Is it Time to "Go Low?" Not According to Obama.

[TygrBright]

My stepfather taught me two important lessons I will be grateful for, for the rest of my life. The first one is "If it seems too good to be true, it's too good to be true." (That's kept me out of a lot of MLM scams, bad loan terms, and other pitfalls.)

The second one was "When the stakes are high, don't listen to what people say. Watch what they do."

The stakes-- for our Party, our nation, and our grandchildren, have never been higher in my lifetime. I find myself using the term "existential threat" a WHOLE LOT.

In his blog "Whatever," writer John Scalzi posted today on "The Beginning of the Trump Years":

I think a lot of people opposed to the Trump administration are still in oh shit oh shit oh shit mode, as opposed to fuck you, let’s do this thing mode. Trump and his agglomerated assemblage of assholes are hoping the left (which in this case would include large swaths of the middle) are still shell-shocked and/or content to be a circular firing squad rather than focusing fire on them.

I am well into the "fuck you, let's do this thing" shift, but one of the difficult questions to answer, for me, is "do what?"

And let me tell you, the impulse to pick up the same weapons they've been using for the past eight years, turn them 180 degrees, and LEAN on the firing stud is a powerful, powerful one. The news wouldn't even have to be all that "fake." The trolls could simply add a drop or two of sarcasm, irony, or venom to the material already so abundantly provided.

The jokes DO write themselves... ask any of the late-night comedy show hosts or writers.

But really, it's like tossing lit matches at a toddler who's already playing with a flamethrower.

That one will take care of itself.

But what about the rest of them? What about the ghouls and greedheads who are now romping gleefully through the Legislative Branch?

They're more difficult targets, only partly because there are so many of them.

Even so, when it comes to the arc of history and how it bends, I'm tempted to take advice from the man who picked up Martin Luther King's dream and marched it the furthest it's made it yet. To the hatred and fury and backlash of the terrified melanin-deficient Americans clutching the tattered rags of privilege in their rageful fists. To the pride and honor of his name, his legacy, his leadership and his inspiration.

This week has been his valediction.

And in the face of that existential threat-- which he is better equipped to understand, in greater depth than any of us, he chose to end his term with a powerful act of compassion. An act he knew he'd be pilloried for, by the same terrified, yammering cowards who've been fighting every step of progress and blocking every attempt to build a better future for all Americans-- including them.

And today he chose to stand before the media and demonstrate the power of caring and competence again. Of maturity, dignity, and grace.

I shall not be going low.

In the long run, the arc continues to bend.

And we shall overcome.

sorrowfully,
Bright

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

1. Nice. Not sure I can hang with you. But, this does illustrate an important difference

between me and Drumpf voters. While I might be inclined to "go low," I really don't want a president who does so. I aspire to something better, and I want my president to manifest my aspiration.

I want the president of the United States of America to be elite, in the best sense of the word. I want that person to be more intelligent, more diplomatic, more level-headed, more eloquent, more competent, and more dignified than me and most of the people I know--and I know some pretty wonderful people.

I'm OK with Bill Maher and the like taunting and mocking clueless RWers, but I would not vote for a presidential candidate who did that publicly (an occasional private lapse I could probably live with?) The thing is, no American has to pay any attention to Bill Maher. It's different with the president.

RW voters? They seem happy to elevate to positions of authority people who embody the very worst in themselves. And just look where that has taken us.