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Chilluns, gather round, Papa Lane has a story to tell. This is the story of his beloved Auntie, who lost her mind in 2008.
My aunt had always marched to the beat of her own drummer, who mostly learned how to play in the back of a van following the Dead around in the mid-60s.
In 2007 and 2008, she was very excited to work on the political campaign of one Hillary Rodham Clinton, who she deeply respected and admired. So it was quite the shock when the charismatic unknown from Illinois Barack Hussein Obama won the nomination.
Rather than say, "that Obama fellow is just a better candidate," my poor aunt lost her goddamn mind. First was the "Democrats for McCain" sticker. Then came the endless conspiracy theories about how Obama didn't REALLY win the primary (and eventually the election).
She spent dollar after dollar on any grifter that would tell her what she wanted to hear, which was that all her effort and belief in Clinton wasn't wasted; it was the fault of a shadowy conspiracy of Muslims to elect the Antichrist!
I watched my multiple-doctorate aunt descend further into the web of conspiracies and untruths, unable to even slow the progress, because it outright fucking sucks to be invested in something and have it come to naught.
It was with this same weary eye I watched many of my political fellow travelers sink post-2016. I took to calling them the Hashtag Resistance, because their version of "resisting" was ultimately performative and, well, stupid.
I watched as grifter after grifter plied them with idiocy, like that Abramson guy or the Brothers Krassenstein. I watched smart people, people I had respected, and family members succumb to a wasting brain disease.
Donald Trump didn't REALLY win the election (he did). He must've had help from the Russian government (he might have, but that doesn't matter). He'll be impeached and the Senate will convict (never). He will go to jail (not while in office!).
So for four years, I watched people I know to be smart act irrational because of their fear and desire for Trump not to be in power any more. I see that being shown in mirror image right now.
Some of our erstwhile reasonable buds from the right are caught up in the swing of idiot grifters right now, and we should use compassion, rather than ridicule and shame, to bring them back to normalcy.
At some point, we've got to figure out how to live with each other in democratic, multicultural pluralism without trying to kill each other every four years, or just admit that's too hard and split up now before it starts with the shooting.
