I just want you to know that I’m still alive. I also haven’t been snatched off the street, pulled into a windowless van and whisked off to an El Salvadoran prison without being read my rights or offered legal counsel. Yet.
I started an essay earlier this morning. It’s in my drafts folder, unfinished, like the dozen others. Actually, I doubt it’s only a dozen. It’s been months since I’ve finished anything for this Substack. I’m too lazy to look, but I think I’ve published maybe two all-original pieces since last November.
Huh. November. Imagine that.
Man, I’m in a weird place in my life. I live in Southwest Florida. It’s a red-as-fuck area in a red-as-fuck state. I’m certain more than half of my friends voted for our current president. And I love these people. I do. And most of them are great people. But what the hell, man. Never before in my life have I ever had the consistent—and I mean daily—thoughts of I love you mixed with what in the actual fuck is wrong with you?
I swear, I really, really, REALLY don’t want to write about politics. All my life, if anyone asked me what kind of writer I am, I’d probably answer “the underpaid kind” or “a humor writer”. When I write, I want to either make people laugh or take them on a short magical ride with me, experiencing the emotions I helped create.
But I just…
I mean…
What in the actual fuck is wrong with you?
It’s nearly all I think about. It’s so hard to write a piece about the cute funny thing that happened at my daughter’s school, or on our vacation in New York City, or the hijinx of how I did my own damn taxes this year, when the news coming out of Washington DC has me questioning the future of our fucking country, and whether my daughters have a place in it. And how I have so many friends that blindly support this shit.
How am I supposed to be funny when it’s all burning down?
Again, I can not say this enough: I love these people. I cherish their friendship. They’ve done great things and will continue to do great things. I just cannot figure out how they are so ignorant about what’s happening to our country right now.
It does have me questioning my own thoughts. Trust me, I attack my own core foundational beliefs and rebuild them almost daily. Am I brainwashed? Am I a product of a mainstream media saturated with liberal propaganda?
The answer always comes out the same: No. Hell, no. Heck, I got in an online argument a few years ago because a facebook friend of mine posted a meme that made our now-President look bad. But it was a lie. I posted a comment saying it was a lie and that he should take it down. He blasted me, saying I was missing the point, Trump must be stopped. I replied that no, he was missing the point, and I cannot fucking believe he has me defending the Orange Idiot. But no matter what, the truth matters.
And that’s all I ever care about: the truth.
So how do I get the truth?
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First off, I don’t believe anything I read in a meme. I don’t care whose side the meme is on, I don’t know the author, I don’t know if it’s been sourced, and I don’t know why someone spent the time to make it. It’s probably propaganda. I ignore it, and if you’re someone that posts that stuff, knock it off.
Secondly, everyone likes to shit on the mainstream media, but that is still the best source of actual facts we have. Let me repeat: THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA IS STILL THE BEST SOURCE OF ACTUAL FACTS THAT WE HAVE. I know that almost all news sources are corporate now, and corporations have CEOs and shareholders and marketing assholes who want their shows to appeal to a core audience. The delivery of the news can be slanted or even highly spun (coughcoughFOXNewscoughcough) but the journalists still have to report the facts.
Look, not a single Journalism major graduated college and said to themself, “Hey, I can’t wait to go out there and tell lies all day and destroy the country!” They are out there trying to get the real story, and sometimes at really high personal risk. Yes, a corporate bigwig may come down before they get a chance to make their report and say, “soften the language on the mistake Biden made”. But the bigwig can’t make them change the facts. There are huge ramifications for that. Ask FOX News about the whole Dominion voting system case. Ask CBS News about the Killian document controversy.
So, it’s okay: watch the actual six o’clock news! Or go to as unbiased a news site as you can. AP. Reuters. The Guardian. It’ll be the actual news with actual facts.
Thirdly, I stopped listening to my dumbass-but-lovable-but-dipshit friends. What the hell do they know? They just go to work, go home, and go to work again. How are they privy to any real facts? During COVID, a friend of mine stated that she wouldn’t take the vaccine because it was dangerous and deadly. I asked her how she came to that conclusion.
“I did my research,” she said.
“Oh, is there a lab at your house I didn’t know about? I’ve been there several times, so it’s crazy that I’ve never seen a single beaker, microscope or petri dish anywhere. Or did you just mean you did a Google search?”
She just laughed—possibly uncomfortably—because she’s a good friend, but she still stuck to her belief. A belief that is not supported by any facts.1
People, all I do is follow the news from sources I trust—and are trustworthy. I manually remove any bias, and boom! I have it. The story. The real dirt.
Whew.
Okay, I got this out. Hopefully this will unlock the massive writer’s block I’ve had. Also—just as hopefully—I’ll never write about politics again.
Don’t hold your breath on that one.
~JCS
The link leads to a long medical journal article, which is LOADED with research and facts. But since it cannot be reduced to a twelve word meme, it is of no use to most of MAGA.
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