Common Sense

“What happened to your common sense?” is a question I get asked often. Too often. The quick response to that question, if put to my core of groupies, is, “Whaaaaa……no way, Jose.” If put to a committee of my rational-minded and wise geriatric friends, the answer would be a more cautionary, more reasoned, more mature, “ABSOfriggingLUTELY.” Common sense is defined as having sound and prudent judgement.  I would add that it also means a maintenance of a healthy mental state and rational thinking.  

In the olden, golden days, my grandma used to say to my grandpa, “Earl, have you taken leave of your senses? You want to fish EVERY day and not go to work and drag your grandson out of school to go with you?” Had she meant leaving the BIG 5, eyes, ears, fingers, nose, and tongue behind, he might have had to stay home.  Common sense is not one of the BIG 5 physical senses, but it certainly can be influenced and influence one’s common sense. How did these senses possibly get twisted on January 6th?  

1.  Sight. Those violent masses saw a god, there hero, at the podium in front of them, not a criminal, and certainly not a coward as he skipped out of the assault.

2. Sound. The sound of a shouting screaming mob is frequently inciteful and energizing. It may get the adrenalin charged to red line levels.

3. Touch. The feel of a battering ram or AK-47 in the hands of the wrong person gives them a feeling of power. If a person who ordinarily may be a coward is given an implement of destruction, they can flip to being a bully and vicious.

4. Smell. Maybe the smell of sweat, perhaps feces and urine (I doubt it, even with that mob), gets some people motivated to action. Not me.

5. Taste. Maybe en route to the Capitol, the participants stopped for a morcilla sandwich. Morcilla is Spanish for blood sausage. Nothing like blood sausage to bring out the Dracula in a person.

A discussion of common sense is totally relevant at this juncture in our national history in respect to what happened on January 6, 2021. On that day, a large group of American citizens exhibited zero common sense. My guess is that the majority, if not all of them, parted with common sense and rational thinking long before the election of Donald Trump. To support Trump requires deviant thinking and acceptance of behaviors in a human that would normally be restricted to those of a psychotic, a person who might ordinarily be kept apart from society due to the damage they could do. To condone racism, sexism, narcissism, misogynism, hate, violence, etc., in a leader is tantamount to having these traits yourself, in my opinion.

“Common Sense is not so Common” is the title of a brief article by Malek Mneimne, in a publication by Albert Ellis Institute (6/7/2013). The author writes that it is highly variable, contextual, and a very subjective concept. What happened left no latitude for subjectivity and doubt that the horrifying episode was not common and not sensical; it was not the norm, or hopefully, not a “new norm.” That tragic event is an example of a group departure from a healthy mental state.

Conclusion. My purpose in this essay is to reveal the extreme lunacy exhibited in that act of domestic terrorism. The illusion before the Capitol mob that day, was an aspiring dictator (or demagogue). When the truth surfaces, he is considered by rationale people to be more appropriately a bro of Lucifer, el Diablo. and well below the godly status his core has bestowed on him in their delusional state. Trump made history by enticing the mindless mob to damage the Capitol, armed with firearms, lumber, bats and bombs. Their rationale was that Trump was cheated, they were cheated, of the election, and the illogical became the logical in their minds. To rectify the wrongs against him and them, they resorted to the maxim, “Might makes right,” and thus common sense was cast to the wind, and an insurrection went forward.

The bigger question in my mind is whether the 74 million voters of Trump and their violent appendage will return to common sense, if they ever had it in the first place. Who knows, the Legend of Donald Trump might live on and even get stronger.  Putting him and the leaders of the siege in prison may only fuel the flames of the mass psychosis and strengthen his legend. My gut tells me that Trump and the crimes of his flock were so heinous and so extraordinary, and so way above the law, that it seems worth the risk to severely penalize them. If law and order are not defended, the result is a spineless blob that is not a democracy because it lacks the organizational hierarchy and freedoms that come with a healthy, thriving sociopolitical system.

Truth and facts were ignored and rioting for its own sake may have been their goal. The fact that selfies and the taking of trophies would seem to me that the perpetrators were clueless as to the gravity of their little picnic.  Too many disenfranchised and ignorant souls in the U.S. are subscribing to a condition that more closely resembles an anarchy rather than a democracy. The anarchists of January 6 most likely didn’t see past their weapons of destruction, because if they had, and if they had not put aside their greedy motives, they might have anticipated the result of a lawless state is death and destruction. But, given who their icon is, I am dubious at best.