TomFlannery.com

Where do we go from here?

We’ve already lost so much. Friends. Family. They’ve disappeared down a rabbit hole of ignorance and bigotry and phantasmagorical lies.

“The Big Lie” is what they’ve been calling the one saying the election was stolen, but there couldn’t have been the big one without 1000 little ones….each one drawing blood. Pin pricks……one after another. By now our arms look like train tracks, we’re despondent junkies…..and we’re all pale and weary. It all adds up. All the drops of blood add up to a bucket brigade worth of carnage.

Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.

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All we want is for things to feel normal again. They don’t have to be normal…..just the feeling at this point would be good enough.

We don’t want to wake up every morning, only to be bombarded with whatever stupid shit was posted in the wee wee hours……crazed….misspelled snippets of rage that overwhelm a news cycle, flushing anything remotely important down the 24 hour news drain. We missed so much decency by being fixated on the casual cruelties of a man who cannot spell the food we cook on our backyard grills.

We want to empty our heads before bed, and wake with them empty still. They should be filled with knowledge as the day progresses…..not grievances.

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I don’t want to have to march for things that should already be mine.

We can all agree on a Bernie Sanders meme, but not that cops shouldn’t be allowed to kill black people.

We can’t kneel in protest because it’s disrespectful, but you can mob up and smash your way into the capitol waving a confederate flag in an attempt to overthrow the elected government because you’re white.

Somehow we’ve been broken. We all cherish our children’s futures…..but have taken that to mean that we don’t need to cherish anybody else’s.

I’ve hated more in the last 4 years than I’ve hated for my entire life. And I consider myself on the side of the angels.

In a way I’m as broken as they are.

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There can be no justice without accountability. Do not ask for unity if you are not prepared to accept that actions have consequences. We don’t negotiate with Nazis. We stomp them out. We punch them in the face.

And there are almost never “very fine people” on both sides. To stay neutral has become morally indefensible. It’s the only time I’ll ever quote George W Bush….

“You’re either with us, or you’re with the terrorists.”

I mean….what do you call them?

Close your eyes. What if they were brown? Or black?

You’d slide the barricades away and invite them into the Rotunda…..snapping selfies as the passed?

No.

There would be blood running into the DC sewers.

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There are adults in the room now. I feel like I know them, even though that’s impossible.

Everyone I ever thought I knew has disappointed me when I got to know them.

I hope the President remains the same guy who used to run to catch the train to get home to his kids every night. I don’t need to know much more about him than the fact that he did this.

Our President walked the same streets and breathed the same air that we did, which is pretty cool. This place gets in your bones and stays there, which means good and bad things. We’re better than most I think, but not as good as we could be. “Scrappy” is a good word. And it looks good on t-shirts. It’ll have to do.

If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog. The President has two. The last one had none, which was reason enough not to vote for him. How broken must you be to think you can do this job without a dog to come home to?

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We must hang together or we will surely hang separately. One of the founders of our nation, Benjamin Franklin, said this, and he owned 2 slaves.

When you consider that, it’s not at all surprising that we’re a little fucked up. Buildings. Streets. Cities. Schools. All are named after men who owned other human beings.

But suggest putting Harriet Tubman on a $20 and that floor you thought was hardwood turns into a million wood colored snakes.

It’s this nation’s original sin, and its residue is still on the tips of fingers from California to the New York Islands.

It permeates every ounce of our ignorance….

And on and on we go.

A more perfect union? Well…no.

How about a less imperfect one?

In a bit..

–tf