As a seriously old fart approaching 80 A.D., I’m senile and befuddled much of the time, but many of my conservative compadres seem to be all the time. If they did jump the HMS Donald and dog-paddle away, they escaped the suction of the greasy maelstrom left behind.
Since those days, it appears as though they have shifted their tight schedules around at Happy Geezers Acres from Bingo and Checkers competitions and watching Big Valley and Green Acres reruns, to spending large chunks of their nap, addling & doodling times, researching large-print joke books and bathroom stalls, looking for Biden material. I guess this is their idea of moving on.
Conservatives consistently don’t make valid connections between universal facts and themselves, or a kindred spirit, like another conservative or a president. If they do see the connection, apparently, they choose to ignore it if they don’t believe it is relevant to them even if it is to the rest of humanity.
For example, when we moved to Alaska in 1981 for two years, it was common at that time to hear residents talk about newbies or non-residents as being from the “outside.” In other words, the implication was that societal and physical laws that applied to the outside, didn’t necessarily apply in Alaska. It was “sort of” laughable, but it really wasn’t. We “newbies” used to joke that an apple didn’t necessarily fall from the tree in Alaska. I had one acquaintance who tried unsuccessfully to put a landing strip in his large front yard for private jets and helicopters. Neighbors? What neighbors?
Another example closer to home is the use of preventative measures against Covid – masks and vaccines. Their rationale: the vaccine may work for 95% or higher of everyone else but probably not me. This represents a total ignorance of statistics or just plain selfishness. When Trump was in office, they refused to connect his malevolent, vicious, moronic, insulting and lying habits with a those of a bad and stupid human being. Trump had said he could get by with murder in Manhattan and it wouldn’t cost him a vote and I think he was right..
Recently, I wrote an email to this group of conservative acquaintances. Paraphrasing, the email went something like this:
Some of you have diplomatically asked me to “get over it” (Trump) and move on, and I appreciate that. I don’t disagree except for one thing: there is a big difference between moving on and forgetting. We don’t advocate doing that with the Holocaust or WW II, so why would we do that with King Trump and his Reign of Terror? He did, and still does, represent a great lesson in history and it should be fascinating as to how future HS textbooks and teachers of American history treat him. If they are striving to be impartial and honest, it will be difficult as hell. They should document that he allowed us to see the darkest sides of human behavior without directly committing murder (maybe rape?). He wasn’t Dexter. Not to mention the threat that he single-handedly posed to the stability of our democracy. It was and still is not trivial.
Secondly, it is very easy to use Biden as a target for bad humor because he is old and makes mistakes. Who the hell doesn’t at our age? But to compare the impact of Biden’s guffaws with the impact of a president who was the epitome of malevolence is like comparing apples with watermelons. Obviously, I don’t think Biden jokes are funny because they aren’t funny. They are a copout for real humor.
