My brain is on this non-stop. Get this dream I just had. A friend's mom went into labor and the friend was too wound to drive her to the hospital, so I took them. I'm driving this impossibly huge land yacht with a steering wheel like a ring of Saturn and when I look back, all I see are fins a million miles back. Of course we're lost, but when we stop to assess where we are, in some back alley I have barely squeaked this monstrosity into, a door opens behind us, like the back door to a bar, only it's the hospital back door. Elated, we rush inside and I'm in the waiting room. This lady, very vaguely reminiscent of Shirley Maclaine in Steel Magnolias, is sitting across from me in the chairs like at airport gates, sucking something through straw from a balloon that has a pro-Hillary message on it. The slogan was devastatingly clever, I remarked on it in my dream and was detachedly very impressed with my subconcious for thinking of it but have completely lost it. She agreed with me that it was clever, like Hillary, and began tearing into That Bastard who stole the nomination from her. I was facinated to be able to actually have a conversation with a real live PUMA and asked questions like, "I know! How do you think he got away with it?" and the like. The only answer I remember her giving was one where he was going for the patriots by choosing a GOP war widow for his wife, and somehow using his wheel chair only for sympathy and effect. Don't blame me, it was a dream. At any rate, the lady raved on for a while and finally I asked, "So, is it McCain for you then?" Damned if I didn't wake up just then and I was all, "Noooo! I have to know if the madwoman was going for McCain!" Yeah, it isn't easy being me. But here's the thing. To all this together. My girl is being shaped by forces outside of my control. Is it possible I will, thirteen years from now, be staring slack-jawed at her as she defends a political position completely alien to me? I'm not saying I expect a carbon copy, or that we agree on everything, or that she follow my beliefs in lock step. Not at all, and I'd be disappointed if she did. Maybe not at first, but eventually! But is it possible I might raise a kid who, if she were an adult right now, would vote for this ticket?
Let's take stock. The past eight years have devastated the country. The ticket's policies promise a continuation of past thinking and policy. Ed Koch, a staunch republican and supporter of Bush, has endorsed Obama. The international community overwhelmingly supports Obama. Alan Greenspan, former head of the Federal Reserve, under Bush, has said McCain's economic policy will be disastrous for the country. McCain has become a clone of everything he is saying he "mavericked" against. His running mate is, at best, dangerously underqualifed, at worst, a religious zealot with no idea what she's talking about but a steadfast plan for it nonetheless. The campaign has been increasingly called out for outright lies in their campaign. Karl Rove said they have gone too far. KARL FUCKING ROVE! And yet his numbers climb. Allow me to posit a theory. We are standing around being shocked that no one is taking all this damning evidence at face value, but who are we talking about, here? We're talking about people who don't believe in evolution. That believe the dinosaur bones were put there by the devil to trick good christians. That believe global warming is a myth. That believe you can pray away the gay. That believe you should want to. We are talking about a group of people who routinely close their eyes and minds to fact and cling all the more tightly to their "faith" when it comes under question, glorying in this chance to prove they do not question. In a culture that only exists if its members do not question, how can we be surprised they are swallowing all they are told without blinking?
