Tipping Point

I believe in the concept of tipping points: those points on a continuum of change where conditions cease to change gradually and suddenly change dramatically and irrevocably. Like will happen in the not-so-distant future to the climate of the earth when all the ice has melted and the plants and the oceans have ameliorated warming to the maximum extent they can, and the earth's ecosystem gives up and warming ceases to be gradual and the temperature skyrockets and most animal life, including humanity, is baked, drowned, starved, and suffocated into extinction. At least once the tipping point is reached, it will be over quickly. Quick, unfortunately, being relative on this scale. The end will seem agonizingly slow to those unfortunate enough to be alive and forced to suffer the consequences of the incredible stupidity of conservatives.

I've lived among conservatives all my life. They've been my relatives and my friends, both high school and college-educated, white and blue collar. My friendship with them has been the kind borne of participating in shared activities: being on a softball team; part of a regular golf foursome; going on rafting trips. During these times it was relatively easy to deflect their unconscious, unthinking conservatism. I would often say things in response to them like: No, I don't think school was harder when we were kids; or, I don't believe in giving money to lazy people, either, but I do believe in helping people that need it; or, Government isn't a business and can't be run like one; and the old standard, Just because it's cool here doesn't mean it's that way everywhere in the world.

Through the years I watched my conservative friends and relatives grow more extreme in their views to the point they were obviously voting against not only their own self-interest, but against the best interests of their own children. I couldn't comprehend their votes for Bush Junior, but at least he was on the continuum of people who were at least conceivable as president, albeit way over on the extreme end of incompetency. And I could never understand why anyone would want an incompetent president, even one you could enjoy having a beer with.

It was during the Obama years that they began to be intolerable. They somewhat tempered their comments when I was around, but, inevitably, after a few beers, the racist comments and the smart phone apps that transformed Michelle into a monkey came out. It was during this time that I stopped going on golf trips with them, and to the fourth of July party that had been a tradition among us for more than twenty years.

But it was their support and votes for Trump that was the tipping point for me.  Voting for someone for president who was not even on the continuum of eligibility for the office was such an insult to this country that it was unforgivable. To vote for a man who was the opposite of everything that was necessary for a president to be revealed them as not valuing anything that decent people must value.

It's indescribably sad to realize that 63 million Americans voted for Trump. Even sadder to realize that all of them are lost to the fight to make America a more just, equitable, progressive, healthier, sustainable society. It's tempting to believe that some of them can be made to see how wrong they were, but it's wasted effort. Some actions can't be taken back, and some decisions can't be forgiven. Sixty-three million Americans willingly left this country and crossed the border into a land of darkness and ignorance. They will never come back from there, and we can't bring them back.

There are no morals more relative than conservative morals, and no hypocrisy quite like conservative hypocrisy.