired of his lies. I’m tired of his sickening moral bankruptcy. I’m tired of his face, his voice, his smirk, his family. I’m tired of his complete inability to say even one thing that is kind, or humble, or appropriate, or TRUE, ever. So. Damn. Tired.”

I think pushing the idea of an apathetic nation is a propaganda tool. If we believe that nobody else cares, maybe we’ll shrug and think, “I can’t do it by myself.” It’s our country trump and his enablers are ruining, and we’ve got to band together and resist. Such groups as Indivisible are doing that every day, along with several splinter Republican groups.

Democrats are hopelessly disorganized and don’t have a single strong candidate. Look at the Iowa caucuses. The debacle of the Iowa caucuses was a state problem and does not reflect on the national party, which had nothing to do with it. As for strong candidates, we have a diverse field of them, so diverse that it’s hard to choose. That’s how it should be during primaries. Primaries are a chance for each candidate to showcase his or her policies, and they certainly are not meant to be a lovefest. Each of the remaining candidates would lead an administration a thousand times better than what we have now. Of course, trump demeans them with derogatory nicknames—Sleepy Joe, Pocahontas, Mini Mike. It’s another propaganda tool—he believes if you hear that often enough it will stick in your mind and taint the person.

Religion is the whole problem. This usually comes from the progressive or liberal side, but the answer is no, it’s not. Alt-right religion or what is called evangelistic Christianity is a huge part of the problem. Some of those folks are so focused on one issue—abortion—that they  can’t see the forest for the trees, or maybe it’s the trees for the forest. I also think victimhood plays a part in binding his follows to trump in a cult. They are mostly but not all people who are angry at the system, think they never get a break, think the government is out to get them. Trump promised to fight the government, and they’re all for it. Blind loyalty keeps them from seeing that he’s destroying the government.

Religion can be a good thing. Answer churches that tell you the answers to questions you haven’t even asked and tell you exactly what to believe and how to act scare me. What we call journey churches, those that believe each one’s journey toward faith is an individual experience to be respected, can foster hope and a sense of community. No, you’ll not convince me churches in general are the problem—or mosques or temples.

A Democratic president will lead us right down the road to socialism. Republicans use socialism as the big, bad, fear-inspiring word. They’re going to take all your wealth and use it for the state (I think that’s communism, folks). What Bernie Sanders preaches is Democratic socialism. (I’m not shilling for Bernie here).There are a lot  of  definitions floating around, but I think one meme this morning put the simplest is that often it is more economical to band together for services than to have each individual have to secure their own. Hence we have police and fire protection, public schools, postal service, public museums and libraries, highway maintenance, and a hundred other things that make our lives better.

Lecture over. But these things have been on my mind. I’d be delighted to hear other opinions.