Sack of sentient rotting tangerines sent to Florida landfill

I watched a very boring presidential inauguration this morning and I am delightfully bored. Yes, yes, there are dark and twisted people, fellow Americans, whose heads have been filled with the poisonous spiders of right-wing disinformation, who have yet to join reality — but there’s one thing that I know from having lived 51 years and that is this: lies always collapse under their own weight.

So how did they get this way? Unfortunately fantasy has long been a part of the American fabric. It’s something that serves us well in the form of imagination. We are, after all, the country that went to the moon first and also put pineapple on a pizza because we dared to dream big. At the same time we’re first in snake oil, charlatans and superstitious nonsense. What wound is it in our national character that makes us so susceptible to this kind of fabulist thinking? If I had to guess I think it comes down to our Puritanical founders and our love of individualism. Don’t get me wrong, I’m proud of both of these characteristics. Puritanicals? Really? The gay, atheist, screenwriter, academic is proud of the Puritans, witch burning and all? Well no, not the witch burning part, but I quite like faith, even as an atheist. Faith is a civilizing value. And while I don’t believe in God, I support those who do. I have faith in our institutions, in science and in humanity. Secondly, individualism is the key to free thinking and innovation. Without it we would have been a future-less country, replicating something somewhere else. Probably a colony, with the Queen on our cash. And I love the Queen — I really do. And I envy the cohesive nature of Canada. It is a remarkable country where life matters and fairness is a shared value. I’m also not saying that Canada’s connection to England has held her back in any way but it wouldn’t have worked for us.

It is, however, unquestioned faith, a lack of reflection and self examination — the certitude “this is right and no one can tell me otherwise” that got us here. The mind being closed to new information is what got us here. The immediate dismissal of new information because it does not fit a pre-existing set of beliefs is what got here. A stubborn rejection of data is what got us here. If you don’t like the news, kill the messenger and call it all a fraud. There is a wound in the American spirit. Some portion of the trump electorate is wounded, deeply and profoundly and they’ve not done to work to understand that wound. They’re angry, dispirited and disillusioned and are blaming all of that on external forces. Sure, some of that blame is probably well placed but much of that blame papers over their own role in their unhappiness. I’m a far left (and I mean FAR left) liberal but I’ve got serious problems with China, too. Our trade relationships, their genocidal erasure of the Uhigurs, Xi’s crackdown on speech, thought and expression, the fraud of a communist government calling itself democratic after having held exactly zero elections. One could go on. I have no illusions about socialism or communism because even though I’m a gay, atheist, far left academic, my mind is open to NEW INFORMATION. I did the research and never bought into a fantasy. I use critical thinking, always and especially when it comes to my own beliefs. I do not believe a single party should dominate the political landscape because that shuts out new information.

Maybe, just maybe, angry young man, you might open your eyes a tiny bit to all that you’ve fiercely refused to look at. I promise you it won’t contaminate you. I read Fox News almost every day. I disagree with a lot of it but I need to know how they’re covering things because to not do so is willful ignorance. You have a brain, capable of critical thought. Use it or lose it.