Oh how I wish I were talking about sports. I am not. The election has me spinning, and it is too close to being a reality to actually think about other stuff this deeply for a ten minute post, so you are likely to see more of these musings leading all the way to the big finish. Beyond even–given that it will not be counted up on the day of. What I am really talking about here is fear. What I am really talking about is the difference between how the figureheads of the two parties and their respective media apparatus do business. Staring at a perfectly coifed Mike Johnson, a man whose entire persona radiates ‘rich kid who got bullied anyway’ vibes, I realized that I’ve always understood the difference between the types of elected officials.
Republican electees are figureheads. They are the class president types and the Karen types who truly believe in the concept of exceptionalism, if only for themselves and those who they purport to support. Who do they support? Real Americans. Which is to say that those who do not agree with their platform of values are not real Americans. The Republicans we see in office and on TV are a divisive sort. They are not about lifting up all Americans. In fact, the idea of lifting everyone up is only valid in the sense that we are all going to go up if the ‘best of us’ do even better. Trickle down theory in it’s purest form. They argue for smaller government, but only in the areas where they want more power to go to the wealthy. Don’t legislate our rights… unless they are rights we want to take away from you because they go against our platform. Let us keep our guns and your babies–regardless of your feelings on the issue.
Democrats are a colorful sort. They are the brown faces, those who’ve come from disparate groups to bring the ‘fringes’ of American society a voice.
That there is the construct that makes the issue for me. Republicans have managed to market themselves as real America. By default anyone else is the other. It is very hard to be the other–I should know. That explains at least in part why so many are verbally loathe to be so. It also explains why in a world where all the shouting is coming from the right, you may be in a situation where the so-called left can quietly win.