Jack of Harts

I grew up in the 1980s. Me and my friends lived in a post-JFK and post-Martin Luther King world. The pill and easy abortions had reduced the birth rate greatly. Increased immigration rates meant that kids with non-American parents were common. Desegregation of schools had already happened, and we had no clue our mixing of races was unprecedented in America. It was normal to us to grow up with kids of different colors and English proficiencies. And it was normal for us to distrust politics in general. JFK was a womanizer, Nixon was a crook, and Ted Kennedy left a woman to drown in his car. Politics was a dirty business, and everyone had their own ideas and beliefs. Those beliefs were real, sincerely held, and important to each person. We learned to find agreement on SOME things and then work together on that to move forward. That is the world I grew up in. This year, we saw a completely different world in politics. One where people scream to the sky in frustration that a man they think is unfit for duty was elected. One where they call anyone who supports him in any way deplorable and unworthy of being American at all. One were women where pussycat hat and talk about blowing up the White House. One where to RESIST is the one and only acceptable response to the election of a politician. This has been a very interesting year in politics. I’m rather hoping we don’t see another like it in my lifetime.