We live in a divided country. It is at the point where there is little to say to the other side. We watch and listen to different media. We believe different “facts”. There is no basis for an overture to the other side. For the record, I have tried, at various points in my activity on social media, to reach out to right-wingers. Most of the time, my effort was rejected. I don’t even try any more. I won’t write a false-equivalence blog, as in “both sides do it”. If a person can’t judge the reliability and truthfulness between a Pulitzer-prize winning publication of long standing and an in-your-face website promoting junk conspiracy and racism, that person probably doesn’t have an IQ that he or she is proud of.

I operate on facts. I always have, and I always will. If somebody wants to argue a point that isn’t factually-based, there is nothing to talk about. But it might be worth trying to see if we can agree on standards of decency. Probably not, but if we can’t agree on facts, maybe we can agree on some basic morality. Kathy Griffin got fired for posting a photo of Trump’s cut-off head being held up in her hand. As much as I hold deep contempt for Trump, that photo is too much. As was the chants at Trump rallies of “lock her up”. To say that about a former Secretary of State, a respected and accomplished woman, is disgusting. Also disgusting were the beatings of Trump fans after rallies in Berkeley and Chicago. I guess the assailants thought they were Democrats or something. To me, they were just thugs. You don’t do that, period. And the Bernie fans in Nevada had a mini-riot over not getting some votes or something. That really helped Bernie. You can tell by the way he lost the primary.

There is always pushback between conservative types and progressives. Each side is going to try to put their side in the more positive light. Therefore, if we are going to mention members of Congress who misbehave in office, each side will mention perpetrators on the other side, not their own. That is just an example, and it is to be expected. It isn’t lying; it is just trying to put your own team in the best light. That is going to go on no matter what. And as I said before, debates are pointless if we are operating on different versions of the truth. It is impossible to come to an agreement under those conditions. But wouldn’t it be nice if we could agree on some minimum standards of decent behavior? If we could do that, it would go a long way. I’m sure of it.

I have fallen into a trap, and I’m just realizing it. I’m an unpaid blogger, and my only responsibility is to publish something somewhat comprehensible, as well as libel-and-profanity free. I haven’t been writing a blog until I feel like it would be at home in a paid professional’s portfolio. That’s dumb. My blog this time consists mostly of a direct copy-and-paste of a comment to a New York Times Sunday Review op-ed piece by Frank Bruni. Here it is:

Socrates
is a trusted commenter
Verona NJ 1 day ago
I voted for Al Gore in 2000, who also won the popular vote; he was also a little stiff in public and a little too knowledgeable and experienced for America’s brainless heartland.
The 2000 GOP Titanic squad was standing by on red state alert and sprung into immediate action, with Jeb Bush’s staff suppressing the Florida minority vote, and Bush legal retainers carefully flushing as many Democratic ballots down Florida toilets as possible until Boy George was Supremely appointed as the representative Idiot-In-Chief of America’s proud Know Nothing Nation.
Dubya and his Republican flunkies so badly damaged the nation and the world with their award-winning incompetence and Tax-Cut-Neo-Con-Artist-Nincompoopery that even the brainless American heartland was able to briefly remove its collective cranium from its own intestinal system and elect a Democrat in 2008, in spite of his questionable skin color and suspicious ability to speak in complete sentences.
And the cycle begins anew.
The 2016 details are different, but the story is the same.

That is the comment from “Socrates” in the New York Times. The rest is me:
Exactly right. If the “brainless American heartland” doesn’t move the needle SIGNIFICANTLY to the “D” column in the 2018 midterms after all that has happened, I will give up my interest in national politics. At that point, I will conclude that the vast American populace is pretty much brain-dead and deserves whatever they get. I will get out on my motorcycle and smell the exhaust fumes as well as the lilacs and roses, and take care of #1, the American way.