Perhaps the least patriotic sensibility one can possess these days, a mindset that may end American pluralism, is the notion it’s just a game, a continuing day at the races, a constant parade of winners and losers, payouts and torn up tickets. This view understands the consequences of government as not much more than abstractions, our history as a mere continuum of time between post parades, “eras” and “revolutions” meant to label just how fleeting their significance was, chapters in high school history curriculums rising juniors and seniors can snooze past. After all, we only live once, and agonizing over the nightly news is time one never gets back, no? Relax!
It’s not that American governance as detached sport is in itself the central malady of our condition, in fact it’s actually accentuated our democratic process for decades. Acting as both announcer and referee. But that was when it was accompanied by good faith on both sides of the aisle, which now clearly no longer exists. Without the honor and guarantee that the foundational rules of the game will be followed, those intent on continuing to see sport in impending disaster become accomplices to our ruin.
One year ago, as a senior prank, four teenagers at Glenelg High School in Maryland’s diverse Howard County, decided to go and spray paint “Class of 2018” at the school’s front entrance way. Once they got there, however, seems each decided to spontaneously accentuate things with a variety of vile, racist offerings slurring everyone from Glenelg’s black principle to Jews to gays and so forth. KKK and swastikas were prominent, as were penises. The fact it was done the night before the school’s final day ceremony to recognize Glenelg’s best and brightest meant there was no time to cover the vandalism and students all got to see its full ugliness.
That millions equate a pro quarterback or woman’s soccer star impassively kneeling during the national anthem with what happened at Glenelg clarifies societal dysfunction that would seem impervious to rational discussion, which lumps it together with a host of other head scratchers MAGA has fully liberated. Yet and still, it’s hard to see how the knee jerk ease of so many to label those horrified by what occurred at Glenelg “snowflakes” bent on criminalizing teen shenanigans and prepared to “destroy” otherwise “good kids” isn’t a worrisome trend. Add to that the same bloc’s visceral urge to pivot and attack a captain and MVP of the World Champion US Woman’s Soccer Team as traitorous and undeserving of anything but vile scorn for kneeling and refusing to visit US history’s most divisive POTUS, and it’s near impossible not to appreciate a ruinous disconnect multitudes suffer. Very serious business.
When the vandals, who were almost immediately identified and confessed accordingly, faced sentencing near one year later, all wanted the court to understand what they did was not who they were. Not one was ready to admit spray painting nasty racist standards could possibly mean they harbored dark bigotry; it was all just the “biggest mistake I ever made.” One, represented by more ambitious counsel, argued the Fox/AM talking point that charging him with a hate crime violated his 1st Amendment right to free speech! Even though sentences of more than five years could have been handed down, the judge issued a potpourri of probation, community service and between 10-16 weekends in jail, which led to near breakdowns by mothers still processing how their babies could be treated like criminals for a “prank” that got out of hand. Can you say white privilege?
NBC news’ Chuck Todd could have come out of the movie classic Network. Todd is all about the horse race. The ruinous divisions being fanned by this MAGA White House, which wants to re-adjudicate basic premises of racial and sexual fairness long ago adopted by all but America’s darkest fringes, are merely “openings” available for Democrats to exploit in 2020. Trump’s outrageous slurs hurled at sitting Congresswomen are simply part of the “culture war” discussion “firebrand” conservatives want to have in 2020. Kamala Harris turning on Joe Biden, who, by the way, just served loyally for eight years at the side of America’s first black President, for his trademark rhetorical carelessness to make a broader point about the need for bipartisanship, is a left to the frontrunner’s jaw, and a debate coup she may ride to the top of the standings. By all means Democrats, argue purity while Rome burns, the panel needs to fill three hours before the next debate begins.
Trump’s recent unhinged racism against four young, thoughtful, and fully committed Congressional newcomers combines with the events at Glenelg to produce a depressing dichotomy. On the one hand, while Trump acts on the hour to display the most despicable biases, ugliness that would have him banned from most US Thanksgiving dinner tables, the wretched core, and GOP supporters, insist as long as he’s willing to do photo-ops with Diamond and Silk, and you can’t produce video of him using the N-word, he’s not a racist.
Meanwhile, in a Maryland courtroom, the parents of boys who created the worst racist graffiti imaginable want all to know they harbor nothing but tolerance, evidence to the contrary. What they admit to doing is not who they are, and we won’t consider the possibility. So there’s a full circle here, each arc playing against the other. The POTUS is just playing politics, and the boys were just killing time…. and the economy is doing fabulous.
It bears repeating, that Glenelg High School is in a “progressive” county, in a state where Hillary was projected the winner before dinner was finished. What goes on in flyover country? What sensibilities guide their handling of such instances? Perhaps a better topic for Chuck Todd led discussions to consider. Newsflash Chuck! The real story right now is far greater than the race for power; it’s what that power creates and the unprecedented predicament the last race produced. Trump and the MAGA-cowed GOP are breaking all the rules, and making clear hourly they don’t mind ending the game if that’s what keeping it white necessitates. That’s the hell of it. BC
Thanks for some reality .
Anytime, please share. BC