An Antidote for Outrage

Screw Newt Gingrich is my first response to a plan that seems to be specifically designed to piss me off.  Newt says that the poorest kids from the poorest school districts in America should get a job, specifically that they should get jobs cleaning their schools.  This plan is supposed to teach kids the value of an honest day's work.  I am torn between wanting to cry and punch Mr. Gingrich in the face. 

New Gingrich is a racist.  He is corrupt.  He is a chauvinist.  He is a homophobe, He is derisive of poor people.  He is dismissive of ethical standards.  He is a bastard, and he is currently winning the race for the republican presidential nomination. 

Aside from the man himself, I think the thing I'm most upset about is that other people agree with him.  And these aren't just any people.  They are Americans, my cultural kin, my people.  It makes me feel dirty to hear my brothers and sisters laugh at jokes made at the expense of the poor, to hear them clap and cheer for a speech in favor of stripping gays of their already limited rights, to hear reasonable people seriously consider supporting this man who represents hate.

Newt doesn't care about my outrage, or my disapproval.  He wears it like a badge.  He is pleased that some of us want to hit him.  It means his rhetoric is working.

There is pleasure in the idea of hating something or someone.  If Newt is the enemy, I do not have to feel compassion for him.  He becomes one dimensional, evil, inhuman, but I know better than this.  I know it's an act, a game.  As inhuman as I find him, republicans see Obama in the same light, as a monster bent on undermining their deeply held beliefs about justice, morality, and decency.  They are probably just as confused and angry about my support of The President as I am about their support of Newt.  We are on opposite sides of a battlefield.  This is how we've been set up.  As though there is a right side and a wrong one, as though we share nothing, but our enmity for one another.

The truth is that we have much in common.  We want our children to be happy.  We want to be safe.  We want to be prosperous and successful.  We want to protect the people we care about.  More than that, we are concerned with our fellow Americans, and, in particular, those less fortunate than us.  We want to help each other.

The Republican primary is filled with divisive politicians, this season, who are bent on taking advantage of our dissatisfaction with the current state of the economy, and our animosity towards the current administration.

I don't know how to opt out.  There's no candidate in the race at the moment who I think can unify us.  There is no genuine moderate behind whom we can rally, but I wish there was.  I wish there was someone real and intelligent, and compassionate, and willing to bridge the gap between republicans and democrats.  I wish my political options amounted to more than hate and anger, but there's too much money in politics, too much corruption, to much to be gained from pitting us against each other. 

We are in violent agreement.  Right now, politics sucks!