5:00PM
Today, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) dropped its prosecution of Michael Flynn for lying to the FBI. He had pled guilty to the crime, and for some reason, the DOJ has decided to withdraw from the case.
I don’t understand what is happening with a large segment of the American population. There are many people who say they support Trump and then when I press them on whether they support his behaviors, they say no, but they support his policies. When I ask about some of the laws he’s broken, they say other people have broken those laws, too, or how the Obama and Clintons have done worse and are hiding and lying about it. I don’t know how to comprehend it.
Something like eleven weeks ago, a black man was jogging and got shot and killed by two white men. Recently, video footage has been released of the event.
I don’t understand why this is happening so much to black men. What fear, what anger, what pain are we carrying as white men that lead us to shoot these men? What are we trying to protect, what are we afraid of losing, what do we think we are already losing and want to stop?
I step back from this all and I think there are many of us in this country who feel very afraid and very angry. I think many of us are white men. I think many of us are very afraid that white people will no longer be the majority voting population and that, if we’re no longer the majority, we can’t control the rules in this democracy. I believe that many of us are angry at the changing demographics—angry that we’re losing our favorite restaurants, angry that we’re losing our jobs, angry that we’re losing our way of life.
I believe it’s covering up our pain. That we may have lost our homes, lost our loved ones, or lost our place in society. That we don’t feel as strong as we once did and are scrambling for any type of external strength to bolster our internal weakness. I say us because I believe we all have internal struggles with different aspects of this. Fearing we have no control over a situation, fearing we will lose our role in society, fearing we’ll no longer be needed, or worse, be pushed away. Angry at those who we think have pushed us out, angry at those who have harmed us, angry at those who don’t even know we exist.
I wonder if the rules used to seem fair but for some people they now seem rigged. Or maybe it’s less of that, and more of the desperation to win that’s driving it. That some of us are so desperate to win, that we ignore the rules. The player who wants to win the game at all cost, even if that means breaking the rules to do it.
The problem I see is that a society is based on rules. We agree on how things should be done. A democracy, in particular, is about choosing the rules together. If we care more about winning than abiding by the rules, then our society falls apart.
The rules may not always be fair, but winning isn’t everything. Winning by breaking the rules can leave us more bloodied than we had imagined, and then doesn’t feel like winning.
5:10PM
