Trying to remember

I’m trying to remember what things were like under Reagan and the first Bush, when it seemed like there would be Republicans forever, the country would be all about war and fear and hatred of anyone who was different.

Clinton gave us hope but we should have known from the Republican death-grip on Congress that it wouldn’t last.

I’ve got to stop caring about what state the country is in.

But it’s so much harder now. I have children whose future those bastards can ruin, it’s not just my own future anymore.

The “funnel all the cash to the rich” Republicans were in power for 12 years, running the economy into the ground with their deficit spending, their weapons and wars, and it took a Democrat to bring some fiscal responsibility to the nation, and that was not to last.

I’m trying to remember back to that bleak time when I managed to just not think about where the nation was going when I could help it, because it was clear that the trajectory was downward and we were riding in a handbasket. I didn’t used to care about politics like I do. I didn’t used to think about it. I used to just assume that everything was going to shit in a few years and I’d do my best to have as non-miserable a life as I could in the meantime.

But damn Clinton he gave us hope.

And it was a false hope. Things are going the same way they’ve been going since Carter went down in flames: right and farther right and farther and farther and farther right, a gigantic scam, a joke at the expense of all but a tiny rich and connected elite…

And now I’ve got a family, and it’s their future that’s damned, not just my own.

I’m trying to remember how I used to avoid thinking about it and avoid caring.

But it was a long time ago.

Damn you, America, for letting me believe in you for a while and then taking it away.

I should have known better.

I should have known better than to hope.