It’s that time of year again: Independence Day. The fourth of July. My nation’s birthday, so to speak. So why am I not feeling particularly patriotic today?
Maybe it’s just the state of the nation as a whole. I try not to get into politics, but I’ll just come out and say it: I have no faith in our “fearless leader.” I seriously thought his campaign was a joke at first, and when it sunk in that he was, in fact, running for real, I felt a little queasy. I may have even thrown up in my mouth a little.
How can I feel patriotic about a country that can let this happen? Sure, we didn’t have the greatest choices in candidates, but there have to be some major flaws in the system if there were no good, true “leaders” to choose from. Instead, we ended up with two major choices: a shifty crook or a misogynistic egomaniac. The people chose the crook; the system chose the misogynist. Wonderful.
Thankfully, Denial is a wonderful state in this situation. Much better than any of the fifty other states. When it comes to our current government, I’ll be moving to Denial for the foreseeable future. Yep, this isn’t real. It’s all some sick prank. Any second, Ashton Kutcher is going to show up, reveal the hidden cameras, and say, “You’ve been Punk’d!”
Avoidance is my safety blanket right now. Block certain Twitter accounts and Facebook pages, change the channel if I happen to stumble upon the news, gloss over the newspaper…I don’t know if I can last the next three and a half years like this, but for now it’s an adequate band-aid. So long as we don’t end up in the middle of Shit Creek with no way to steer…
I hear the rapids are a bitch.
AJ Mullican, Author 