Am I A Real American?

Ah, so I got an anonymous comment the other day that stood out for a couple of reasons: First, I don’t get many comments. (Yes, that is partly by design. Even though my comment sections is open for now, I don’t really invite comments and, for most of the history of this blog and my other blogs, I have allowed no comments.) Second, the commenter said a bunch of stuff that a conservative republican would say and I was, like, you might be in the wrong place, pal. I mean, yes I do know some of that type, but generally the only reason I put up with that kind of thing is because the person is family (and when it comes to family, you have to put up with it or be willing to start World War III practically) or they’re dear friends (who also happen to fall into the category of “too old to change” because, frankly, I wouldn’t put up with anyone less than, say, sixty-five who tried to pull that shit on me). But generally, the people I know tend to be kinda on the liberal side of things.

The brave anonymous comment was about the entry I wrote a few days ago that directed my four relatively loyal readers (Hi, Mom, Dave, aunt Char, Kelly!) and one less loyal reader (Thanks, Rudy. You could come around more often by the way) to Ze Frank’s current project that urges the 52 percent of Americans who voted for Barack Obama to reach across the aisle (“reach across the aisle” being politispeak for “reach out to those who are different from you,” in case you’ve under a rock the last two years) to the 48 percent who voted for McCain. The brave anonymous commenter wrote (and I’m totally paraphrasing this from my oh-so-imperfect memory because I read the comment, boggled, chuckled, and deleted it, and I’ll explain why in a moment): “Wah wah. I voted for McCain and I’m sad he lost and I don’t want to get over it. My little feelings are hurt and I’m mad. Wah, wah.”

Okay, no, I’m joking. That wasn’t really what the comment said. I’ve actually exaggerated some things--and contracted some things--and changed it all up for comic effect. But I think I captured the true spirit of the comment there, as I understood it.

I deleted the damn comment, all right? I wish now that I had saved a copy, but hindsight is 20/20.

Here’s why I deleted the dear brave and anonymous commenter’s comment:

It’s no secret that I voted for Barack Obama. (And the anonymous commenter figured that out even though I didn’t say it. So, score one for anonymous commenter.) But what this commenter didn’t seem to know about me (and what makes me therefore suspect that s/he is not one of my four loyal and one slightly-less-loyal readers) is that my position has always been that, in a better world, on November 4, 2008, I would have cast my vote for The Second Coming of The Clinton Administration: The Hillary Clinton Years. That is no secret if you’ve been paying attention to anything I said or wrote in the months before the election.

The other not-so-secret fact is that after Hillary bowed out, I was so angry at all those vituperative anti-Clinton/Obama supporters that I would have voted for McCain any day of the week rather than (put myself on the same team as the people who supported) Obama. I would have voted for McCain out of spite, yes, but a vote’s a vote. I would have voted for McCain right up until McCain picked that god-awful running mate whose very name curdles the very eggs in my ovaries, and who, according to what I could discern from her own nonsensical, illogical, grammatically-torturous spewings, not only thought that she could see Russia from her house, but that being able to do so made her an expert in foreign policy. (Of course, she also claimed to see Putin’s head rearing up into Alaskan airspace, so she might’ve been speaking metaphorically, but I’m willing to take her at her word.) When McCain put that, that, that thing, that ignorant, provincial, ambitious, hate-spewing thing on the ticket, I let go of my righteous anger at the Obama cultists because you know what? My fear of the thing's potential crazy and actual full-out batshit crazy trumps my anger (even my righteous anger) every time.

The fun didn’t end with that thing being shoved into the national spotlight, no sir. For many of us--at least 52 percent of us (and I’m guessing more because some people might have been scared shitless of Batshit Sarah but they were scared even more shitless by the thought of a democratic administration that they voted for McCain anyway)--enduring that woman’s run at a national office was akin to being held hostage by some terrorist whose grasp of English is terrifyingly rudimentary and who has some fervently held ideas about what should be done to those of us who don’t believe in the same things she believes in. It was that bad for the majority of us.

Batshit Sarah had some kind of crazy in her that she seemed incapable of holding in. An entire fleet of campaign aides and a media blackout and the kind of containment system used to hold nuclear waste couldn’t keep the crazy in. Not that Batshit Sara tried so very hard to hold it in, really. And there was so much crazy, dear readers, so much crazy that it makes me tired now to think of it, but there was one Batshit Sarah Crazy Idea that she very much harped upon in those closing days that I want to mention it here. That bit of crazy was the idea that Batshit Sarah has that there is something called “Real America.”

Real Americans, Batshit Sarah implied, live in small towns, are white, heterosexual, Christian, and vote republican. Real Americans look and think and act and feel a lot like--suspiciously like--Batshit Sarah (just so long as you don’t look behind that curtain that hides unwed teenage mothers, witch doctors, abuses of power, and illegal shopping sprees for designer clothes).

Ah, good old Real America.

But if there’s such a thing as Real America and Real Americans, then what does that mean for the rest of us?

Take me, for example. I’m neither white nor Christian. I don’t live in a small town and I don’t vote republican. I am heterosexual (but please don’t hold that against me). I don’t look, think, act, or feel like Batshit Sarah, so I must not be a Real American. But I’m confused because I was born in America to parents who are American, so by law I’m an American. My passport says American right on it. So...what does that mean? Am I not a Real American?

If there is such a place as Real America then by inference there must be a place called Unreal America which I guess is where the rest of us live while awaiting our Real America permanent resident visas or something. (Something?) If I’m not a Real American, then I must be an... Unreal American? We Unreal Americans must hate white people and Christians and perhaps be legally bound to vote for Nader. We must want to live in big, ugly, sprawling, polluted, festering cities with all the other Unreal Americans, and--wait--are we all gay? I don’t even know anymore. All this time that I thought I have been living in America, among real Americans, I have really been living in Unreal America with all the Unreal Americans.

Ha-ha, right?

But let me be serious for a second because Batshit Sarah’s idea of Real America is a very, very dangerous idea.

Divide and Conquer

See, here’s the thing:

When I hear people start talking about differences, I don’t necessarily get suspicious. I don’t. Differences can run the gamut from interesting to offensive and even I, who jump the gun and leap to conclusions about almost everything, have learned to withhold judgment when it comes to talk about differences. But when someone (I’m looking at you, Batshit Sarah) doesn’t recognize that there is a difference between “difference” and “division”? Well, that’s when my anal sphincter does that crazy thing that it likes to do on roller coasters. Because “divide” always seems to be pallin’ around with “conquer” and when politicians divide us, I am forced to wonder: Who exactly are they trying to conquer?

Well, they’re trying, of course, to pit American against American. They’re telling you to pick a team--and to pick wisely--because we’re going to war. Our way of life is under attack. Real Americans are in danger of being destroyed by Unreal Americans, so are you a Real American or aren’t you? If you are a Real American like me, then I’m on your side. If you’re not a Real American, then you must be an Unreal American and that means that you are everything Real Americans hate and fear, like black and brown people, immigrants, terrorists, homosexuals, non-Christians. If you are a Real American, then you’ll prove it by voting the way I tell you to vote. If you’re not a Real American, you’ll vote for a black man who we tell you pals around with terrorists, whose father was a Muslim and then an atheist, who doesn’t denounce homosexuality with the kind fervor that we think he should.

A Real American would never, ever do any of those things.

So what does that say, I wonder, about America that a majority of us went ahead and voted in that guy, that Unreal American, anyway? Well, I’m assuming that it says that we can’t be trusted. It says that Real Americans, a minority apparently, need to take a firmer hand on America, because the Unreal Americans don’t have any idea of what kind of hell they’ve unleashed on Real Americans, the only Americans that matter. That batshit crazy idea, put in motion, can make for some very dangerous times.

So thank you, Batshit Sarah. And thank you, Mr. McCain, for giving her a national platform.

Terror. Terror. Gay Marriage.

A few days ago, I watched a comedian talk about the politics of division. He introduced the idea that people are controlled by what they fear: Terrorism and gay marriage. All you have to do when people start to question and start to think is remind them: “Terror. Terror. Gay Marriage.”

This is how Americans have been controlled for the last eight years: Wait a minute, why are we declaring war on a country that had no connections to Al Qaeda and no weapons of mass destruction? (Terror. Terror. Gay marriage.)

Hold up, yo. How did we go from Clinton’s budget surplus to Bush's eleven trillion dollar deficit? (Oh my god! Terror. Terror. Gay marriage.)

It worked, suckers. We were so terrified of terrorism and gay marriage that we willingly handed over our rights to privacy and our country's resources to whomever promised us that we could be free of Terror. Terror. Gay marriage.

Well, guess what. Eight years later, looks like we’re all burned out on Terror. Terror. Gay marriage. We’re broke because we allowed ourselves to be distracted by Terror. Terror. Gay marriage. It didn’t happen overnight. It didn’t happen in the last two years that democrats have held a slim margin in Congress. No, it has happened over eight long years of stupidity with Bush and his republican party at the helm.

Lost your house or your job because the economy tanked? Thank a republican. Can’t afford health care or had to declare bankruptcy because you got sick? Thank a republican. (Specifically, thank Richard Nixon.) Paying $4 a gallon for gas? Well, thank a republican. (Do you think George W.’s oil and gas cronies got so much richer over the last eight years because of luck? No, dear readers. I’m sorry, but no.)

So, poor little brokenhearted but oh-so-brave anonymous commenter, I’m sorry. I’m one of the 52 and you’re one of the 48 and I should be a bigger person but I’m not. I’m going to mock you online, in my little corner of the internet, and I’m going to put a lot of time and effort into it. But I’m not, I’m sorry to say, taking any glee in it. It’s mostly a reflexive action on my part, because in all honesty? I actually feel more than a little bit sorry for you.

That's why I think telling you what I did after Bush stole the elections in 2000 and 2004 may help. So here's what I did in 2000 and again in 2004:

I developed an extensive fantasy about buying a gun with a scope and a ticket to Washington, D.C.

I looked into (and actually did) move to another country for a time.

I felt angry and vindictive and hateful. (I felt, probably, a lot like you do now.)

I survived it.

And then I supported political candidates that more closely reflected my actual values. When the time was right, I voted for them.