The era of Trump, the China virus and the death of George Floyd has created a trifecta of turmoil in our country.  The normal division between liberals and conservatives became the Great Divide when a Trump victory denied the anointing of Queen Hillary when the chattering-class mistook Trump as the Rodney Dangerfield of the political race.  Unexpectedly and inexplicably to those deniers, the Trump administration ushered in record economic prosperity and unheard of low unemployment rates, courtesy of a neophyte that the politically-swampy unanimously thought would fail.

In his success, Trump simultaneously enjoyed pissing off liberal skeptics by purposely pushing their buttons at every opportunity, (Twitter) including the media, which he has played like a finely tuned fiddle.  As a result, some of those most affected have acquired TDS, (Trump-Derangement Syndrome), a malady so severe that his cure for cancer would face their objections.  TDS dulls the senses, making it impossible for those afflicted to see or sense any righteousness or progress, (even if they agree with it,) for no other reason that it emanates from Trump, (like the Crime Bill that no one could seem to pass yet Trump did with little to no accolade.)

As the love-hate relationships play out domestically, enter the China virus and see an entire country, and eventually the whole world, dive into a hasty hibernation.  Trillions of dollar gains in the stock market gone, virtually over-night along with almost instant double-digit unemployment and societal conditions lining up to challenge those of the Great Depression 100 years earlier.  While the jury is still to be impaneled to determine what, if any role the Chinese Communist Party, (CCP) had in this pandemic, concurrent with this outbreak, US policy towards China was harsh and getting harsher.

Coincidence?

Should that jury return an indictment of the CCP, there will be hell to pay.

Because the virus struck regions of the US in very different ways and at significantly varying levels of severity, Governor’s and other elected officials scurried about fashioning response and reaction that was as differing and wide-ranging as it could possibly be.  Police were arresting single moms in parks, parishioners at church, lecturing parents about social-distancing and where their kids were playing.  New York Governor Cuomo, overwhelmed with metro-New York City outbreaks prescribed a politically-induced coma over citizens and businesses.  Cuomo’s bad decision-making condemned over 5000 to death in nursing homes.

Governor DeSantis of Florida had a much more laissez–faire attitude, yet outcomes were diametric with Florida fairing much better than NY in outcomes, at least initially.  From the wide variety of responses from all levels of government, exposed were the tyrants for all to see.  Governor Whitman from Michigan micro-managed what Lowe’s could and couldn’t sell in their store.  Our own local county executive, Jason Garner wanted to ration travel by the first letter of your last name.  And even as the country gradually awakens, health professionals warn us that this is a fluid event with a likely “2^nd wave” of infection to follow and so uncertainty and fear continue, even after 100 days.  The tyrants learn that fear equals control, so Cuomo holds a daily virus briefing, thinly disguised as a run for President as the wheels fall of Joe Biden as he hides in his basement.

After three months of having the governments thumb on all of our backs, we witness George Floyd and the now infamous knee on his neck.  Everyone was already in a pissy-mood due to being quarantined, misled and lied to.  Enhanced unemployment benefits, along with a $600.00 weekly bonus courtesy of the vote-buyers in Washington, created a perverse incentive to do nothing while at the same time gradually fomented resentment at the way people were being treated.  In the back of many minds remains the nagging thought that citizens are being herded more than governed.

Resentment turned to rage as the life drained from Floyd under the image of a white cop dripping with indifference and an under-class looking for an excuse to cut loose.  A single tragic and senseless act in Minneapolis becomes a blanket indictment on authority nationwide.  Don’t let a tragedy go to waste.  The accusations towards authority morph into assertions of systemic racism.  Silence is violence.  Take a side or be labeled, accused, ostracized and marginalized.  Declare the debate as over and take note on who is on which side, simple as that.  Draconian enforcement of social distancing rules yields to Seattle police being chased out of their own precinct and a band of thugs taking over a half-dozen city blocks while the mayor and governor of that state let it happen without consequence, celebrating lawlessness.  If the mob could, they would storm the jail and take Derek Chauvin from his cell and hang him in the public square, without the slightest inkling of irony.

George Floyd’s gravitas was fortified by his felonious criminal past.  That made him “authentic”, he “kept it real,” Dog-whistle language for unassimilated, defiant of authority, dismissive of societal norms and angry at the world for his own failures in life.  Holding a gun to the stomach of a pregnant woman while your accomplices rob her home is now the hot resume for social worship fame.  And no wonder.  Hip-Hop culture finds it’s authenticity in the gangster-lifestyle, celebrated, revered and copied in real life.  Lyrics about killing cops, raping and mistreating women, the worthlessness of life, the glorification of violence, it is part and parcel of a large segment of the black culture.  Thug life is celebrated, not condemned.

Al Sharpton can certainly speak understandable English if he so desires, but instead he resorts to a version of the spoken-word that is nearly unrecognizable to anyone outside of the “hood”, and he does so to signal to those folks that he is authentic, “down for the struggle”, refusing to assimilate to his own country.

 “Ask” becomes “axed”, why, because it is a symbol of defiance, a single word that clearly delineates the real blacks from their Uncle Tom brethren, those sell-outs who have prospered and excelled, using the same tools of opportunity that were available to everyone in this country but rejected as tainted by indignant blacks.  This is how you pick the wrong leaders:

Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and George Floyd; authentic.

Colin Powell, Clarence Thomas, Condoleezza Rice; frauds ceding credibility to the white man.

The militant black power-structure in this country refuses to talk about black-on-black crime or a 75% out-of-wedlock birth rate because it is hard, even for them, to pin this on white supremacy claims or systemic racism.  Equally difficult to square with logic, is how black Africans arrived today on our shores are statistically near zero in their impact of social services and seem to quickly find prosperity, happiness and success here.

As noted black educator and author Shelby Steele has pointed out numerous times, until blacks take control of their own destinies and decide for themselves how best to tap into the limitless opportunities that define America, no amount of affirmative action or other well-meaning but unsuccessful programs, engineered by whites for the benefit of blacks will do.  Realizing that all such programs have as an underlying assumption, that without the help of whites, blacks can’t do it on their own is insulting and accomplishes exactly the opposite of what on its face seems like a good effort.  Instead, it embodies the terrible notion of the soft bigotry of low-expectations.

Black’s have been exploited and lied to by liberal Democrats forever and the solution is so clear that it is apparently not obvious.  Stop listening to others and begin to grasp what is and has been right in front of you all along, American opportunity, the availability of education, jobs, support, encouragement, guidance, it is all there and the proof that you can do it is in the faces of the multitudes that risk their very lives to come here just to experience what we take for granted, the American dream in the greatest country of the face of God’s earth.  If the world’s poorest people, most with no command of the language, customs or culture can succeed, American-born blacks have run out of excuses in not joining with that success.  The illogic of a supposed white guilt is just another canard that impedes black success by tying their misfortune to someone, anyone else and by doing so, making it someone else’s responsibility for fixing it.  Taking a knee or paying reparations will solve nothing.

The nuclear, traditional American family and her re-birth will go a long way in solving a multitude of problems that may seem unrelated.  Boys need fathers that role-model positive behavior.  Without this the chances for good outcomes diminishes greatly.  Every child deserves two loving parents.  In the absence of this, the positive results fall even further.  Households need to be free of violence while encouraging education, moral behavior and strong religious beliefs.  Without this, chances of success are almost nil. 

Put the responsibility back where it belongs, onto the parents of children.  If the parents are products of a failed family life, they are likely to model one that also fails.  In the absence of a solid and stable family, social services and schools only provide triage and hospice care to a patient that is terminally ill.

Thug-life won’t take blacks where they want to go.  Glorifying violence, misogyny debauchery and drug use won’t help their children flourish.  Bragging up on how many times one has gone to prison is not a recipe of success.

 When funerals are the replacement for parties, something is wrong.  The militant and resentful in the black community need to get that giant chip off of their collective shoulder and quit complaining about how the successful are somehow responsible for their failures.    Availing themselves to all America has to offer and doing so with an open mind and a willingness to assimilate to a system that works, that is fair, and that holds everyone accountable for their own actions and outcomes is the best path towards success.

I’ve worked hard my entire life, delivering newspapers as a pre-teen, graduating to gas-station attendant, and then working in a canning factory warehouse after school where the main-full-time employees were parolees from prison.  I’ve been forced to fight because my dad was a cop.  Kids thought I was a “nark” and it put a target on my back.  I’ve been attacked and had to fight just because neighborhood kids were hungry for a battle.  Blue-collar bullying in the 60’s was a regular reality where I lived.  I’ve been ridiculed, fired, verbally and physically abused and mistreated any number of times during the course of my life.

I drove a limo to pay for college and unloaded UPS trailers full of boxes from 4AM until 8AM before attending to my philosophy class at 9AM at the local university.  For the final two years of college, I worked fulltime in a factory while going to class full time. That’s the way life goes and I wouldn’t normally bring it up except to say, by way of demonstration, no one gets out of their childhood or progresses through their life without strife, struggle and some bad experiences along the way.  I’m tired of accepting the notion that only a certain group saw their share of struggle.  We all have struggled.  I’m tired of being marginalized by the notion that only certain people have experienced mistreatment.  Most just don’t cry about it and use it as an excuse.

Much of life was and is hard, but I didn’t expect an “atta-boy” for living it.  All of the moving parts of our lives ultimately shape who we are and culminate to our own advantage.

None of us knows the burdens others carry, but today is today and we all can move forward with a new outlook.  No one said it was easy or even fair, it’s not, but that shouldn’t keep you and me from moving forward.  And we’re far better off doing that together than apart.  It is those in government who are fanning the flames of discontent.  If we don’t open our eyes to that reality, those tyrants will have many convinced of things that just aren’t so.  Be careful, be aware, and be naturally pessimistic of those who seek to “lead” you.  We’re more alike than we are different.