Author’s Note: For the record, I am not, nor have I ever been a registered Republican. In fact, I’ve never affiliated with either party. I just thought I should get that out of the way.
TDS vs. COVID
I’m increasingly convinced that TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) is more persistent, pervasive, pestilent, and pernicious than the coronavirus or any of its innumerable variants. The first outbreak of TDS was on June 16, 2015. It ran rampant through the four years of the Trump presidency, rendering Democrats apoplectically unable to do anything other than try to get rid of him by every means possible, legal and illegal. And it continues today. I’ve long since accepted the reality that there are some things I’ll never understand.
To give Trump his just deserts, the idea that Russia would have invaded Ukraine if he were in office exists somewhere on the Scale of Absurdity between preposterous and ludicrous. Even if Trump’s response to Putin had been characteristically brash, blustery, and hyperbolic, there’s no way in the world Uncle Vlad would have pressed his luck. That, of course, is why Uncle Vlad was being treated for ptyalism during the entire 2020 U.S. presidential campaign.
While Uncle Joe was right on the money in the context of the Democrat Party lightweights who opposed him in 2020, someone with significantly more on the ball than Uncle Joe also went toe-to-toe with Vlad the Assailer:
Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Russian President Vladimir Putin [with whom she met at least six times] appears “erratic” and is “descending” into something she’s never personally seen before. “He was always calculating and cold. But this is different. He seems erratic. There is an ever-deepening, delusional rendering of history. It was always a kind of victimology about what had happened to them, but now it goes back to blaming Lenin for the foundation of Kyiv … in Ukraine … [he’s] descending into something I haven’t personally seen before.”
Ms. Rice was too diplomatic and decorous to opine on the extent to which our dear President is erratic and declining. But as a would-be statesman, perhaps Uncle Joe would have benefited from reading more of Hunter S. Thompson’s writing; although, it likely wouldn’t have done that career dimwit any good:
If you can’t make yourself understood by your friends, you’ll be in trouble when your enemies come for you. (Hunter S. Thompson)
Full Circle
Was my previous post intended to be an endorsement for passive acceptance of everything? No. Was it intended to suggest we should ignore our surroundings and the circumstances created by those we elected and pay to serve us? No.
Rather, it was intended to convey my belief that if I mind my own business, I’ll be less inclined to tell others what to do or how to be — or to spend any otherwise influential time doing either. And to the extent that I can use that time and my inviolable sovereignty to think for myself, to question everything, to see the world through the lens of history, and to recognize the signs of impending train wrecks — and if more people would do that, too — maybe the world might spend more time on the rails than not.
But we have some wake-up calls to heed and some work to do.
We cannot expect people to have respect for law and order until we teach respect to those we have entrusted to enforce those laws. (Hunter S. Thompson)
Smile when you say that, partner:
