Imagine Being So Clueless As to Claim This President Competent

Yes, I’ve been keeping informed about what’s happening in my country, I just haven’t been writing about it for my own sanity. Ignoring bad things won’t make them go away, but I’ve tried not to emotionally react to events and atrocities wrought by the current presidential administration that were clearly expected, even if worse than one wanted to imagine.

The first time around for this sordid joke of a presidency, I wrote about all of the Constitutional crises, the illegal idiocy, and the sordid lack of human decency. Because for three of those years, I had a local newspaper column. Yet here we are again, but at least this time I’m living in a metropolis with a predominantly Democratic voting bloc, so one hoped it might be easier to grapple with. Or so I thought when I moved here six years ago…

This week on Facebook I came face to face with the reality that  a “friend” in my over-55 community, where I’ve been for three years, had severely and irrevocably lost their way. Perhaps they never really had a full grasp of political realities, but I mistakenly thought they chose to be well-informed and were (hopefully) not inclined to bury their head in the sand.

Leading up to the 2024 election, I had already become painfully aware that my community harbored far too many MAGA minions who still think their Veteran’s Administration, Medicare, and Social Security benefits will not be affected, because of course the only Americans hurt by their cult-leader-dictator-wannabe will be those who don’t deserve everything they see their hateful, selfish, clueless selves as the only folks worthy of having.

The blithe, blatant stupidity of these white senior citizens living in the Vegas Valley yet knowing zilch about the State of Nevada is tiresome, disgusting, and appallingly grotesque. But a couple I thought were intelligent and kind have clearly chosen to ignore reality and embrace bullshit, apparently so as to not have their delicate, decidedly undemocratic sensibilities challenged.

Because the female half of this couple reposted a long diatribe on Facebook by some rightwing pundit I don’t know or care to know, about how the current fat fascist of a president—whose name I will not use herein—should not be “underestimated” because he “knew what he was doing.” Atrocious crap about how the scrofulous orange moron just had to side with the Russian dictator against a true leader in war torn Ukraine because he was being “set up” by Ukraine and had to “save face” or all would be lost with the US.

It was the first and only political post I’d seen from this previously benign woman in almost three years. My initial response? What the everlasting idiotic fuck?

Let me back up a bit to explain my shock and revulsion over how this person could possibly support such detestable drivel. I have repeatedly socialized with the couple at our community wine club, having met her more than two years ago at a luncheon held by our Clark County commissioner, a Democrat and local resident, to inform us on issues affecting our city and county. I didn’t initially know they were “more conservative” than me, as would be revealed months later while having dinner at their house.

How could I? This woman told me they’d moved here from California, where she’d been a public school librarian and he a music teacher. Not to mention she was interested in my Other Worldly novels and actually read the first three, even after I warned her that they were blatantly progressively political. That alone is what stymies me the most about this current disheartening turn of events.

When I was invited to dinner at their place, I learned that he was a Republican—she never said she was or wasn’t—but she said they did not approve of the past president.

If they didn’t like him last time around, how in hell are they supporting him now?

Also, they were quite bewildered by how the Nevada Republican Party runs its primary election and she seemed a bit lost when she told me at wine club, “I guess we’ll have to vote for Nikki Haley,” rather than vote for the vile one. So now I knew that she, too, was a Republican, but also that they ostensibly weren’t going to vote for the man they said they didn’t support. Silly me.

I actually thought these people could distinguish truth from lies, and would be able to recognize and reject an attempt to destroy our democracy. Then again, they clearly had never grasped what had already happened to their Republican Party, and were not predisposed to be bothered by it enough to vote any other way or for any other political party candidate.

They’d apparently rather live in a fantasy world wherein the current president really isn’t a fraudster monster of a rapist and convicted felon and an unmitigated moron. A monster that they helped get reelected and are now astoundingly enabling. One wonders if this is how folks in Germany rationalized Hitler and their own duplicitousness regarding unspeakable atrocities wrought by the Nazi regime. Just pretend things are going great and your guy’s really a genius who has it all figured out. What could possibly go wrong?

Hence, I’m sure glad I didn’t rejoin wine club this year because I hope never to run into this woman again. We are no longer friends on Facebook, and my trust levels have hit rock bottom. But at least I haven’t lost my way and don’t have to conveniently alter reality to fit some ridiculous notion that our nation is just fine and everything will work out okay because otherwise I’d have to face how duped and demoralized I’ve become.

I don’t bury my head in the sand, but I do draw lines in it. I don’t support fascism, and I don’t choose to socialize, or engage on social media, with those who do.