Remarkably Ordinary People

“…I can't stand this indecision, married with a lack of vision, everybody wants to rule the world. Say that you'll never, never, never, never need it, one headline, why believe it? Everybody wants to rule the world…” Everybody Wants to Rule the World…Tears for Fears…Reading the morning news, or watching TV, you’ll never fail to hear about the “Average American”, especially in an election year. So, who is this elusive creature we keep hearing about? Well, for starters, he or she is black, white, Latino, young, old, urban, rural, gay, straight, but mostly, they’re remarkably ordinary people- independent, strong to a degree that frightens other nations, respectful, polite to strangers and prone to great acts of kindness. But if pushed or threatened the average American becomes a lethal opponent. If you doubt my theory, look at the list of dead dictators, tyrants and terrorists. I say this because I have friends losing sleep, dealing with queasy stomachs, and a sense of outright fear brought on by the last election. But it really doesn’t matter who they put in the White House, the average American will survive just fine, they’ve survived worse. A president is here for 4 years, they’re here for the long haul. As we enter the final month of 2024 with a newly elected president, there’s panic on the far left, and elation on the far right, both exacerbated by the media and reported with glee. Ellen DeGeneres has moved to England to escape four years of a Trump presidency, and the average American has responded with a shrug of the shoulders, and a farewell message of “don’t let the screen door hit you in the ass on the way out…” There’s a cruise ship line selling a four-year cruise package for $500,000 a person that’ll keep you on the high seas, protected from Trump. The average American rolls their eyes and thinks, “if you’ve got that much spare change laying around, why don’t you give to the Boys & Girls Club and do some real good. MAGA hardliners believe Trump was given a mandate to fundamentally change the country, he wasn’t. He was given a mandate to secure the southern border, reduce inflation, and cut wasteful spending on social engineering and other vague social programs. Aristotle said, “nature abhors a vacuum". The phrase conveys the idea that nature and physics oppose unfilled spaces. To some degree, it applies to American politics and government. A vacuum is created over four years of constant conflict, uncompromising political leaders, and radically different social views, and lifestyles. The voters spoke and they said, “We’ve gone too far left, let’s move things back towards the center.”  Not surprisingly, Trump misread the message, thought he’d been given some magic bullet, and promptly started proposing his toadies for positions they weren’t even remotely qualified for, and had no chance of gaining Senate confirmation. Unless he’s rewarding political favors, giving a group of screwballs their fifteen minutes of fame, and letting the Senate do his dirty work, he’s re-enforcing my belief that Trump is not a tactical thinker, he ignores advice and makes decisions based on emotion. A classic example is Trump’s desire to ban the FBI from gathering domestic intelligence information. One of the most important functions of the FBI program is gathering intelligence on threats to public figures and elected officials. As the most polarizing figure in American politics, who’s already survived two assassination attempts, I’d think Trump would have a vested interest in aggressive intelligence gathering concerning threats to public officials, but, apparently, he didn’t think that one through all the way. If the election had gone Kamala Harris’s way we’d have survived her left-wing social engineering just fine, just like we’ll survive Trump and some of the crazy shit that floats around in his head. Luckily, those remarkably ordinary people are tougher and smarter than either of them….