Which Shall I Be? The Beggar or the Scold?

Can I be the adult in the room without being the appeaser? Why is this so hard to figure out?

Found on the internet. No attribution.

Call this Part Two of “Where do I fit now?”. I’m still at a loss. There’s a problem when the opinionator has no opinion. That’s me since the election, not that you might have noticed. I’m all over the place demanding attention to my every thought on the subject of the election upset. But what do I really think? Who do I really blame?

And how can I get my revenge?

That’s it, isn’t it? I want to feel better, and I might if I could beat some sense into the people who did this. I want heads to roll. I want those people who didn’t vote for Democrats to be so sorry for what they’ve done they’ll do anything now to get back in my good graces.

I want them to admit they should have listened to me and everyone else on my soapbox.

I want to scream at someone, but who is my target? The Trump voters? The non-voters? The Democratic assassins on the left? (That last one: too harsh? I don’t know…) They’re all on my shitlist at the moment, but where does it get me? Do any of them really care? No, of course not. I’m on their shitlist, too.

And here we are, at an impasse, yelling back and forth over the reasons the unthinkable has happened, how we’re all victims of the worst of the worst outcomes, a four-year threat to everything we’ve worked for and stand for and yearn for, and how it could so easily have been avoided by an electorate that set their sights on one goal and one goal only: anything it took to keep Donald Trump the hell away from the White House.

These next four years will seem like forever. We can’t stay mad at each other while we’re fighting a powerful enemy busy stockpiling all of the available ammunition to destroy us. I know that. I’m trying to come to terms with it. My anger keeps getting in the way.

My sorrow, my grief threatens to disarm me. To own me. My distrust of those people who might well have to become my allies down the road is too palpable right now to dismiss. They lost me when they turned on Hillary in 2016. They tried again with Joe in 2020. They gave me even more reason to distrust them in 2024, when they couldn’t even give Kamala a chance, knowing full well (Project 25) what was at stake.

They ‘won’, but I wonder what they see as the prize? is it enough to feel vindicated over the destruction of Democrats? Notice I’m using ‘they’. as in ‘they’re not one of us’. Maybe they’re one of you and you can’t wait to tell me how wrong I am. I’ll listen but I probably won’t change my mind. You either.

Is this divide healthy? It doesn’t feel like it. Is it something we’ll need to work through without either side feeling as if they’ve been the disrespected compromisee? Will we ever get to a point where we can settle on what we think is good for the country and work together to get it done?

Only if we can agree.

And once again, there we are. We’re going to have to agree that saving the country takes top priority. Whatever personal viewpoints or priorities we try to bring to the table will have to be shelved. This is no longer the time.

So, what if I give in first? What if I say ‘let’s be friends’? And what if they say—as they have—no way. They don’t want to be friends with me. I’m a life-long Liberal Democrat, seen as weak, naive, an enabler, part of the establishment. They’re the rebels, the watchdogs, the necessary antagonists, the people I would follow if I had any sense.

The truth is, I believe in almost everything the left believes in. I want a better America for everyone and I want my government—especially a Democratic government—to work harder at making it happen. But I want to try to do it without burning down the house. I want to build, not destroy. We’ve had enough of that.

I’m tired of watching us burn. I’m tired of losing. I’m tired of having to sift through the thousands of reasons why we lost without anyone ever saying we lost because we couldn’t come together.

So I’ll say it; We failed because we couldn’t unify. We fought against an army that stayed together, solid as a rock, while we divided into ineffectual factions based on everything but fighting against that enemy. We can’t be that divided, ever again. We’re going to need each other.

We’ll still have our differences, and we’ll still hash them out, but at election time we’ll need to come together, strong and sure. Our one job: vanquish the enemy. It couldn’t be clearer who the enemy is. The enemy isn’t us.

So there it is. My take at this moment, which might not be much of anything in the scheme of such massive things, and could still change, but it’s a start for me. I want to stay angry. I want to keep on grieving for my country. But I want a target and a balance that keeps me productive and sane.

I’m going to be thinking about it. How about you? Are you ready to talk about it yet?

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