Sorry, Honey

 I check my wife's reaction to these blog entries. Sometimes she laughs out loud, which is music to my ears. Sometimes she stops in the middle and asks me a question, like "what did you mean..." It's that second one I have to watch out for. 

Lately she has been reacting to my insistence on paying attention to the former game show host who just happened to live in the White House for four years. You remember, puffy guy with curious hiring practices and a neverending thirst for Diet Coke? That guy. The punch line to a thousand jokes and the poster boy for a million memes. 

That guy. 

What, my wife would like to know, is my obsession with this horribly unpleasant person? 

I tell her that it is my fear-based reaction to a syndrome that goes back in recent history to Sarah Palin, you remember her, the lady who stamped the template for Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert? The embodiment of hypocrisy and nonsense who pushed John McCain to the edge of his legacy. That gal. And just so we don't stir up any gender issues here, Ms. Palin gave shape to a whole sea of men, women, and trans folk who now feel free to spout nonsense based on bad facts and worse science. The army of MAGAts were sprouted from this Hydra's teeth and each time a head is cut off, another one grows beside it. 

The form that this evil took in 2016 ended up seating one third of the current Supreme Court. He called for the violent overturn of an election that he lost. "Politics as normal" have ceased to be as a result of his existence. Sitting quietly at the kitchen table after 2020 ignoring him has not made him go away. Twice indicted and once convicted with more indictments stacked up in the wings like O'Hare, this guy is still the presumptive front runner of his party. Now we even have some Democrats starting to parrot his brand of insanity to try and get a foot in the door. 

I do not know if political discourse in our country will ever return to the level of crazy we enjoyed before 2008, but I don't believe that will happen without shining a light on the cockroaches in the kitchen. Especially the big, fat orange one sipping Diet Coke. 

Sorry, honey.