“Very Dangerous For Democracy”

Americans becoming independents, rejecting both parties, is a GOOD thing. It's only "very dangerous for democracy" if we continue to enshrine party power in our elections systems. That's why we should all embrace reforms like eliminating partisan primaries, ranked-choice voting. https://t.co/4sqNmXQIuJ

— Lucy Caldwell (@lucymcaldwell) March 2, 2021

CRUZ to MERRICK GARLAND: "What are your thoughts on what is called “cancel culture”? Is “cancel culture,” as you understand it, consistent with the values of free speech?"

GARLAND RESPONSE: "I do not have an understanding of the meaning of the term sufficient to comment." pic.twitter.com/7y3DYJIFHl

— Matt Laslo (@MattLaslo) March 2, 2021

Let me be blunt:

1) "Cancel culture" doesn't exist.  Stop trying to explain what it is/isn't or what it should be.  Like the now-defunct "War on Christmas," it's not a thing and it never was and deserves no more attention than the W on C ever did.  Please leave it alone.

2)  Nothing we are doing now or have done in this century is a "danger to democracy."  That's a phrase, a meme, a favorite cliche that's easier than thinking and simply denotes "very serious concern" for something else that isn't real.  The assault on the Capitol was bad, but so was the Civil War.  Something like 300 people (and counting!) are being charged in connection with that assault, and the fact that they are not already in jail serving their sentences is not a failure of the system or a refusal to take their acts seriously.  Nor is it a "threat to democracy."

CPAC and Trump's tedious speech aren't threats to democracy, either.  His attempt to overturn the 2020 election by any means necessary (well, he stopped short of trying to declare martial law) was such a threat, but it went nowhere.  No court gave him succor, no military officer tried to initiate a coup on his behalf, no nation intervened to overthrow the government and make Trump a puppet ruler.  There were actually fewer riots and less violence in the late months of 2020 than in the decades of the '60's and '70's combined (or in the four years of Trump's presidency, for that matter), and no one then spoke of democracy in danger or society collapsing.  Mostly they cursed/sympathized with the "kids" or the minorities, and left it at that.

We've been fed on visions of apocalypse and eschaton for so long (since the '50's when they had reason to expect world-wide destruction) we've absorbed it into our thinking and like the John Wayne myth of the cowboy ("Brokeback Mountain" was much closer to the truth;  cowboys are journeymen workers working long hours for low pay, not rugged individualists wandering the West with no visible means of support), we've absorbed the myth that society will collapse soon, it's must a matter of when.  And yet despite floods and hurricanes and winter storms and elections where everyone washes their hands of it and the improbable ass wins through by default, the social order refuses to unravel and government refuses to come to a sudden and dramatic end.

We are not going to be "canceled," and we are not going to fall into anarchy or tyranny.  The only currency likely to collapse is a crypto-one, which aren't really even currencies anyway.  The internet has just made things louder and not funnier and brought the fringe to our living rooms, much as TV did for war and civil rights movements.  Nothing has fundamentally changed, and we aren't living in the Most Important Times In All Of Human History, although we keep flattering ourselves that we do.  The accurate description for most of our problems is navel gazing.

There's a reason people froze in Texas and why so many in Texas (and Mississippi, and Michigan) are still without water, and the reason is mostly the rest of us just don't care about real problems, we only care about problems we can't solve but can get upset and talk about.  My e-mail is flooded with faux outrage  meant to part me from my money for one political issue/politician or another; to me that's the real scandal.  It no more helps anyone than the politicians in Austin still trying to blame somebody for the problems they promoted under the guise of "freedom!" for so long.

Stop looking for things to be afraid of.  Fight the real power, as Sinead O'Connor once famously said (on SNL, if you're wondering).  Try to help somebody.  Try to do a small portion of good in the world.  What's really "very dangerous for democracy" is forgetting how much you can do, and substituting how outraged you are for real acts of citizenship.  Or real acts of simple, common humanity and decency.

For pity's sake, it's Lent; take stock of yourself, instead of everybody else.

(The more judgmental I am, the more likely I am to be talking to/about myself; let the reader understand.)