Okay, it’s been a couple of days now since the election, and I’ve had a chance to collect my thought(s). This isn’t entirely the right forum for this, but I’ll bend my argument around back to parenting eventually. And so:
Frankly, none of this was surprising in the slightest. You could tell for months, maybe more than a year, that this was building up. I didn’t get worked up beforehand, and when the results came down I shrugged. Or I would’ve shrugged—I was asleep by 9:30 p.m. Tuesday night.
Some people, though, are still asking: Why? Why did this happen? Why, when the president (okay, the government) actually managed to accomplish some important and useful goals over the past two years, did the people rebel? What do they want from him, anyway?
Well, I’ll tell you the answer(s). They don’t want anything from him. All they want—all anyone wants anymore—is to be an asshole. A jerk. We Americans love acting like shitheads and being negative about anything there is to be negative about. Blogs are founded on the principal; so are political parties. We want to make bad jokes at the expense of others, and get pissed off when people do the same to us. Fuck kids getting bullied—we’d rather be the bullies. It’s more fun, cuz you get to kick the shit out of the spazzes.
Oh, you say, then how did we all climb on the Hope and Change bandwagon a couple years back? Didn’t that show we can be optimistic and positive?
Yeah, right. That was just us all being negativistic assholes to the previous guys. The only way to really hurt Bush & Co. was to elect someone like Obama in their place. That was some high-level assholery, wasn’t it? We do that shit real well in this country, although we’ve started outsourcing some of it to China.
But for now, this is what it’s all about: laughing and sneering and stomping on people’s heads (and then demanding apologies); saying no and sticking our fingers in our ears; ignoring not just scientific results but the whole theoretical framework behind science (a.k.a. the scientific method) because we assume scientists are just as big assholes as we are; and, overall, rejecting anything and everything, no matter if it might improve our lives, just because we can, and because it might seem sort of funny to watch the other guy squirm. We are the tantrum-throwing babies everyone says we are, and we’ll do anything we can not to grow up.
Which is why, I’m sure, at some point I’ll take Jean and Sasha and flee not just for the suburbs but for some other country’s suburbs, so my kid can at least learn to say asshole in another language.
This is fantastic and not many people will have the balls to admit you’re right.
Thank you for posting this. Tuesday night my wife and I stayed up and discussed moving to another country. If the Republicans repeal the healthcare bill, we have to move to a country with better healthcare, for our daughter’s well being.
(Applause!)
http://i.imgur.com/LN6ub.jpg
*sigh*
It’s hard to like us, isn’t it? I wish I could just shrug on Tuesday night. I couldn’t. It kind of depresses the shit out of me. But you’re right, Matt. We (collective we) hate everyone. The Rasmussen poll cited in the Huffington Post this week more or less proves it. ( http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/03/house-gop-disappoint-2012_n_778281.html ) Even as the public voted in a slew of ‘new guys’, they left their polling places expecting them to disappoint. People aren’t even hopeful or optimistic when they hit the name on the voting machine touch screen???
The slogan in 2008 should have been “Yes We Can (if we weren’t such a bunch of fickle, obstinate, bull-headed assholes who refuse to cooperate with and listen to those who think differently from us.)”
love it!
I had an absolute fit on facebook two nights ago, pretty much calling out people who can’t think beyond what’s six inches in front of them, which is typically a television with Fox news on. I think I lost some friends.
Here’s a sample (Washington State Initiatives rant): “If you voted for required super majority for tax increase initiative and you voted against the tax hike on uber-rich because you were afraid the legislature would raise taxes on you later on, you’re truly an idiot. Like just head-in-the-ground-not-using-your-brain-at-all brand of stupid.”
In fact, I think I’ll post the whole rant on my blog sometime soon. Why not.
For your new life abroad : forget France, it really sucks around here since 2007 and Sarkozy’s election.
Would I be an asshole if I pointed out that you spelled “principle” incorrectly?
Great post, by the way.
Yeah, Ben, stomp Matt’s head! Stomp his head!
Totally. Send us a link when you do post it. What are blogs for, if not harangues?! We should know.
@Ben: Whoops! By that point, I think my computer screen was so flecked with spittle that I couldn’t see what I was writing anymore.
I would move out too, if I didn’t hate goddamn foreigners and their goddamn stupid foreign languages so much.
I came across your blog through a facebook post. And I must say that I agree 100%; most people don’t even realize that their taxes were lowered this year! It’s not a communication problem (from the White House) like some have suggested. You are right in your assessment that people just like being assholes.
Although, to be fair, you are unjustly targeting the guy in the photo. I met the Morans, nice family, but very very stupid.