50 Years is Probably Enough

Ever since I was a ten year old sitting on the floor of my grandmother’s trailer watching Bobby Kennedy get assassinated, I have been interested in politics and politicians. That event was so traumatic, it convinced me, even as a kid, that I should be paying attention to the world more. Strange, eventful things were happening and I needed to get in on it. Thus began a lifelong fascination with the political processes of our Republic, born out of a violent tragedy. There, right there on my bio for this blog, politics is listed as one of the things I enjoy blogging about!

But, no more.

Honestly, the past few years have managed to destroy any vestige of interest I have had about politics and politicians. Part of the blame for my condition is the complete capitulation of the Republican Party to Donald Trump, the sacrificing of every core principle they ever claimed to hold dear for the purposes of loyalty to the current occupant of the White House. To witness a great and storied political party transformed into a tribe of sycophants virtually overnight has been a colossal disappointment. But, it’s not just the GOP which has been transformed. Suddenly, as if someone has managed to slip hallucinogens into their communal coffee, the Democratic Party seems hellbent on out-Socializing each other. All of a sudden, practically every prominent leader of the Party commits to some new collectivist scheme or another. The new telegenic freshman from Brooklyn sucks all the oxygen from the room when she calls both Reagan and FDR racists, to the squealing delight of her starstruck sycophants...another great and storied political party transformed into something radically unrecognizable to someone who has been paying close attention from fifty years.

Every other party available to me in this famously restrictive two-party system are worthless whiners, forever complaining about how unfair the world is...Libertarians, The Green Party, The Constitution Party...are they still a thing? So, yeah...I got nothing.

Purists out there will lecture me about pragmatism, about how I should work within one of these two parties to bring about the change I desire. I should either hold my nose and work to pry the Republicans away from their jock-sniffing worship of Donald Trump...or I should endeavor to pull the Democratic Party away from the cliff of Socialism they seemed determined to launch themselves from. My answer to these two suggestions is simple...nope. I’m almost 61. Fifty years of politics is enough. I’ll let the kids figure it out.

Of course, if I decide to more or less withdraw from the scrum, I suppose I should stop writing about it too. Everyone who reads this blog already knows my feelings on the subject. I will never change anyone’s mind. Nobody in politics changes anyone’s mind anymore. We all have everything figured out already. We’re right and the other guy hates America, right? So, I should probably stick to Dad Jokes, sports, family, and fiction. That should be enough to keep me busy.