This is one of the most hopeful political stories I have seen in a long time, mainly because it suggests young people, those just below voting age, are thinking hard about the role they will play in their own future, which of course, is ours, too.
We have spent so much time over the past two years picking at President Trump (because he deserves it) that we might have lost sight of the reality that time is passing pretty quickly and before we know it, he will be gone.
Which leaves us with what?
First, I would suggest, a younger electorate. Geezers my age are, how to say this politely, shuffling off a bit even as the young people line up to join the electoral cadre for the 2020 presidential contest. They are not as gullible as their grandparents, parents, older people in general.
One thing we should pay attention to is the fact that we have an aspiring fascist in the White House who learned a long time ago that if you say it enough, even if its not true, people will somehow come to believe it is! That’s how dumb we are as a people.
His entire family works that way, I suggest. It has no reality except the one it defines at the moment. This goes back to calling President Obama a pretender and claiming he was not born in the United States. That kind of shit worked for a lot of people, fitting handily as it did right into their racism receptors.
But it should not work anymore. A lot of the institutions that depended on repetition for their philosophy, the National Rifle Association among them, are finding that no longer works so well anymore because they reality they are trying to describe is much bigger than the rhetoric they are creating.
You know, guns don’t kill people….Well, actually, yes they do. Go ask the people of New Zealand!
So I await, quite eagerly, the arrival of the youngsters.
I taught them in college for a decade and believe me, they have a lot to offer, with their outsized hearts being one of their greatest assets.
I understand we decrepit old men and women should move off stage at some point. It will just be easier to do if we are replaced by smart young people. It’s a good trade!
Madigan’s Gleaner 