I was home at the end of September. In Virginia. Just in time for the first debate. I discovered cousins who'd formerly voted Democratic and who'd classed themselves as liberals, extolling the virtues of MittDom, making veiled racist remarks and telling me the Democratic Party had changed.
(No shit, Sherlock; where have you been for the past forty years?)
They'd exchanged MSNBC for Fox, and one even had a girl crush on Sean Hannity.
I wouldn't call them dyed-in-the-wool racists. One had acquired a well-off ex-military boyfriend, who proved beyond a shadow of a doubt to me that this woman was shallow enough to follow her partner's political beliefs. Her sister, a zealous Mormon, is something else, and I hold her in suspicion.
Mostly, they, like everyone else in the US I encountered, sang from the same hymn book about the economy being so bad and they being so poor, all the while sporting six hundred dollar SmartPhones and driving SUVs. Come to Europe, I said, where I live, with high taxes and austerity and gas selling for the equivalent of nine dollars a gallon.
Bottom line for them: Barack Obama failed - not because he was a particularly bad President. (He wasn't). But because of the colour of his skin he was held at a higher standard and shown less tolerance. It's always easier to blame the black guy.
For them, I wish only I had the singular articulace of Jon Stewart in order to call out their stupidity.
(No shit, Sherlock; where have you been for the past forty years?)
They'd exchanged MSNBC for Fox, and one even had a girl crush on Sean Hannity.
I wouldn't call them dyed-in-the-wool racists. One had acquired a well-off ex-military boyfriend, who proved beyond a shadow of a doubt to me that this woman was shallow enough to follow her partner's political beliefs. Her sister, a zealous Mormon, is something else, and I hold her in suspicion.
Mostly, they, like everyone else in the US I encountered, sang from the same hymn book about the economy being so bad and they being so poor, all the while sporting six hundred dollar SmartPhones and driving SUVs. Come to Europe, I said, where I live, with high taxes and austerity and gas selling for the equivalent of nine dollars a gallon.
Bottom line for them: Barack Obama failed - not because he was a particularly bad President. (He wasn't). But because of the colour of his skin he was held at a higher standard and shown less tolerance. It's always easier to blame the black guy.
For them, I wish only I had the singular articulace of Jon Stewart in order to call out their stupidity.
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