Let me offer some opinions about the state of our national affairs. I can guarantee you my viewpoint won’t sit well with everyone, maybe not even you.
My first observation: Most of us don’t care about the Jan. 6 Committee and Donald Trump. See, I’ve already annoyed you. What we do care about is electing a leader with the courage to work on breaking congressional deadlock and articulating a plan for ensuring we can live in safety and prosperity.
Most of us don’t want Trump or Joe Biden to run again in 2024. Who in their right mind sits down with an 80-year-old and tells them, “Yeah, keep working. Great idea!”
We’re tired of reading and hearing about COVID variants, pandemics, and monkeypox. Give us rational measured advice about staying healthy and most of us will follow it.
No one is that interested in melting glaciers and disappearing polar caps. Few, if any of us, have seen a glacier or polar cap except in National Geographic. We will glide around in an electric car, power our homes with solar or wind, and warm them with “heat pumps” if the technology works and it doesn’t cost us an arm and a leg.
We don’t want American troops sent off to fight foreign wars. Every few years, a president dispatches the military to some country most of us can’t find on a map. The people living in that country don’t want us there and they are more than happy to try to kill us.
We’re tired of hearing about diversity, transparency, and inclusivity. Most people want to mind their own business and, in turn, be left alone to work, raise their kids, and set aside enough money to fix their house or take a family trip for a week.
Voting reform is the biggest scam in American politics. Democrats want to expand their base by making it easier to vote, and Republicans want to counter this expansion by telling their base that the voting system is corrupt and broken.
What could be more (A) lazy or (B) cynical?
We’ve heard enough about cryptocurrency. OK — I’m the last Neanderthal hunting mastodons with a club when everyone else is using a bow and arrow. But who in their right mind dumps money into an investment with a return and loss rate resembling a rollercoaster at Six Flags?
Flying has become ridiculous. Remember when boarding an airliner was a romantic and exciting adventure that ended with someone handing your kid a pair of plastic wings?
Now, it’s a crap shoot and, more often than not, you sit in the airport trying to decide if you want to jump through hoops to rebook your flight, or drive to Milwaukee.
No sane person buys an assault rifle. But we want mental health and law enforcement professionals to help families steer psychopathic homicidal relatives into secure, long-term programs where they can get help and not pose a threat to the rest of us.
We don’t want police officers beating or shooting someone to death, but most of us support the police and understand that we probably couldn’t be a cop for a day.
The short and long of it is that in 2022 we want a country where we can mind our own business, look forward to improving our lives, and keep our families safe and healthy. Pretty annoying, huh?
