It's pretty hard to get up in the morning (or in my case, late afternoon) and feel enthused about the day when the first thing I compulsively do upon waking is check the news. The news is making me struggle in my day-to-day life. And this is especially disheartening since I moved to Colorado a fourteen months ago. Every day here is so sunny and gorgeous, even in winter, that it really rubs it in my face when I get up in a dour mood.
So why is the news making me feel this way every day? Besides the obvious reasons (the total dismantling of our government, fascism, etc) I think it's that ever since last November I've had my world view shaken. I think deep down inside of me, beyond the endless layers of fat and snarkiness, I truly believed that people where basically good. Deeply stupid, easily manipulated, constantly afraid, but basically good. And now . . . now I'm not so sure anymore.
Maybe part of being an optimist is having a certain innate naivety within oneself, but I can't help but be let down by the people around me. There is a streak of vile hatred running through the current administration that seems so against everything I've come to believe and stand for. Maybe it's my fault for ever believing any conservative who claimed to vote republican based on states rights, or the economy, or religious reasons. I thought those people were being honest. I thought they really cared about those things. But they don't.
And maybe that's what really bothers me. Because I haven't changed at all. I am still who I ever was and my beliefs have never wavered, and they didn't waver when democrats were in the white house either. But the people who voted for Trump? The ones who call themselves the moral majority, the ones who sit in their self-righteous pews every Sunday? They don't believe what they claim. They will sell their souls to feed their hatred. They will gut this country just to punish people who live a different lifestyle than they choose to live. They will violate this earth and lay it to waste to further their own interests, even though their lives mean nothing to this world.
The people who voted for Trump have no morals. They do not deserve to be treated fairly or to have their words taken in good faith anymore. Because they have shown themselves to be completely morally bankrupt in every way. And that to me, is the most disillusioning part of all of this. If the people who claim to have the most moral high ground, to be the most steadfast in their beliefs are also the ones who are quickest to throw that all away then maybe people aren't basically good after all. Maybe fear will always outweigh doing what's right or what's smart on the scales of life. Maybe we haven't evolved past hiding in caves to escape the noisy thunder of god after all. Maybe we were fooling ourselves all along. Maybe I was.
