Left, Right, Up, Down

 So, upon reflection, I have decided that none of what we now refer to as "politics" matters. 

To wit: President Joe Biden misplaced a bunch of classified documents. In what amounts to a sideways instant replay of the Mar A Lago Affair, when FBI agents raided a golf club to retrieve hundreds of classified documents taken away by the guy who previously stayed at the White House. And now the discussion is all about how wrong Joe Biden is because he did something similar to the former game show host. The guy who was impeached twice. At least he didn't promise to take away everybody's gas stove. 

There is a lot of talk about The Cult of Personality. The kind of thing that gets people to post things on social media like "The Left hates President Trump because his masculinity intimidates people." I find myself aligned more often than not on the Left side of things, and I can truthfully say that there is a grain of truth in that suggestion. The kind of masculinity that shoots first and asks questions later. The kind of masculinity that can best be described as toxic. Men who feel their best qualities are shown off stomping around breaking things and oppressing others without conscience or apology. 

And I know that they aren't all Republicans. Unfortunately we have come to a point in our history when those labels we place on others have reduced political discourse to a cheesy series of sound bites and tweets where the tiniest dangling thread can become a feeding frenzy for both sides to pick up, chew, and regurgitate. 

For example: This past week, as the Republican majority settled into its new digs in the House of Representatives, lawmakers of a certain stripe rolled back the prohibition on smoking on Capitol Hill. The city of Washington DC maintains their ban on smoking, but the Capitol is under federal jurisdiction, so the powers that be took it upon themselves to endanger everyone's lives on their turf. 

Sorry. My bleeding heart was showing there, wasn't it? It's that same part of me that winces when I see the embodiment of that toxic masculinity I mentioned previously, Tucker Carlson, wondering loudly from his pulpit "Why is tobacco so dangerous?" He devoted an entire segment of his oddly popular chatterfest to the discussion of this point, insisting that Joe Biden's administration is encouraging drug use by legalizing weed (that's hip lingo for marijuana, kids) and "sending crack pipes to addicts." 

But we all know that drugs are bad, right? Yet, somehow we find ourselves so far down the rabbit hole that "smoking the occasional cigar" is now a badge of personal freedom. Just like misplacing boxes full of confidential documents. Use the burners of your gas stoves to light your cigars or cook your meth. O It's all the same. 

Isn't it?