The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

I don’t have a Twitter account. I don’t stick my hand in electric sockets or lick frozen playground posts with my tongue either. Life is tough enough these days without self-inflicted torture. But I do take notice that there are plenty of folks running around with their hair on fire over Elon Musk buying the company for 50 billion bucks and some spare change, fearing, I guess, that the Tesla Man will be good to his word that the social media platform will be open to any and all whackjobs, right wingers, MAGA nuts and conspiracy theorists. Free speech, he calls it. And to some degree, it is.

But gee, somehow I feel like we passed that Rubicon years ago. Sure, Twitter kicked the President off, tired of his lies finally, but last time I looked, the guy had plenty of outlets for his Big Lie, TV and radio, the entire Republican Party. No problem getting the word out that he was not a Loser, he was a Victim, the election was stolen from him.

I remember back when news programs were required to air both sides of a story. Fair practices, I think it was called. Simpler times, I guess. Fox News arrived on the scene, calling themselves the Fair and Balanced network, implying that CBS, NBC, ABC and PBS were biased. Give the listeners what they wanted to hear, don’t worry too much about the facts. Pretty soon the talking heads were presenting the ‘news’ without much filter between opinion and old school reporting. Walter Cronkite must have rolled over in his grave and turned his head face down.

Hot talk radio rolled in, pretty much the only ‘news’ source in most of the nation beyond the urban centers, Rush Limbaugh and the brothers stirring up grievances, giving vent to the anxieties of a rural decline. Facebook and its imitators followed, not claiming to be a news source but a news source for most of its subcribers anyway, loaded with fake bots, misinformation, a veritable National Enquirer on the virtual newsstand, muddying the water between truth and fiction, alien abductions and political dirty tricks.

Free speech. Sounds good, doesn’t it? The genie is out of the lamp now and if you think you get three wishes, wise up if you think one of them will be to return to the lamp.

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I hear rumors to the effect that Kool-Aid is served from 55 gallon oil drums down in the palace at Mar-a-Lago where the president-in-exile holds court. The steady stream of Republicans in more than name only drink directly from the drums, ignoring the oil slicks on the surface while Mr. Big Pants nods approvingly. Or, in a few instances, hilariously screams You’re Fired! before summoning the next contestant. All the right wing power brokers line up at the front gate, waiting their turn, terrified they might offend His Mightiness and lose an endorsement.

This is the state of politics in America. Thank god we can be diverted by the Russian onslaught of Ukraine, a war that makes Sherman’s march through Georgia look like a Boy Scout outing. Oh my, the bad bad Putin is threatening the democratic institutions of Europe! What can be done! What can be done? Or inflation, what about inflation, why doesn’t Sleepy Joe do something about inflation???

Meanwhile, in hearings, in courtrooms, in the mainstream press, His Importance is being sued, litigated, investigated and probably eventually indicted. No matter to the legions who Believe, who think the fat man behind the curtain is really Oz the Magnificent, who would vote for him a third time despite two impeachments and an endless stream of tax evasions, incitements for insurrection and plenty of testimony from his sexual abuse victims. Parse it, explain it, hypothesize, draw your own conclusions, the sad sorry truth is a goodly part of our population, our neighbors and relatives, believe the lies and mumbo-jumbo they read in Facebook.

I don’t like to say it too loud, sure don’t want to irritate the already irritated masses, but … the Deplorables are winning. The Republican Party thinks they can ride this tiger, play on their fears and their anger, and still maintain control of their agenda, whatever that is these days other than obstructionism. They forget all too soon that the mob in the Capitol January 6th was calling for Pence to be hanged. The guillotines might be coming back….

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