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Nov. 2nd, 2017 05:14 amIt's November already? Last year was maybe the longest I've ever experienced, but this year is zooming by.
So let's see: our federal government's about as shit as we can get in this part of the 21st century, but the world hasn't blown up and likely won't any time soon, there will be no internment camps, and people are actually paying attention for once. It's been shit, but our constitution's holding, and the checks and balances are strained but doing their jobs. Congress actually curtailed presidential powers during a time when the president is nominally of the majority congressional party. Our two parties are imploding and past damn time. Such interesting times -- and unlike under Dubya, hating the president is the thing to do! I don't know how many people remember those times, but even among mainstream supposed "liberals," it was often considered near-treason, if not outright treason, to doubt the president.
We'll see how this pans out. Both good and bad, I'm guessing. But I can guarantee this: the United States will not ever go the way of 1930s Germany, unlike what so many people feverishly predicted. There is such a thing as national (not racial, but cultural) temperament. Jerome K. Jerome noted the authoritarian temperament of Germany in Three Men On a Bummel in 1900:
Individualism makes no appeal to the German voter. He is willing, nay, anxious, to be controlled and regulated in all things... Hitherto, the German has had the blessed fortune to be exceptionally well governed; if this continue, it will go well with him. When his troubles will begin will be when by any chance something goes wrong with the governing machine.
But Americans in the 2010s?
Don't tell me what to do. Don't tell me what to say. You don't own me. Don't try to change me in any way.
Getting us to all go in the same direction is like herding cats.
That's both good and bad. It can be expressed in an immature way an awful lot. It can cause us to resort to violence double-quick if we feel impinged on in any way. It caused a LOT of people to vote for Trump specifically because they were told by condescending, technocratic snobs not to. Like, a lot. A WHOLE FUCKING LOT. I have personally run into dozens. Seriously, I'm almost positive that the reason Trump won the Republican nomination (and therefore the presidency -- only Ted Cruz could have lost to Hillary Clinton, as he is quite obviously something from the space between spaces) is that Americans were lectured and scolded by wannabe aristocrats claiming they were above the vast unwashed masses that they were not allowed to vote for him. We do not take well to that shit. To put it mildly. BUT. That means we do not take well to anyone telling us what to do at all unless we are provided very good reasons for it. And yes, we've got a minority of authoritarians, religious and otherwise, who can't wait to line up zombie-like behind someone who tells them what to do, think, and feel in every aspect of their lives, but all they are is a minority, and a thoroughly despised one at that.
So let's see: our federal government's about as shit as we can get in this part of the 21st century, but the world hasn't blown up and likely won't any time soon, there will be no internment camps, and people are actually paying attention for once. It's been shit, but our constitution's holding, and the checks and balances are strained but doing their jobs. Congress actually curtailed presidential powers during a time when the president is nominally of the majority congressional party. Our two parties are imploding and past damn time. Such interesting times -- and unlike under Dubya, hating the president is the thing to do! I don't know how many people remember those times, but even among mainstream supposed "liberals," it was often considered near-treason, if not outright treason, to doubt the president.
We'll see how this pans out. Both good and bad, I'm guessing. But I can guarantee this: the United States will not ever go the way of 1930s Germany, unlike what so many people feverishly predicted. There is such a thing as national (not racial, but cultural) temperament. Jerome K. Jerome noted the authoritarian temperament of Germany in Three Men On a Bummel in 1900:
Individualism makes no appeal to the German voter. He is willing, nay, anxious, to be controlled and regulated in all things... Hitherto, the German has had the blessed fortune to be exceptionally well governed; if this continue, it will go well with him. When his troubles will begin will be when by any chance something goes wrong with the governing machine.
But Americans in the 2010s?
Don't tell me what to do. Don't tell me what to say. You don't own me. Don't try to change me in any way.
Getting us to all go in the same direction is like herding cats.
That's both good and bad. It can be expressed in an immature way an awful lot. It can cause us to resort to violence double-quick if we feel impinged on in any way. It caused a LOT of people to vote for Trump specifically because they were told by condescending, technocratic snobs not to. Like, a lot. A WHOLE FUCKING LOT. I have personally run into dozens. Seriously, I'm almost positive that the reason Trump won the Republican nomination (and therefore the presidency -- only Ted Cruz could have lost to Hillary Clinton, as he is quite obviously something from the space between spaces) is that Americans were lectured and scolded by wannabe aristocrats claiming they were above the vast unwashed masses that they were not allowed to vote for him. We do not take well to that shit. To put it mildly. BUT. That means we do not take well to anyone telling us what to do at all unless we are provided very good reasons for it. And yes, we've got a minority of authoritarians, religious and otherwise, who can't wait to line up zombie-like behind someone who tells them what to do, think, and feel in every aspect of their lives, but all they are is a minority, and a thoroughly despised one at that.
