Today is my Uncle's Birthday!
Unc Daza: the self-professed one and only African Lion 🦁, is a great guy who has been more than an uncle to me. He's a cool, smart, intelligent and extremely kind fellow. A mentor of some sort, he's someone I tend to look up to. He is a massive pillar of support to my family, and a reliable confidant as well.
Now, much as I love hanging out and have intelligent conversations with him, we both disagree on something that most American family members disagree on - Politics. Not on ideology per se, but on strategy and tactics for progress. Here's where I do a full disclosure: Much as he loves to listen to and recite the lyrics to the wackest new rap songs, Unc (that's what I call him) is a baby baby boomer (the youngest of the boomers), so it's understandable that he sees things differently from how a Wu-Tang/M.O.P./Mos-Def-Talib-Kweli-jamming Xennial like me would. He's a liberal, "kumbaya, easy-going, no-need-to-poke-the-bear, let-us-do-incremental-progress" kind of guy while I just happen to be a fiery "toilet-mouthed, to-hell-with-all-that-bullshit" kind of progressive!
We do, from time-to-time get into interesting iMessage debates on the best strategies and approaches to take towards achieving a better America. This essay, a special birthday present to him, kind of surmises the thoughts and philosophies behind my often linguistically-colorful 🤬 (which gets on his nerves) points of view.
It's no secret that the #1 priority of the "Left" in 2019 is to remove Mr. Adárípón from office (Adárípón in the Yoruba Language means "one with a distinct and weird brightly-colored head"). However, opinions as to how that should happen reveal a sharp divide in the electorate. Many on the Left long for America to get things back to how they were in "pre-Trump" 2015. Baffled, they have watched as many on the "Right" have clung to the radical nationalism brought on by Agent Orange. More surprisingly, though, they've seen many self-described moderate conservatives completely overlook the most atrocious of Trump's deeds - even their otherwise kind long-time friends and family.
But in the mean time, others on the Left and many on the centrist Independent side feel that the attempt at a return to an "Obama World" is the wrong tactic, blaming that environment for the rise of Trump in the first place; or more correctly, the reality behind the illusion of that world. Because, as is apparent more and more each day, for anyone who wishes to simply look, the goddamn Democratic Party establishment is itself guilty of rampant corruption and negligence!
Any attempt to address this nonsense, or to even discuss it, is met with a sudden "we-know-it-all" tribal (which is actually outdated and ignorant) kind of mentality. The Democratic "veterans" are quick to exert pressure to quiet down, and back the establishment candidates pushing for reform rather than for political revolution. And that is what I've found myself dealing with lately.
So, let's ask ourselves this - what do the most radical MAGA-hat evangelical Trump worshippers; and the most loyal, lifetime Democratic Party-voting, NPR-listening liberals have in common? The answer: They follow whoever their tribal media props up. And on the Democratic side, that includes a constant push to support the clueless establishment that sponsors them. They refuse to address the bullshit within their own respective systems (largely called out by the newer generation).
Just as the Right has taken its moral gymnastics to Olympian levels in excusing Trump's corrupt behavior, the Left not only refuses to acknowledge its own decades-old hypocrisy, it fails to pay any form of attention to the growing body of progressives and independently-minded people who see another alternative to healing our nation of this putrid gangrene. The Left casts these voices aside as radical or socialist. How ignorant!
Please permit me to ask those urging us to get things "back to normal" first, before we begin to incrementally work on reforming the Democratic Party this simple question: Have you never had to stand up to a school bully? Have you had to call 911 for an emergency at home? Have y'all ever seen this incremental approach fix a broken system in the past? Be true to yourselves with the answers!
Sure, there are times to compromise, but that opportunity does not live somewhere in between "moderate" conservatives who overlook the horrors of Trump, and liberal centrists who insist on defending the Democratic Party despite the vast corruption at all levels. If there is not a serious rooting out of this corruption NOW, and a "reboot" of our economy for the people...man, I swear, the next Trump will be far worse than the orange buffoon that we have now! Think I'm exaggerating? Take a few seconds to imagine a more sophisticated or a more calculated Trump, OK? Wouldn't he or she be discreet and covert? Do you think there would be any impeachment hearings and deliberations for your CNNs, your MSNBCs and the other mainstream news platforms to jerk off to? Methinks not!
Perhaps, most frustrating is the attitude that the young, disgruntled progressive side of the Left just needs to just "fucking calm down" and "be realistic for Christ's sake". I call bullshit! This is a tactic that has, for numerous decades, been subtly used to be dismissive of anyone who challenges the real core problems of our society. I say y'all need to come up with better retardants because that crap is played out! This "be-patient your-time-will-come" argument gives these arrogant hecklers an easy way out! It is simply an excuse not to listen!!!
Honestly, this perverted desire to go back to the way things were a couple of years ago is showing the hands of those who didn't have any major problems before 2016. These same people had been quite comfortable in their social status and well-being, and continue to be, despite Trump's irresponsible actions. Their only problem as we speak is "the unpleasantness of the present nature of politics and how it has affected popular mainstream culture".
You hear phrases like "Let us return to decency!" I'm like, "DECENCY?!" Do y'all even know what the hell that word means? Don't y'all read history? Please! America has never been a nation of decency. DECENCY! Ha!! What's decent about sacking Native Americans from their ancestral homes and killing them off for property rights? What's decent about slavery, raping women and tearing children from their parents to make money? What's decent about starting a Civil War, killing your own brothers and cousins over enslaving other human beings? What's decent about fiercely denying women the right to vote just to make them subservient? What's decent about lynching, murdering and hanging thousands of African Americans from trees while Caucasians look, celebrate and pose for pictures to be printed on postcards? What's decent about flooding the inner cities with crack cocaine just to destroy African American families and communities? What's decent about unfairly targeting, brutally policing people of color and handing them longer jail sentences than their Caucasian peers who had committed the same or sometimes worse crime? Please don't get me started!
It seems that many people who considered themselves to be open-minded and felt they'd been part of an overall fair and a just country for all walks of life suddenly found themselves at odds with fellow peers insisting that this was never the case. Generally socially-minded, they suddenly found themselves being challenged with the idea that they not only may have been oblivious to a battle that was never finished, but that they recently found themselves accused of being part of the reason for these grievances. By being sexist, bigoted or narrow-minded (simply for their ignorance of a new debate or struggle in the evolving rotation of hot-button issues) and taken by surprise, these "proud, until-now-thought-to-be" open-minded people found everyone "complaining" about even the slightest thing.
Yes, to many of them, you people are just complaining! To them, this is all mostly a response to the nastiness of Trump's world you can almost hear them think loud "Damn! This Trump dude done fucked shit up big time and getting these whiny little bitches worked up!". To them, things were at least a little normal post-Bush pre-Trump; and while they know many problems existed, they weren't that bad. To them, the promise of a return to the golden age of Obama is the path to take. I beg to differ! 👎
In my next essay, I will break down why and how that is so misguided and nothing but a bloody lie that the Democratic establishment keeps telling itself!