Make America Smart Again

I put up the picture of a red hat with the logo “Make America Smart Again” on Facebook yesterday as a joke, but I may have been articulating a repressed hope, a long lost sense of optimism. Optimism is probably a delusion. The picture is a meme. It's Facebook. Jesus.

I am by far not a tub-thumping patriot. I'm burned out and disappointed. I still have a fairly good memory and it seems to me that a lot of people have forgotten, or are too young to remember, that there was a time, distant past, when college was pretty cheap and functional. You could actually go to school, learn stuff and graduate without lifelong debt. Higher education wasn't about cultural misappropriation, safe spaces and microaggression. I found that it was about life and how to experience it in an intelligent, satisfying way. There was good literature and great film. Really. Don’t believe me? Google it for Christ’s sake. Sure, there was racism and sexism and violence, that shit is everywhere. Things may be getting better but I’m no romantic.

When my “friends” saw the post, the picture of the stupid hat, right away a lot people were triggered and started with their knee-jerk responses. “We’re worse than Africa”. Seriously, I saw that one. “It’ll take thousands of years”. Nice over-stretch. “It’ll take more than a hat”. Honestly, is that the best you can do?

Politics.

Man, many Sanders people (so far, my people) act like it’s a crusade and they’re the first ever to be disappointed; the Clinton supporters appear arrogant, smug and affluent and Trump’s people are scared to death due to reduced educational prospects (or none at all), lack of opportunities, income inequality and bad decisions by the whores in congress. And, yes, racism.

For all the people who think America is a 100 percent totally ignorant nation, backward and primitive: Try some traveling; leave your zip code; talk to those who believe differently than you do, without being an asshole.

Also, nice way to self-negate and marginalize yourself.

I get it. Everyone thinks everybody else is not as smart as they are. I’ve been around long enough to know what I don’t know. It’s both comforting and frustrating. Of course, I may be wrong. Again. What do I know?