Cruelty Is the Reason
It’s been a bleak year in many ways, but there was still so much joy to be found
Happy New Year!
I have been horrible at keeping up with Moronitude this year, to put it mildly. There was a lot going on in 2022, on both the personal and professional levels. I’m not making excuses, I clearly need to follow through with what I’ve promised and I have failed to do so. But I can tell you that there is going to be a lot more Moronitude in 2023! I’ve said this all before, I know, but we’re going to actually live up to some expectations this year. This year is going to be our year for sure, Moronitude!
There are three reasons I haven’t been writing as much for this little newsletter. The first is that I’ve been swamped at my day job and it’s hard for me to separate myself from that in order to do other writing. The second is that I got married, and since we didn’t elope, the preparation took so much more mental bandwidth than I ever imagined (more on this further down the page). But the main reason is that the world is a very bleak place these days.
A lot of what I set out to do with this newsletter is to look at stories in the news and filter them through my (often absurd) brain. Which, given the sort of news we had this year, isn’t always the most fun. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve started to write one of these, done some research and ultimately given up because it was just too dark. Like when Joe Biden, a so-called friend of the working class, stepped in to prevent a railroad strike because workers had the audacity to think they should be allowed to call in sick without losing their jobs. There is so much to write about the labor movement in this country, about strikes in the past, about the national guard opening fire on mine workers, about how the minimum wage isn’t enough to live on in a single municipality in this country. The negativity can be crushing and hard to carry. So when left with the choice of watching an old Criminal Minds episode or finding a clever way to compare today’s billionaires to the railroad barons of the late 19th century, I often opt for the former. It’s just easier, ya know?
OK, that’s a lot of brain droppings before getting into the real meat of this one. I’d apologize for rambling, but I’m pretty confident it’s the rambling you signed up for here. Today we’re going to talk about the rampant cruelty on the right. Specifically, how there seems to be no real driving force for much of what they do besides cruelty.
The easiest place to start is with the hot new trend of sending migrants who have entered this country seeking asylum to locales that lean Democrat to score political points. The latest, and in my eyes most egregious, incident involved Texas Governor Greg Abbott happily sending around 120 migrants to Vice President Kamala Harris’ front yard on Christmas Eve. The migrants had been in Texas, where there were ample support groups helping them already, but Abbott decided to own the libs real hard so he used them as a pawn in his latest attempt to be the least competent/most cruel governor in the country. Of course, he has a lot of competition for the title, looking at you DeSantis, but this just seemed especially heartless. Which has to be the only reason it was even done.
This stunt did nothing to actually address immigration issues in the nation. All it did was instill fear and dehumanization into the lives of 100-plus people on Christmas Eve. The stunt was perpetrated by people who clutch the Bible close to their hearts on Election Day and when it serves their political interest. They use their Christianity to justify taking away a woman’s body autonomy, to justify vilifying children struggling with gender identity and they use it to justify discriminating against LBGTQ+ people in any way they can. At this point the hypocrisy is so immense that it barely even registers any longer. One half of our political system will gleefully use religion as a cudgel to attack anybody they classify as “an other,” and the rest of us just seem to accept it as the status quo.
This is a country built on the idea of immigration, on the idea of fleeing to a promised land where anything can happen. The governor of the second largest state in the country doesn’t see immigrants as anything other than detritus to be thrown away at the earliest convenience, and somehow this isn’t seen as grounds for removal. Abbott and his cronies show an appalling lack of empathy in everything they do. These are people. But who gives a shit if it lands him an interview with Tucker Carlson?
The crueler a Republican politician can be to their enemies, the more likely they are to stay in office. Or move to a higher office in 2024 as many of them aspire to do. And the real problem is that it works.
The Republican Party loves to talk about how they are the party of small government. That the government shouldn’t regulate any businesses or be involved in your personal life, the Libertarian way. But that’s just a meaningless talking point. How could a party of small government spend so much time crafting bills to ban transgender people from playing high school sports, some going as far as to allow for genital checks? There are roughly 1.6 million transgender people in the United States, which is equal to about .5% of the population. When you take a second to wonder just how many of these people are actively playing high school sports right now you realize that the number is infinitesimal, so why are lawmakers basing their entire campaigns around the issue? Cruelty, plain and simple.
How did we get to a place where a good chunk of the population will vigorously work to bully, harass and destroy the lives of the most vulnerable in our society? I don’t have the answer for you, but I sit and think about it every single day. It may not be too late to change, but it’s going to take a hell of a lot of hard work. Let’s get on it, shall we?
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That’s it for the doom and gloom portion of Moronitude. Instead I want to turn the focus to something we don’t talk about enough here—joy.
I got married on October 8, 2022, and it was honestly the most remarkable day of my life. Everybody tells you this going in, and I’m sure most people believe it, but I was skeptical. People told me I was going to be blown away by “The Sixth Sense” and the majesty of the Grand Canyon too, but neither moved me all that much. It was likely the nerves, or maybe it was the stress of putting together thousands of moving parts, but I was mentally prepared to be underwhelmed. In reality, I was so overwhelmed the entire weekend and, to some degree, I still am.
To paraphrase my wife’s favorite band, the Hold Steady, there was so much joy in that night. So much support. So much love. It’s hard to even think about it two months later without the tears welling up.
So often we talk about being overwhelmed, especially these last three years, but it’s a very rare occurrence when it’s a positive experience. It was a magical feeling that I have been unable to fully process, even now.
Seeing so many people come from so many different states and countries to celebrate our marriage truly was an affirmation that we must be doing something right in this life. It reminded me of the importance of all of the connections I’ve made over the years. One thing that struck me as profound was how all of the late night conversations at the kitchen table with friends represented so much more than just a trifle—they are the backbone of the life I have built. And of the life Kim and I will continue to build on until we’re old and grey.
Being able to share love with all the people that you hold most dear sounds easy enough, but it happens so rarely. That exact same group of people were in the same room for the first and only time that night and that is a beautiful thing.
So when I get overwhelmed by the bad stuff we talked about earlier, I try to think of that weekend. When the callousness of the world is too much to take, I remember the love and joy that surrounds me on a personal level and I’m eternally grateful. I’m still pissed as hell at our society and want to change it, but I highly doubt I’d even care if it weren’t for the good that sustains me in my darkest moments.
Oh, and on a less worldly and introspective level, I get to spend the rest of my life with the most beautiful and talented woman on the whole damn planet, so I’ve got that goin for me, which is nice.
I’m going to close out the year by thanking you so much for subscribing. It means the world to me and I’m going to make it a more reciprocal relationship in 2023. “After the Party” was the last song played at our wedding. I had the opportunity to get on the dance floor, beer in my hand, and scream along with my wife and great friends. It was the perfect way to end the perfect day, and I think it’s a nice way to end the year. Crank it up.