I alone can fix it – How To Live BULLSHIT-FREE

Ignore whatever political party a Donald Trump “belongs to”. He was a Democrat when he did business in Manhattan because that was more useful than being a Republican. Pure cynicism. The same goes for Trump running as a Republican. But then, it was completely cynical of the Republican Party to hitch THEIR wagon and their future to someone they KNEW going in was corrupt and a traitor. Donald Trump epitomizes Republicanism in all its cynical glory. But “Republican” is just a label. Under that icing, they’re all conservatives — and their flaws are conservative flaws.

Bullies like Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, Stephen Miller, Lindsey Graham and pretty much anyone who sticks that “R” next to their names are, above all, weak-assed MEN (or women who love them or who aspire to be like them). Something in their Y chromosome has irreparably weakened their manhood and personhood. They really do think they alone can “fix it”. That’s delusion. The only thing they can fix is an election. We have receipts to prove it.

A person — male or female — who has faith in themselves and their ideas doesn’t need to shove them down other peoples’ throats against their will. Good ideas persevere over time. A leader who has faith in himself has faith not only in himself but in the nation he’s leading. He sees himself as the epitome of its values. Of all its potential. He’s not essential to our success but he sure could help us get there a whole lot quicker. And that’s when he becomes “essential”. But to become “essential”, first, he’d have to have the confidence and the patience that confidence allows.

Ask any conservative this simple question: “What do you want to conserve?” As a proud Progressive, I can tell you quite specifically what I want for us as a nation — what I want us to progress toward. Conservatives are just as name-specific in their mission. Conservatives want to conserve. Fair enough.

We’re entitled to know WHAT they want to conserve. It can’t be the future. It can only be the present — and therefore however much of the past remains conserved in the present. Conservatism — by its nature and by its name — aspires to keep us where we are culturally and politically. To most conservatives, where we are is already a thousand miles beyond where they want us to be. Defenses have been breached, walls toppled, sacred cows chopped to bits. That’s made most conservatives desperate.

Donald Trump’s refusal to accept defeat is a criminal trying to keep out of prison. As for the rest of the Republicans? Why are THEY going along with it? Part of it is that same need to not die in federal prison. But part of it is the Grand Plan Mitch McConnell and the rest of the Republican muckety-mucks bought into — a state of permanent minority rule shoved down the majority’s throat via a hijacked judiciary, a permanently crippled Senate and an executive branch Republicans can always game out of a Democrat’s hands.

Think of all the Republican males who honestly believe Donald Trump is a patriot. Who honestly believe the majority of Americans must have voted for him (and any other result is fraudulent). Who refuse to do the job they took an oath to do — because of their allegiance to the only POTUS ever to run for re-election in the very election he was IMPEACHED for cheating in.

There are plenty of moderate voices out there — socially progressive but fiscally conservative. They, too, want the best for America and every American. They worry — legitimately — about how we pay for it. That’s a fair argument that we will need to have going forward. At least we’re all pulling toward the same goal if only via different paths through the maze. These former Republicans aren’t trying to drag America back to those “glorious 50’s” — the 1850’s. They want us to move forwards responsibly and with more deliberation. That’s where the dynamic tension between us will come from.

Again — that’s a reasonable argument that reasonable people can have.

The strange thing about men who lack confidence in themselves? They can’t be reasonable. They’re in crisis mode 24/7 because they can’t trust what they think. They need constant verification — from their children, from their wives and lovers, from their bosses — from the men who seem to possess the very confidence they lack.

But, remember — a man lacking confidence is a poor judge of everything — including other men (especially other men he thinks are confident). Odds are those other men also are struggling with confidence issues. A confident man doesn’t peacock about on his horse — doing it purely for show. Like a peacock.

And confident men don’t look like THIS either.

Imagine a man who puts his confidence in another man who looks like Donald Trump does. Who speaks like Trump and thinks like Trump and acts like Trump. Imagine the lack of perspective it takes to equate anything Trump says or does with “manliness”.

Barack Obama is more manly when just standing around, waiting than Donald Trump is doing literally ANYTHING. That’s because being “manly” means being “human” first.

If you have confidence in your humanity, that becomes the foundation on which you build not only your values but your day-to-day life. You don’t need your voice to dominate the mix but you have faith that your voice will, in time, be heard — especially after you do the hard work of using your voice. To get trust, you have to give trust. And then you have to demonstrate your worthiness to maintain that trust.

That can be hard for men with secrets. Those secrets (all betrayals of one kind or another — THAT’S WHY THEY’RE SECRETS!) sap a man’s confidence. The secret and its destructiveness are bigger than they are. It gets harder still for the conservative male because his biggest secret of all is that he only gets his way politically via bamboozlement.

Again — pity the poor conservative man who has to sell people ideas they don’t want and so has resorted to lying to them about his ideas or, worse, has resorted to lying about everything in a desperate attempt to get what he wants. Pity him for what’s coming. It’s going to make a mess of what was left of his confidence.

One of the first games we play with each Democrat who jumps into the crowded pool of 2020 presidential candidates is “Gotcha!” with their past. The current environment has finally swung toward the Progressive wing of not just the Democratic Party but of the American Electorate, too. Joe Biden, for instance, is being hoist on the petard of his support for legislation earlier in his career that now looks toxic. The “Gotcha!” supposes that when we throw that question down, the candidate is going to congratulate the journalist for catching the contradiction they hoped no one would find. And then… what? Withdraw? Almost always, the first impulse — when being asked that silly question — is to dodge, to change the subject. Good thing it doesn’t look guilty or anything… Both question and response are tied to a very old — very worn out — notion of what “Leadership” is. They suppose that a leader — being a man — assumes the mantle of “Leader” with great gravity. He looks at the world and “gets it”. He looks inside — at the path that brought HIM to this place of “Leadership” and “Greatness” — and (because HE alone can “fix it”), he utters “A Great Pronouncement”. And that profound belch will be a hill he dies on some day — because the last thing any Male Leader can do is change his mind. FFS — women do that, right? Women “change their minds” and “adapt” because, well, they’ve always had to — because some man was telling them to or forcing them to or simply “fixing it alone” while the woman looked on helplessly. Because men have always been the leaders (a trend changing way, way, WAY too slowly), we associate male qualities with leadership — not because leadership is inherently male, but because we’re creatures of habit. We’re intellectually lazy and easily persuaded of nonsense and (as this sight is so fond of saying) bullshit. Men — being sperm donors — can easily come and go. They can impregnate and move on without any emotional connection to their “output”. This is hard-wired into male biology. Because men have always been the leaders, we’ve come to associate this quality with leadership. If women had (as they probably SHOULD HAVE) been our leaders, THEIR biological imperatives would have been more prominent. Women bear children. It is the foundational fact of their biology. It impacts how they see the world. They know for a fact that you cannot bear a child or rear a child all by yourself. You can but — it won’t be good for you or the child. Women know that their survival, their child’s survival, depends on other people. As Hillary Clinton pointed out, yes — it takes a village. Consequently — if you sit among a group of women making a decision, I think they’ll bear me out — the process is communal. It tries far harder than any man fixing it alone to hear and accommodate every voice in the room — because they’re all part of the village it takes to raise their child. If we redefined “leadership” in female terms (as opposed to “feminine”) — looking at how women lead, most of the qualities would be similar to how men lead. There still needs to be strength, charisma if possible. But all those qualities would be tempered — because they have to be. Because women have learned from millennia of having to work their magic on the sly, that you need to listen first — then act. If Joe Biden has two brain cells, he’ll take a “female approach” next time he gets asked about the less appealing parts of his legislative record. He’ll respond: “That was the ‘old Joe Biden’. This Joe Biden has evolved and is evolving. He wants your help to be the best Joe Biden he can be — while serving your needs.” Men need to learn how to evolve. Like women have. Imagine the leaders they could be someday

Tag: I alone can fix it

Please Pity The Conservative Male — If He Had Confidence In Himself, He Wouldn’t Be So Conservative — Or Gullible

We’re Confused About “Leadership” Because MEN Have Fooled Us Into Thinking THEY Were “Leaders”