Hotard Huddle

We are living in a crazy and unprecedented time right now. As the United States, along with the rest of the world, attempts to get a grip on Coronavirus, the good ole of US of A elects or re-elects the next president at the end of the year.

The political climate is intense right now. Sure, it’s not Apartheid or Holocaust intense, but the country seems so divisive based on who we voted for in the last election and who we will vote for in the forthcoming election.

When you combine everything going on, it can be tough to handle emotionally and mentally. I was talking with a good friend of mine recently and the noise was getting to that person. This person talked about not being able to get on social media or turn on the TV without seeing all the negative noise.

It is a negative time right now unfortunately. This person tends to be overly optimistic most days. For someone who prides them-self on being positive and seeing the good, that can take a toll on one’s psyche.

I can understand the reasons why people who are generally optimistic hate seeing what is happening. There is uncertainty everywhere you turn. People are speaking with agendas like normal. The difference between now versus the norm is right now we are the focal point of it. What we do in response to everything coronavirus related matters and has an impact on us.

He and I began to just shoot the shit for an hour or so. One of my favorite things said during the conversation wasn’t Earth shattering. But when you think about it, it is one of the things you step back and think about and it just gives you a hard dose of clarity.

Paraphrasing here, we as a society have it ass backwards. People put their politics first when it should be humans first, America second, right/left third. I felt that.

Our society has become so divisive politically, people can’t have conversations about their politics without slinging mud. Maybe it has always been that way given that I used to hear all the time growing up, never discuss politics and religion. I thought it was bullshit then. I think it is bullshit now.

Social media has brought the rhetoric to the forefront. You will constantly see people throw words like socialism, republican, democrat, liberal or conservative as a means to insult one another.

Voting for someone or choosing political allegiance doesn’t mean you are standing for everything that person or party stands for. People have the ability to sort out the fact from fiction and the reality from the bullshit. Whether they do or not is up to them.

I consider myself a democratic socialist on a fundamental level. That doesn’t mean I will sit here and preach policies that work in countries like Sweden or the Netherlands as if it is one size fits all. The US population is not only substantially larger, it is substantially more diverse.

For many people, civil conversations are a lost art. If you voted Trump, you’re automatically a racist. Even though many of them are whether they would like to admit it or not. Just because someone is not openly racist, doesn’t mean they aren’t racist.

A few months back, I heard someone use the N word when talking about those who died during Mardi Gras. But before using it, he looked around and then whispered the slur. I just said “why did you look around before saying that?” He was dumbfounded by my question looking confused. I said “you clearly know you shouldn’t use that word. Why do it?” No answer as expected.

If you don’t like Trump, you’re probably called names such as libtard. While I won’t use that term due to the offensive nature of the last part, many on the left can’t get out of their own way and get their own words twisted against them as a result such as their takes on freedom of speech. They want it both ways.

The arrogance on both sides stems from the rose colored lens of your side never being wrong.

Case in point, what is happening right now. President Trump has mishandled and downplayed the spread of this virus until it was already manifested. We have people who simply can’t agree to the fact he has. They explain and defend or simply deny.

Trump blames WHO for mishandling on his part. They may have been late to the party based on the conversations between them and China. They still arrived well before Trump.

He ignored briefs in January and February, even if Fox News denies it.

He got rid of the pandemic team. There’s a tweet of him defending it, even if Fox News denies it.

Saying the system completely sucked and he had to change it is bullshit, even if Fox News denies it.

They’ve been slow to get our testing in order, even if Fox News denies it.

To quote a friend of mine who said it best regarding Trump on Covid19…

“Trump beat the spread on how he would handle a national disaster of this magnitude, but that’s like losing by 20 when you were +30.”

Meaning, people didn’t expect much, but you’re still not good.

But of course many people can’t just simply sit back and say _____ was bad, while _____ was good. It’s the exact principal of right/left first. I’ve never understood the principle of not being able to admit when you’re wrong.

How many times can Trump blame the previous administration before the shtick gets old? Answer, never, at least to his base. The following quote was written in a column by The Atlantic…

“Give the president his due: Trump is a genius. He is a master manipulator, a political alchemist capable of transmuting calamitous errors into political gold. Even as he continues to lie and deceive, the president has seized control of the narrative, taking possession of the national microphone to saturate the public with his self-serving version of events.”

One perfect example through this pandemic is the shortage of the N95 masks. Yes, the Obama administration used up the supply in 2009 to battle Swine Flu and they were not restocked thereafter. While the former administration did not replenish them, neither did the current administration in 3.5 years, even with warnings from officials.

In both 2018 and 2019, U.S. intelligence agencies issued insistent warnings in their annual Worldwide Threat Assessment.

“We assess that the United States and the world will remain vulnerable to the next flu pandemic or large-scale outbreak of a contagious disease that could lead to massive rates of death and disability, severely affect the world economy, strain international resources, and increase calls on the United States for support.”

Another shining example of the political warfare in right v left is the economy…

The graphic you see to the right was originally shared by Fox back in 2017, intentionally used to skew the numbers making it seem like the Obama administration was a crack job in terms of the economy.

What that graphic fails to show is those statistics reflect July of 2017 and July of 2009. In other words, this is the economy that was leftover from the Bush and Obama administrations. Here it is once again, let’s crush the opposing party through the use of skewed statistics ignoring intricate details of what would suggest otherwise.

Here we are in 2020 with the talking heads of the right still beating this narrative down the throats of their viewers. Rest assured, as I write this, someone will ultimately ignore the facts and either re-direct or simply double down on the take.

I know this post seems like I am just railing on the right here. It is because I am. They deserve it for the things listed above. Before you can claim that I am engaging in the one sided coin here. First and foremost, I admitted to the Obama admin depleting the N95 masks. Secondly, I have written more than one column railing on the far left for wanting to limit free speech or ludicrous claims like “math is racist.”

As I alluded to earlier, be honest and call it like it is. Me writing this won’t change that unfortunately because people can’t see past their own nose when it comes to politics.