The Fantasy Reality That Keeps the GOP Grasping for Greatness
There’s a difference between real things and pretend things. I know everyone understands that, but I have to wonder if some of our politicians really grasp that they’re living in a fantasy reality. We all believe things about a future we imagine, and that’s where we can easily begin to chase our tails.
For something to exist, it has to be deemed real. Some things become real up to a point, and then they fail a social test, and almost overnight, they’re considered unreal. For example, there was a time when rotary dial telephones were considered real. Then, touch-tone telephones became real. When touch-tone arrived we wondered why we ever thought rotary phones could even be tolerated.
Then the iPhone became real and neither of the previous telephone models were then considered as real as they once had been. But Steve Jobs, over at Apple, knew that people would like to make mobile telephoning real because it was convenient and highly mobile. Today, we all think smartphones are wonderful because they are and will be until the next generation of real phones comes around.
Not all ideas are created equal. Some ideas seem to be worthy of being made real, and some ideas are nearly worthy of being made real, but not quite. Then there are other ideas that we will even try out, but we soon all agree that this one is worthless for whatever our personal reasons are. We just all agree that idea doesn’t work for us.
Take that story about Haitian immigrants eating pets in Springfield, Ohio. To GOP ears, that sounded like the best gotcha of the decade. The only problem was that the story was not true and, therefore, not real. Apparently, a lady posted a rumor that a friend had heard from a kid, or someone else really dependable, that a cat had disappeared.
Of course, the only explanation which could exist for a cat disappearing would be that Haitian immigrants had roasted the cat and made cat tacos, which the Haitians promptly ate. Of course, the lady in question posted the eaten cat thing, even though the story was not real.
We all know the story is goofy, but it is a good way to show how cool we are within our clique. So, we swipe left on the story and move on. Well, not quite all of us.
Wanna see how unqualified the GOP presidential candidate is?
Even after he knew that the story was not real, he was still threatening to deport 20,000 Haitians from a city with a 50,000 population. There is nothing in that statement that can possibly be real. Yet the GOP is pushing that tall tale as though Moses had brought it down from the mountain along with the 10 Commandments. None of which is surprising because one of this year’s GOP planks is to post the 10 Commandments in every classroom, so kids will know which commandments their fav politico is violating now, so he can get even more media attention. T
his tall tale is getting them politicos lots of media attention, but not the kind they were hoping for.
It’s pretty hard to find any GOP proposals which can actually become real and stay real. For some reason, the GOP promotes authoritarian ideas and then wonders why no one wants to vote for them. The reason is that no one wants or even likes authoritarianism. Not even authoritarians.
There was a reason that Roe v Wade was decided the way it was. Abortion is going to take place with or without laws. In order to protect the lives of women, abortion was passed with limits that make women have to decide if they wanted a baby or not. That decision was going to happen with or without the law. The law clarified how and when that decision had to be made. It clarified what we could treat as real. Right and wrong had nothing to do with that real choice.
Neither did God. That was the Federal Government drawing a line that allowed each person to deal with a very real personal choice in the manner that person saw fit. That is a requirement for any societal reality. Every single person has to be able to pursue happiness in the way he or she finds to be appropriate. Any oppressive real will soon fade away because oppression is never and has never been a successful form of government.
Authoritarianism has always met societal resistance. Even in the time of Kings, an authoritarian King was resisted. If you remember, it was an authoritarian King whose rules and regulations were the impetus to form the original 13 colonies.
I think the idea of authoritarian governance defines the chasm between the Democratic and Republican agendas. Republicans tend towards insisting that everyone must agree with what the Republican line of thought is. The Democrats tend towards insisting that everyone has the right to live the life they are dealt and live it as well as it can be lived.
In other words, the GOP has a number of really bad ideas which they try to offer as guiding laws, but they cannot be sustained as real in our current society. We’ve grown past those restraints. The American system of democracy is as close to a democratic society as has yet been attempted in the history of humanity. Maybe it would help if the GOP listened to more Jerry Reed. “If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It?”
The GOP candidate keeps telling us that if we don’t do this or that, “you will no longer have a country.” How can such a statement be real? Of course, we will have a country. That the people of the country decide to elect a different candidate for President has no particular bearing on the continued existence of the country. That decision just does not mean what the GOP says it does.
I think if people decide to go with the other candidate, it’s because one candidate has better ideas than the other. Or maybe one is more likable than the other. Or maybe one is just a better choice for President than the other. Politics is a lot like music.
Once upon a time, polka was the musical high everyone craved. Then that changed. Rock and roll replaced polkas as the music of choice for lots of people. People have all manner of choices in music. In some places, Mariachi is the music of choice. I’ve even heard that there are people who like blues and jazz.
I suspect that people have the same wide range in political tastes as they do with musical tastes. If your style of music doesn’t do it for everyone that only means that your music may need some adjustment to make it the best it can be. Reggae was a wonderful example of that idea. It started out raw but improved with age.
So, if the GOP or the Democrats are not favored in an election, maybe they need to adjust their message so they are favored. If one party is being rejected over the other, it simply means that the people in the middle are leaning to the left or to the right. If those people lean, it’s because they like the ideas of one party over the other.
One thing that the Democratic candidate understands that the GOP candidate does not is that civilization moves forward, not backward. The problem with the GOP agenda is found in its very slogan.
“Make America Great Again” says that we have to go back to greatness. That can not be true. We can only move forward into greaterness (No, it is not a word, but I’m exercising poetic license, even though I’m clearly no poet). I think going forward, always forward, is why the Democratic slogan of “We’re not going back” is going to carry the day.
Civilization never goes back. It may be dealt setbacks, as with our 45th president, but it will always move forward. Politicians who ignore that fact do so at the risk of being left behind.
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