Yep

A while back I got into a Facebook exchange with a guy I've known for almost fifty years. He said that Trump was going to get re-elected in 2020 and when I asked him if he was just going to just stand by and watch, his answer was a succinct, “Yep.”

Just last week another guy who has been one of my favorite people over the years was on FB predicting all kinds of a horrible dystopian fate for America (incidentally, the word”dystopia” was rarely used before Trump's presidency; I figure everybody knows what it means by now). My friend was answered by yet another guy I go way back with who said, “I like your apocalyptic thinking and agree – no one thumps Trump, only time.”

And these are guys I like and who certainly aren't in Trump's corner, but maybe the problem is that they aren't in any corner and have more or less given up and cast the country's fate to the winds and the whims of the electorate, whom they seem to have little faith in. 

I have to say that I hear a certain smugness in these kinds of remarks, too.  It's like they are above the fray and can stand back, amused and ironic, while America goes down the Trumpian tubes. The British have a saying – “I've got mine, Jack” – which means basically, “I'm doing good; the rest of you have to look out for yourselves.” There is something of that here too because all three of these guys are older and in a position that the worst Trump can do won't really do them or the way they live any harm.

Of course, they'll vote for whoever the Dems come up with, and that's certainly something because every vote is going to count in the arithmetic of history come November 2020. 

But what's really up with this “yep” attitude? These are all three bright and politically attuned people, yet they're basically saying the hell with it. Is it from the constant flood of information, or maybe the close look we are all getting at how government actually works, and they don't see any way within its parameters for Trump to be ousted before the next election. That makes their “yep” attitude at least an informed decision, as scary as it is. I hope it's more that than the smugness and irony I mentioned.

There are also people who are so overpowered by the forces of media – especially the endless cable channels and so-called social media – that they have come to regard the world about them as an endless reality television show purely for entertainment and they have found their mega-star in reality pioneer Donald Trump. This chump can barely read a teleprompter, but you get him in front of a crowd like at CPAC and he becomes a true performer, riding the crowd like a rodeo pony he can get to cheer whatever tricks he comes up with, like hugging the flag in a disgusting display of what he thinks is patriotism. That picture says everything about Trump and none of it has anything to do with patriotism. 

Yep.