What Really Ticks Me Off

Y'know what really, really, REALLY ticks me off about The Little Ding Don?

Our elections are supposed to be exciting, contentious and for those who choose to participate, kinda fun.

Last time around, I had plenty of giggles tickling Mittens Romney. I also respected him enough to consider the issues he raised and debate them. I lost no friends. I feared only a few.*

* I do not want to minimize the overt prejudice and bigotry that accompanied the 2012 election.
I received the comment below during that campaign. I saved it as a reminder that the specter of overt racial hatred did not re-emerge with the ascent of Trump.

"The following is a brief excerpt from an extended written dialogue I had with someone on Facebook earlier this year:

“The devil is licking his chops. He is a Jew hating Muslim! Obama was raised to believe in anti colonialism and he is a Socialist! He breeds hate and discontent with fingers pointing in many directions to distract the real agenda. Socialist divide people first by putting them in classes. Why do you think he's running up this huge debt? It is so he can wipe out the middle class by creating a burden so great they become dependent on the gov't....that is Socialism! You and every American best wake up to what the wolf in sheep's clothing is up to!”

In our next exchange, this individual compared the President to Hitler, intent on world domination or destruction. If you think this man is alone, you have not been paying attention.

So sure, there was racial animus aplenty in the 2012 election, most borne of the circumstance of a President born African-American of mixed blood in a country in which racism, whether loud and rampant or quiet and insidious, remains a repugnant reality.

The tinderbox of intolerance, however, was not stoked by Mr. Romney. Those of us who participated in that election did so with pride and satisfaction. When it was over, winners and losers alike accepted the results and moved on, however grudgingly and no more than the usual rancor.

The same cannot be said of Donald Trump, who recognized how deep the racial chasm in this country is and who, along with his Minister of Propaganda, Steve Bannon, exploited it to his complete advantage.

This campaign and election presented something else entirely. The Republican party selected as its' standard bearer a man who has stolen all the pride normally associated with participating in our nation's uniquely free and fair elections with his soul crushing misanthropy.

Now, we all most endure and resist the loathsome spectacle of this graceless demagogue assuming the mantle of leader of the free world (if, indeed, it can be called that any longer) after spewing his poisonous, whining, shopworn screed that everything was rigged against him and he overcame it because he is a true champion of the people.

This is an individual who has repeatedly degraded and demeaned the very bedrock of this nation, our free elections and, in the process, rending the fabric that binds us together with his soul crushing misanthropy.

It is time to reward Trump's calumny and litany of hate with the public scorn and ridicule he so richly deserves.

Shun this evil.

It is time for the rest of us to recover our dignity, rouse our humanity and let the healing begin.

On a purely personal note, I have been blessed with an appreciation for life's comedies and tragedies born of an innate sense of humor that has always served as my preferred sword and shield when confronting the unpleasant and objectionable in life.

Today, the laughter that has been the well spring of so much pleasure in my life has been greatly stifled. So many of my giggles, snickers, chuckles and deep throated belly laughs lie fallow, abandoned in the field, gone rancid because of the fearful loathing this despicable individual arouses in me.

And that's what really, really REALLY ticks me off.

HL October 19, 2016