Midnight Brilliance Disappears at Daybreak

Midnight brilliance is elegant, wispy, ethereal. And it’s next to impossible to hold onto it unless you capture it in the moment while it’s happening.

 

I know this!

 

Which is why I’ve told myself a hundred times, “That’s a great insight. I’ll write about that tomorrow. So I really should get up just for a second and jot a note…”

 

But I rarely do.

 

And I always, always, always regret it.

 

It happened again last night.

 

I’ve been sleeping  a lot recently because I have a bad cold with significant lung congestion, so I don’t have enough energy to do much of anything else.

 

But my mind–forced to stop doing what I ask of it during regular weeks–has gone into its favorite pastime: devising ways to explain as effectively, plainly and concisely as possible, the things I want to be able to say during this election year to impress on readers the very real choice we’re making in November and the consequences of making the wrong one.

 

In my midnight brilliance I’ve come up with several analogies that serve well:

 

Re: Fox Viewers: If a loved one lied to you 52 to 57% of the time–telling you that your car had  a flat tire,  that your glass door had been shot out by someone with an air rifle, that your son or daughter had been hit by a car– how long would it take you to ream them a new anus or eliminate them from your life?

 

I can hear you thinking…

“But Fox viewers don’t look any farther, so they don’t know they’re being lied to.”

 

Then, dear heart, please bring this to their attention as a way to convince them to do some research on reputable news sources so they learn to discern facts from spin, fiction and outright disinformation.

 

Above is the only one I remember from six or seven great ideas that have very real potential to educate and inform so that when people go to the polls, they’re going there informed.

 

But it really isn’t rocket science to me:

 

• If, as a person who believes skin color shouldn’t matter,  I was voting for the candidate the Ku Klux Klan endorsed and bragging about helping elect (Donald Trump), I’d certainly feel the need to look into the matter before I pulled the lever, clicked the option, or wrote in my choice.
• If, as a woman, I was voting for a candidate who disparages, discounts, preys upon, ranks for breast size, and marginalizes women, I’d maybe start looking into why I feel women deserve this treatment from any man, let alone the man in the Oval Office.
• If, as a decent honorable practical man, I was voting for a candidate I wouldn’t hire to run my business or  trust alone with my wife or children, I’d maybe start looking into why his slew of bankruptcies, fraudulent charities and failed/fraudulent companies (Trump Steaks, Trump Casinos, Trump University, et al) isn’t sufficient cause to deny him my vote. I know I’d have a hard time living with myself.  And I can’t imagine what the women in my life would think of me if I did vote for the guy.

 

I can understand why SOME people vote for Trump. The predatory, greedy, authoritarian, nationalistic, oligarchic, plutocratic, racist, sexist, xenophobic, homophobic, far-right/evangelistic white supremacist factions of this country have their man right where they want him. They absolutely made the right choice for them, and the rest of us be damned.

 

I just have  a hard time believing (or, maybe I just refuse to believe, to keep my sanity and goodwill toward them) that so many of the people I love would find themselves in any of those categories, or would vote for anyone so beloved by people in those categories.  It boggles my mind!!!

 

This is the information age, for crying out loud. We should be better than this by now. The facts are out there for everyone to take a look at. If you’re reading this, you have access to the Internet. Subscribe to some news outlets that are non ideological and fact-based. (I’ve given you the link in the previous sentence.)

 

Stop watching your favorite flavor of news. If you simply can’t (and it’s a telling sign, if you CAN’T! Addictions and mind control aren’t sought; but they sure can creep up on you!), at least subscribe to one of the fact-checking portals I listed above and keep it front and center so you can access it often.

 

Avoid commercialized sources as much as possible.  (I know it’s hard; they’re almost rare as hen’s teeth.)

 

The scariest people on the scene right now are corporations, oligarchs and plutocrats. They’re pulling the strings almost everywhere on Capitol Hill, in communications companies, and in far too many state legislatures. Trump and Bloomberg are two faces on the same coin. They’re opportunistic predators.  Both are oligarchs. (Well, Trump claims to be rich. He hasn’t proved it yet.  I think he’d up to his eyeballs in debt to his Russian creditors, which is why he won’t release his taxes. Fact Check: This is my theory, based on everything I’ve discerned while reading about him for years. It has not been proven in a court of law, but that’s because he’s untouchable right now. Hopefully that won’t last much longer.)

 

Please share this with someone you know who is open-minded enough to take it to heart… if there are any left in your spheres of influence.