Among Old Papers, A Glimpse of A Troubled Present Day

You know how sometimes you just get a bug in your bonnet and have to clean things out? Happened to me the other day.

With me, it usually involves uncovering a trove of untreasures, things that used to be valuable but no longer are. Job interview information, personal organizing advice, stuff like that. Being retired means that jettisoning some of that brings a sense of relief and brief nostalgia. Those were the days....

But I also found something that brought me up short. It was something I'd written down when I watched a rerun of an HBO show called "The Newsroom." Someone wrote into the script something that was so universal that it boded remembering, just in case I would run up in front of someone shooting off their mouths.

"The Newsroom" was Aaron Sorkin's paean to journalism, its flaws, its passion when genuinely pursued, its occasional brilliance, and its liberalism despite itself. It starred Jeff Daniels as the evening anchor and editorialist. It's in the latter role that Sorkin got to vent his spleen about things that were bothering him.

It was written for the present-day audiences, addressing current crises, both ongoing and potential. It aired in 2013-14, during the latter days of Obama. You could see the storm clouds forming, though, since that would be his last term. Washington, DC, where I then lived, was full of pushback against the idealistic but futile hope that that presidency would usher in a new era of racial understanding and effort.

It all hung by a thread of Obama's presence and style. The damage already done by the Tea Party was evident and unrelenting, and Sorkin thought he would summarize what those denizens were all about within an editorial comment by Daniels, who played Will McAvoy.

McAvoy calls out the Tea Party in no uncertain terms. I caught the original show--I tried never to miss it; it was really good--but it occurred to me to write down what he was saying a bit late. I knew it would replay, and I had paper and pen ready next to the couch.

The Tea Party, he said, was actually the American Taliban. I thought that was a great label (and so, so ironic). He went on to call them "fatuous, mean-spirited bigots." I nodded. I would do it thoroughly for the next five minutes, so much so that it threatened neck soreness.

Here's what they stood for, and stand for today under another label:

• Ideological purity
• Compromise as weakness
• Denying science
• Fear of progress
• Denial of facts
• Scriptural literalism
• Need to control women's bodies
• Pathological hatred of the U.S. government
• Demonization of education

Stop me if you've heard this. Just add three more: 

• Loud and obnoxious interruption upon disagreement;
• Slavish loyalty based on fear of being excluded; and
• The end of democracy in the United States.

The Tea Party, of course, hasn't disbanded. It's been subsumed by a demagogue who's lassoed these backward ideas under his own ugly tent. But if they can use these as talking points, so can you. So can anyone who's opposed to them. Granted, there are a lot of them, but remembering, say, three (always a good number; two's not enough and four are too many) will turn back any loudmouths. It'll get you through an elevator ride, too.

Be sure to include the last one in case you run into any slavishly loyal minions. Don't let the other side deflect the discussion by bringing up extraneous issues. Don't let them take you there. Stick to the knitting. Get your voice, nice and clear, into the room, when confronted with fatuous, mean-spirited bigots.

It's time, folks. The threat has become crystal clear. It has permeated to the school board level, where nonsense has been re-introduced (See: demonization of education). If you turn to walk away, thinking that somehow either someone else will take care of this or it's just too intense, think of how intense it'll get if this awful demagogue gets elected again. He's back out there, blasting imagined opponents with vomit.

Bret Stephens, New York Times columnist (and a conservative one), said it a while back on Bill Maher's HBO show, "Real Time": It was like a jackhammer going off outside your bedroom window at six a.m. every single morning for four years. You want that again? It can happen.

The Republicans are more scared of him than ever. I'm no longer mystified. Just check the above list. All he had to do was get up and say them all at once in his own way, say a couple of other things people wanted to hear about being victims, and they'd follow him off whatever cliff's coming up. They also risk removal by the lathered mobocracy that it's all created.

That's fine. Let them. But you may be chained to them if he wins. 

What kind of a country do you want? The issue is still up for grabs, more than ever.

It's because too few heeded Aaron Sorkin's warning that we find ourselves in the troubled present day. I didn't think I would find it amongst old papers. But I'm glad I did.

Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark