As Rooster Cogburn said \u201cI am grown old.\u201d\u00a0 I\u2019ve lived through the horror of the Kennedy assassination, Nixon\u2019s resignation, Carter\u2019s humiliation, Clinton\u2019s disgrace, Bush\u2019s frittering away of the American hegemony and Obama\u2019s deconstruction of its greatness.\u00a0 I no longer harbor any illusions about happily ever after.\u00a0 When Trump reaches the White House we will witness a wave of vitriol unleashed by the left that will infect every stratum of American life.\u00a0 Their drumbeat of accusation will be relentless and exhausting.\u00a0 Even if Trump manages to achieve much of what he intends and even if this corresponds to what I want done it will not be fun.\u00a0 It will be akin to fighting the hydra, a multi-headed monster that refuses to die.\u00a0 It will be exhausting.<\/p>\n
And that brings me to my thesis.\u00a0 Thanks to Donald Trump (and divine Providence) for allowing us a holiday season before the ordeal.\u00a0 I will take the opportunity to celebrate and spend time with family and friends, to eat, drink and be merry.\u00a0 In fact, I\u2019ll go one better.\u00a0 I have close relatives who are committed progressives.\u00a0 They are probably extremely dejected over the election loss.\u00a0 If the conversation turned to the subject of the election it would probably cause them lots of discomfort.\u00a0 So, for that reason I will make a point of not discussing the election or Trump.\u00a0 If anyone else does I will not join in and instead attempt to steer it away from this subject.<\/p>\n
Why?\u00a0 After all, the schadenfreude would be considerable.\u00a0 These folks had taken great pleasure in Obama\u2019s every disruption of American life.\u00a0 They had indulged in the vilification of Bush during the Iraq War.\u00a0 They thoroughly deserve to be gloated at.\u00a0 They\u2019ve richly earned it.\u00a0 Why won\u2019t I do it?\u00a0 Because it\u2019s too dangerous.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m becoming convinced that an open breach is building up in America.\u00a0 There will be some pretty powerful hate unleashed on both side of this divide.\u00a0 Many friendships and families will be torn up and I want to do whatever I can to steer it away from my family.\u00a0 I have seen what happen once you let the genie out of the bottle.\u00a0 You can\u2019t unsay things.\u00a0 The poison remains in the wound and never fully heals over.\u00a0 Some people say that this is a better way to handle these political differences, to have your say and walk away from the other side and not come back.\u00a0 I don\u2019t agree.<\/p>\n
I have always felt that family is the absolute bedrock foundation of life.\u00a0 Turning your back on a brother or sister was tantamount to gnawing off a limb, an act that can only be justified if your very life is at stake but still so awful that the survival is a pyrrhic victory.\u00a0 And the election has been so ugly and the anger has been so corrosive that it would only take a few rounds of escalating rhetoric to blow up a holiday gathering into a political hate fest.<\/p>\n
So, that is why if someone tells me that Donald Trump stole the election from Hillary and that he is not her president I will answer, \u201cokay, but please pass the mashed potatoes, and here are the candied yams for your side of the aisle\u2026 I mean table.\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll save my venom and scorn for the internet trolls who work for Soros and endlessly opine on the evil of white privilege, misogyny and the plight of the downtrodden.\u00a0 I promise not to give them a single inch.\u00a0 And I\u2019ll continue to post all through the holidays to rally the troops.\u00a0 But I\u2019ll preserve a truce at the holiday table.<\/p>\n
Happy Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years to both patriots and progressives.\u00a0 Season\u2019s greetings to all the families out there.\u00a0 Rest up and enjoy.\u00a0 Next year is going to be extremely busy.\u00a0 Eat, drink and be merry.\u00a0 You\u2019re going to need it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As Rooster Cogburn said \u201cI am grown old.\u201d\u00a0 I\u2019ve lived through the horror of the Kennedy assassination, Nixon\u2019s resignation, Carter\u2019s humiliation, Clinton\u2019s disgrace, Bush\u2019s frittering<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[83,84,51,16],"class_list":["post-653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-trump","tag-family","tag-holidays","tag-presidential-election","tag-trump"],"yoast_head":"\n