“The best lack all conviction. While the worst are full of a passionate intensity.”
From the poem The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats
~a column by Colleen O’Brien
Our government is shut down because of Republicans – the House Republicans can’t figure out how to select and vote for a Speaker; the Senate Republicans can’t figure out how to silence or get rid of their cohort Senator Tommy Tuberville who is holding all military promotions hostage, so our Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Coast Guard are flailing without legitimate leadership.
How do I feel about this? Let me count the ways: Anger. Confusion. Doubt. Disbelief. Fear. Dread. Abhorrence. Detestation of nearly every member of Congress.
These weak willies are the leaders of the free world? Pity us and the world. It is humiliating, tiring, exasperating to such a degree that I can barely believe each morning’s news about the latest non-decision from elected leaders that we actually pay money for. What a load of buffoons. Their overriding self-interest is baffling. Are we living in a Grade B horror movie, written by someone with hate in his heart, a director who likes stupid actors who look like turtles, have funny hair and scream their lines until their faces are red and their eyes are bugging out?
What are the rest of us supposed to do? Why can’t the Democrats do something, like lead us out of this pit full of stupid, selfish, dim politicians? Or are the Ds the same? The rest of the world has looked on the U.S. with amusement since 2016 when we elected a buffoon; when they realized he was dangerous in his calculated buffoonery, they awakened too late to his modus operandi that had infected the entire world; we were the only ones who were supporting his dismantlement of the government with more publicity than he could ever pay for – our free press gave it to him free. And now the rest of the world looks upon us with dis-ease, as do many of us in this totally corrupted country. . . . Are we on our way out?
It would be comforting if we who prefer a democratic way of government could rally around a man of integrity who has done more for this country in two years than any president has in four. But the propaganda from the scared-we-aren’t-all-white side is so chillingly right-on that even Democrats are now iffy about our honest, hard-working, effective President. Why the Democrats continue with their completely ineffective public relations infuriates me, because I’ve always known that Ds are better educated, cannier with the language, wittier and can read . . . obviously they too have swallowed the Kool Ade or lost their nerve. Or their backbones.
We’re doomed to be led by Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan in the form of so-called Patriots, Proud Boys, the Boogaloo Bois, the Oath Keepers, the Last Sons of Liberty, and random hunchbacks who wear sweatshirts that say “Camp Auschwitz.” They are the gun-happy mindless who can’t think for themselves and therefore choose a self-indulgent pretend-billionaire to follow? They should be ashamed at their willingness to admire and ape a hapless golfer who drives his cart on the greens.
If we’re the leader of the world, the rest of the world must be nervous as hell. They may make fun of us in their envy of what has been our freedom from tyranny, and they have long relied on us. But I’m sure that by now they arepretty sure they’ve put their money on the wrong horse.
