In our end is our beginning on the YBR.

(Photo by Brendan Smialowski / AFP) (Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)

T. S. Eliot ended his classic poem East Coker (the second poem in his Four Quartets) with the line “in the end is my beginning.” I believe it is an appropriate line to end my mini-discourse on the times we are living in. I say appropriate because the inauguration of the 46th President of the United States, just two weeks after the nation’s Capitol was breached, represents an end and a beginning. Sort of.

Constitutionally it does mark the end of the Trump reign and the beginning of the Biden era, but is there…or will there ever be…a beginning because the end has not ended. I say this despite President Biden’s heartfelt words meant to bring Americans together again.

75 million voters who cast their vote for Trump did so, in my opinion, because they felt ignored. Not only that, many of the Trump voters do not see themselves reflected in the faces of those people who call themselves Democrats.

I beg the following questions. What is a Democrat? What is a Republican? I have yet to hear in all my 72 years a believable answer to those two questions. An orange is an orange. An apple is an apple. I have no problem understanding what they are. I can’t say the same about a democrat and a republican.

If we are honest we would admit that the image we conjure when we think of a democrat of a republican is cemented to stereotype.

the sophisticated city dweller (top two) and the country folk (bottom two)

Of course that’s not true…but we all seem to think in stereotypes. Many Democrats think of Republicans as country bumpkins…a “class” of people who are Bible thumpers, who don’t have a progressive thought in their heads and who would join a mob of people and trash the US Capitol. Many Republicans think of Democrats as people with low or no morals, who have permissive attitudes about everything, and who pay lip service to a God that Republicans believe in.

We have set ourselves apart and claimed allegiance, not to the United States of America, but to a political party. It appears that Democrats beget Democrats and Republicans raise Republicans.

We call us the United States of America. Is that true? Was it ever true? If you look at presidential election maps you see blue states and red states. It took a civil war to let us all know something EVERYONE knew…that we were divided. The Civil War might have ended in 1865, but has the “fighting” really ever ended? While we talk about a wall on our border with Mexico, we never talk about the walls that separate one state from another or one group of people from another. Those are the walls President Biden needs to talk about. Those are the walls that won’t come down with legislation or national guard interference. They have to dissolve because we want to dissolve those walls. And the only way they will dissolve is if people of reason from all political parties bring an end to the hatred in this country that is fostered by political partisanship.

There were many signs of hope at the inauguration. Unfortunately, politically inspired sentiments have a short expiration date.

I found the voice of Amanda Gorman to be a voice that could help dissolve our differences. Her recitation, I believe, could be the beginning that will put an end to the hatred that divides us.

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Which way do we go on the YBR?

All Dorothy knew after falling into Munchkin Land was that if she wanted to get back home she’d have to go to Emerald City where she’d have to ask the Wizard to help her. She didn’t have a GPS. She didn’t think she’d need one since all she had to do was follow the Yellow Brick Road. However, she came to an intersection where she had to make a decision. Which way should she go? She posed the question out loud. To her surprise, her question was answered when the Scarecrow told her she could go “that way” or she go could go “that way.”

Following some small talk with a self-acclaimed “brainless” creature she and the Scarecrow were off to Oz. Did you ever wonder why they chose to go in the direction they did? As luck would have it, they chose the right” road because it did lead to the Emerald City. But, how do we know that the two roads she didn’t choose might have also ended up at the gates of the Emerald City? Considering the ardor of her journey, might the roads not traveled have been better for her? Had she chosen to follow either of the other roads she would more likely than not have ever met the Tin Man and the Lion. But…who knows who she might have met.

Aren’t we all like Dorothy? We are told to go and live our lives. We set out on a road that is usually straight and narrow. It’s not until we come to an intersection when we have to make a decision. Which road do we take? Unlike Frost’s poem where the traveler has to choose one of two roads that diverged in the woods, our choices are not always that limited. And as we get older we realize there are consequences that go along with the road we choose.

I fear that when it comes to politics our roads are Frostian. While we are not forced to take one political road over another, we are limited. For some reason taking the left road puts us on the Democratic path, while going right we are following the Republican path.,

As long as I can remember, it did matter what political path you chose. In fact people identified with the road. They would die on that road. They would support any candidate of that road’s persuasion…no matter who or what. They would grow to loathe those people who elected to choose the other road.

I am not stuck on the intersection. I just have chosen not to choose one of the two roads because it seems that once your choose a road you must pay full and total allegiance to all that road stands for.

And that I think is why both of the big roads lead to hell. Because people are either following the Democrat Brick Road or the Republican Brick Road they are blinded by the light.

Did I ever think Trump was worthy of the office of President of the United States? No. Did I think Hillary Clinton was worthy? Not so much. The only difference between the two of them, for me at least, had to do with their character. I didn’t trust either of them as political leaders because I personally don’t believe in any politician. I think all of them are full of BS. They are consumed by power and control.

As repulsed as I was by Trump’s character, I didn’t hate him. That doesn’t mean I thought he was good for the country. That only means that our fragile electoral system had put him in the White House. I had faith in our three branches of government with its check and balances.

I did not like the fact that the Democrats set out to defeat him after he “won” the election. But, I was also smart enough to know that it was a big numbers game that had more to do with the number of Democrats or Republicans in the House and Senate than it had to do with those same people representing ALL their constituents. And while voters can vote a Republican/Democrat in or out in Congress, an appointed Supreme Court Justice is horse of a different color. Giving Trump the power to nominate a SCOTUS member was anathema to “Democrats.” It was just another thing that elevated the hatred between the two parties.

Party politics is, in my opinion, what has polluted our spirits. The pollution has flooded the news networks, cable shows and all forms of social media. We are drowning in hatred. Instead of anyone throwing us a life preserver, we are being pulled underwater because we have allowed a political party’s ideology to fill our pockets with heavy stones.

As tragic as the Covid pandemic is, hatred is worse. There is now vaccine for Covid. Is there one for hated?

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Forced to take sides? Does it matter what I have to say on the YBR?

What happened in Washington, DC on Wednesday, January 6, 2021 will go down as one of the darkest days in not only American history, but in world history as well. A billion people have flooded social media forums with gazzillions of words expressing their opinions about the storming of the Capitol. I have not taken to facebook, twitter, instgram, tik tok or any other platform primarily because nobody really gives a damn what I have to say. Especially since there are more than two sides to this, and most issues. In my mind, issues are like multigons because they have more than two sides.

But, we seem to live in a world where there are only two sides, and depending upon which side you are on, the other one is wrong.

Unfortunately I have a fatal thinking disease…and not because I over think, but because I was trained to think deeply and broadly. In my experience, people prefer to prove they are right, not because they are open-minded, but because the “know” the other side is wrong! How do they know? They know because they know. They know they are right because they are always right.

Because I come from a more liberal-minded school of thought, the vast majority of my 130 FB friends go from liberal to very, very, very liberal. Not a posted word from them has an ounce of “the other side.”

Because most of my 130 FB friends are better versed at opining their democratic views…and because my opinion really doesn’t matter, I have taken to my own little blog because I only have a handful of followers and a blog post is like whistling in a hurricane while posting on FB is like standing on a mountain and saying “look at me world.” And the post will get 43,000 likes in thirty seconds.

I am also using my blog because it’s like talking to myself. And while I rarely take myself seriously, this will give me an opportunity to run wild with my thoughts despite the fact that nobody gives a damn.

I want to end this first installment by saying I was appalled not only by the horrific actions of the mob who stormed the Capitol, I was doubly appalled by Donald J. Trump’s actions and inactions.

But…just because I was appalled by the president’s behavior, that doesn’t mean that my thinking is hexagonal. I am not “here” to point 11 fingers of blame at the “guilty.” There’s much more to the story than that.

See you on the next installment.

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