A Dichotomy for
Loyalty
It can't be both
ways. You choose friends in high or low places. You choose how you
want to go down, how you want to be remembered, to be castigated.
It's implausible to cover all the bases all the time, to save all
your support systems all the time. Angering someone is essential in
the game of life.
Friday August 11 we
saw the faces. The co-version, the secrecy and intimidating sheets of
wizardry were gone. The repugnance in their faces, the disturbed
pride in their eyes, the identity was illuminated for the world to
see. Tawdry hardware store “tiki” torches lit the night. They
engulfed to expose the right to the world, to family, to friends, to
bosses. Those individuals will forever carry those torches. They
earned themselves places on the ash heap of society. I already read
of a father disowning his son for attending, for being a willing
participant in the alt-right. I can only hope individuals lose their
jobs, friends, any shred of hope to ever be accepted again the same
way as they were by anyone. I can only hope society turns their back
on the for the gutter slime they are.
Associations with
people are tenuously cast. A certain amount of differing opinion is
par for the course, enough on which a friendship can survive. The
majority of the GOP sees Trump for what he is, a charlatan who
panders to the lowest common denominator to ingratiate himself. They
see that his rhetoric is void of any true American ideals. They see
that he has surrounded himself with reactionaries, racists, and
sycophants. Trump is trying to appease his core supporters. To
effectively do that he can't, for example, decisively denounce David
Duke. Sitting on a fence, watching the early configurations of CWII
(the second Civil War), Trump can't be anything like a Lincolnesque
figure. This is the same man who, a few months ago, claimed that the
Civil War was preventable. He thought that the posthumous actions of
Andy Jackson could have spoken louder than the words he failed to
find Friday. Alright, if Jackson is Trump's hero, who he claims saw
the Civil War coming and was “very angry,” why is he doing
nothing to prevent what could escalate into CWII? Unlike Jackson, who
died 16 years before the CW, Trump is here, alive and angry. His talk
is cheap. Its flawed mostly because it comes out of the mouth of a
narcissistic dumb-ass with tiny balls and even smaller brains.
When someone
supports an abomination, a figure cast in diametric opposition of
what the vast majority of Americans know implicitly, they become its
baggage. Personally I struggle with the morality, my own cognitive
dissonance of being around people like this. Individuals you shared
good times with all your life come out of the closet, so to speak,
brazenly flouting those racial back bones in their bodies. They are
far, but they are in their mirror, smiling, joking, closer than they
appear. That is the conundrum with which I and, ironically, Trump
must wrestle. Cut the losses for the good of, in Trump's case, a
nation, and accept it. Or, give a facile nod to the demons at the
door and maintain the carnivorous base of support. Either way it's a
win for him. For me, for anyone in such a dilemma, it's only a matter
of conscience.
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