The View from a Drawbridge

It’s funny how growth opportunities sometimes offer themselves up to you on a silver platter, isn’t it? I certainly wasn’t looking for one right at this moment. I have enough on my plate, to be perfectly honest. But I keep getting reminded that I’m not in control of the agenda. This particular opportunity came about thanks to this blog (which happens more often than one might think).

Recently, I wrote a post about Andy Johnson, a Florida Politician who stole $3500.00 from me, without any intention of paying me back, and indeed never having done so before he up and died. In that post, I did not hold back on my opinions about the man, as is my wont. In fact, I concluded the entire post by saying that I was “just glad that there’s one less scumbag in the world.”

That post drew the ire of someone I dated in high school, whom I haven’t seen or had an in-depth conversation with in about 40 years. Why the guy even gives me 3 seconds of thought is beyond me, but the idea that I stirred him up as much as I did leaves me stunned. (I’m always taken aback when anyone gives a sh*t what I think, if I’m honest. It’s not something that happens very often.)

Before summarizing his comment about the post with you, I should preface it with the fact that our lives seem to have gone down completely different paths. His Facebook profile picture is a QAnon logo, and his Facebook banner is a closeup of Trump’s bloodied ear. I could not help but think we were the poster children for the polarization in this country. We used to be two peas in a pod. Now we appear to be polar opposites. His opinion of me seems downright hostile, and that just makes me sad.

And no, I didn’t ask if I could share his comment, but he put it on my blog’s public Facebook Group, as a response to the link to my post about Andy Johnson/Florida Politician/Thief/Scumbag. So I’m thinking he put it out there for all to see, so it’s fair game.

To summarize, he seems to have taken the fact that I called Andy Johnson a scumbag very personally. He said that meant I was calling him and more than half the US population scumbags. He also said that I had “a lot of fucking balls” for doing so since I hadn’t raised children or had a real family. And to make sure I knew he wasn’t a scumbag, he went on to say he had a credit score most people would envy, had never been arrested, and he could get any security clearance he wanted. He also said he’s known me since I was 17, and I’m not the person I was.

First of all, uh, what?

I went back and reread my blog post, and saw nothing really that indicated that my assessment of Andy Johnson was the extreme right writ large. Especially since he was a Democrat. Maybe my high school ex read the word scumbag and Florida politician in the same post, and came to the conclusion that the man had been on the extreme right all by himself.

I do admit to calling Andy a “low rent version of Donald Trump in a polyester suit,” but I did preface that with the fact that he identified as a progressive. But even by saying that, the extreme right as a group hadn’t even crossed my mind. The God’s honest truth is that I believe that there are scumbags (and non-scumbags) all across the political spectrum. Really.

I think that Trump’s followers would experience a lot less stress from, and hostility toward others if they didn’t identify so closely with the man that they felt that an attack on him was an attack on them. Because on some level, they have to know that Trump is no saint, even if they believe he is furthering their agenda and love him for it. There’s just too much evidence, and more comes in each day. Love him if you must, but don’t wear him like your own personal hair shirt, or you’re bound to be miserable, because there’s no possibility of him ever getting the 100% love of everyone, especially since his acceptance rating at the time of this writing was 43.9% and it’s on a downward trend.

And I’m assuming that the implication that not raising kids or having a “real family” was supposed to be an insult. I’ve never really grasped that whole concept that having children gives one some sort of moral imperative. More rights or privileges or more weight when passing judgment or something. Why would that be? My priorities lay elsewhere, is how I look at it. And some people want children and can’t have them for a variety of reasons. Are they to be “penalized”, too? It just seems like such an odd perspective to me.

And there are so many ways to be a family. People who think the definition has to fit within some rigid little box are missing out on so much love in the world. Maybe if they spent less time trying to prevent people from having families that look different from theirs, or trying to make those families feel less safe or welcome, they’d see that there’s a lot of love happening all around them. And that love isn’t there to hurt others in any way.

There’s nothing to be afraid of. Your kids are safe. Give them a little credit. Were you really influenced by the way a stranger lived their life or by the words in a book as a child? I can’t even remember the strangers I encountered for the most part, and the only books I remember are my favorites.

The family I have looks just the way I want it to. I’m fulfilled. It is my hope that everyone can say that.

I just realized that another thing that might have made this guy misunderstand me was that, when I posted a link to that blog post on Facebook, at the very top I wrote, “It may seem like the scumbags are winning these days, but that doesn’t mean we have to be quiet about it.”

Maybe he thought that I believe that those who are winning are the extreme right. But are they winning, really? I mean, yes, the people they voted for are in power at the moment, but those powerful people are definitely not keeping the promises that they made to their constituents. God knows the price of eggs or gas hasn’t gone down at all. And as tariffs make more things out of reach, and more of them lose their health insurance, and rural hospitals continue to disappear, and their kids don’t have Sesame Street anymore, and all the federal services that they took for granted no longer exist, and they all realize that none of them are in any kind of hurry to pick the crops in our fields or be maids in our hotels or work in our slaughterhouses, and yet those jobs still need to get done, they might realize that they’re not winning any more than the rest of us are. Not at all.

Maybe when it occurs to them that they are still paying the same amount, or more, in taxes and getting fewer services, they’ll figure out that they have a lot more in common with the rest of the political spectrum than they do with the power elites. And in fact, it is the rich, powerful people who rob us and face no consequences that I was thinking of when I wrote that it may seem like the scumbags are winning these days.

But the part of his comment that intrigued me the most was his idea that scumbags are people with low credit scores, arrest records, and an inability to get a security clearance. Really, those are the hurdles one must leap over to be considered decent in his world? By that yardstick, I, too, am decent, and yet I apparently have a lot of fucking balls. Andy Johnson would have met the decent criteria, too. Trump does not. Huh.

But this provided me with an opportunity to engage in a little thought experiment. What is my definition of decent, exactly? Do I think all Republicans are scumbags? No. I think they are on every bit as much of a spectrum as Democrats are. Some agree with some of Trump’s issues, but not others. Some voted for him the first time around, but not the second. Some didn’t vote for him at all from the moment they heard the “pu$$y grabbing” comment. Some are just buying into the fear. Some are not really that political and are just Republican because their family and friends are. Some really don’t understand what’s going on. And yes, some are all in. The fact that every president’s approval ratings change over time shows that people’s opinions change.

After giving it much thought, I’d say that my definition of decent has more to do with a person’s actions than anything else.

• Do they intentionally do people harm?
• Do they intentionally make people feel afraid?
• Do they think they should have more rights and privileges than others?
• Do they actively try to restrict the rights and privileges of others?
• Do they prioritize their own personal gain or convenience even if it makes others suffer as a consequence?
• Do they have no compassion?
• Are they cruel?
• Do they take what is not theirs?
• Do they exploit or abuse others?
• Do they prey on those who are more vulnerable?
• Do they lie and manipulate to achieve their own ends?
• Do they believe that it’s okay to circumvent the rule of law if it means they can exact revenge on those they don’t like or agree with?  
• Do they attempt to withhold knowledge from others?
• Do they replace that withheld knowledge with provable falsehoods to further their agenda?
• Do they demonize purveyors of truth, such as journalists, teachers and librarians?
• Would they rather put children at risk than make a personal sacrifice?
• When compassion, caring and support are called for, do they instead take the opportunity to further their messages of hatred and division?
• Is their default position one of selfishness and greed?
• Do they cheer on and encourage others who do any of the above?

I know that as an autistic person I am prone to black and white thinking, but as far as I’m concerned, anyone who can say yes to any of the above has moved into scumbag territory. And I really don’t think it’s particularly hard to say no to all of the above.

Just be kind. Be fair. Be honest. Share. Help. Mind your own business. Have good intentions. When possible, make an effort to say, “You first.” Try to leave the world a better place than it was before you came along.

Yes, Dear Reader, there are days when I feel like the scumbags are winning, and I get discouraged. There are days when I wonder if basic human decency has disappeared entirely. But then I see little glimmers of hope here and there. Small acts of kindness and support. And I see things falling apart that really need to fall apart. I have no idea what will fill that vacuum. I hope it’s something good. If it’s also something fresh and new and unexpectedly amazing, that would be wonderful. Time will tell.

For what it’s worth, my response to my long lost ex was as follows:

“Ah, M—, Dear M—. Andy Johnson was a PROGRESSIVE. He was a LIBERAL. He was a DEMOCRAT. In other words, nothing at all like you. The man was a shyster, a thief, and a an unrepentant grifter. I won the lawsuit, so I’m not just making this stuff up. If anything, you sound like the angry one. I have never called you a name. All I’ve gotten from you, comment-wise, here on Facebook or messenger, in the past year, is some shockingly furious rants when I’ve never done anything to you. You sound so unhappy. I have no idea what your credit score or security clearance has to do with anything regarding this post, but kudos for your life achievements. And yes, you were my boyfriend in high school. But that was decades ago. We knew each other for less than 1 percent of our lives and now we don’t know each other at all, so you’re hardly in a position to compare stresses, as if that makes one person superior over another. I can’t imagine why anything I say gets you this worked up. I can’t even imagine why you even read my blog, but thank you, I guess. Go in peace, man, and please take your fury with you.”

It appears that despite his low opinion of me, he has at least chosen not to continue this argument. It also seems that he has blocked me on Facebook. And so it goes.

It’s just kind of fascinating, from a sociological standpoint, that at one point in our lives we led ourselves to believe we were similar. Hindsight being 20/20, we never really were. Even then, the things that mattered most to me never interested him, and vice versa. He was never going to get lost in a book or prioritize travel, and I was never going to go fishing or be athletic. But I, at least, was grateful for that time, being in a relationship where we could support one another in the face of much of the chaos and dysfunction that swirled around us. I think, for a brief shining moment, we kept loneliness at bay for each other, and perhaps we reminded one another that we were loveable despite all the negative messages we were receiving from others. And that, especially at that age, counts for a lot. That’s just my perspective. He might have seen it differently.

The last thing he said in his recent comment was, “When did you become filled with so much hate?”

Were I not blocked, I’d thank him for this thought experiment which has brought me so much clarity about my views on decency. My basic assumption is that the average person believes that they are decent. That makes perfect sense to me. How could anyone comfortably get through life thinking otherwise about themselves?

I can only leave it to him to decide if my decency checklist is one that he agrees with and one he feels he complies with. That’s not a jab. I honestly don’t know anything about him anymore. But whoever he is, at his core, if he’s decent, then he’s happy. And if that’s the case, I’m happy for him.

I do know one thing. We were both incredibly sentimental teenagers. We used to listen to the song Old Friends by Simon and Garfunkel and think that would be us one day. Interesting that we knew even then that we wouldn’t be a couple, and assumed we’d both be alone, and still friends.

Now, I’m guessing that’s not very likely. Because we’re definitely not “silently sharing the same fear.” In fact, our fears are completely different. If saying that means I have a lot of fucking balls, then so be it.  

This is the kind of devastation that all this damned polarization has caused. If Trump didn’t insist on clinging to the easily disproven lie of the stolen election, if he hadn’t politicized public health but instead had spun it as an opportunity for all Americans to come together and protect one another, things would be so much different now.

But he needs that chaos. He needs us to see each other as the enemy, rather than realizing that, in fact, we all have so much more in common with one another than we’ll ever have with these puffed up billionaires in Washington DC. Because if we all turned as one and glared at them, they’d all shrink away to nothing, and they know it.

But instead, my past rears up and tells me I’m full of hate. That couldn’t be further from the truth, but he’ll never know that. And here we are at a time when we’re closer to “How terribly strange to be 70” than we are to those kids who listened to that song and imagined a future that contained a positive connection that is now so out of reach.

Actually, what I’m full of is disappointment. Because I sure could have used an old friend right about now. Just not one who is so obsessed with my balls.