Vichy in America

 

Vichy in America

This is going to be a hard one to write. Many, if not most of my close friends are people with college degrees. Many are teachers, from elementary, high school and university level. Most don’t realize how they are seen by much of the rest of the country. 

I just finished reading an essay in Medium by Andrew Tanner that rang some bells and resonated with me. He is convinced that Trump will win the next election, even if he rules from his home in “house arrest.” 

“Why,” you ask. “How could that happen?” 

The answer lies in the questions you ask.

Here is a quote from the article:

“All Trump or any right wing voice needs to do to win… is present themselves as the defender of the common American. Associate Biden and the Democrats with smug college elitism and he wins. In America very few people like the teacher’s pet, but this is now the default identity for most leading voices on the fading left.”

Last night I went to a Democratic meeting and fundraiser at a local Italian restaurant here in Durant, Oklahoma. For two days I had been following the news that President Biden was going to join the strikers from the United Auto Workers on the picket line. I was wondering if he actually would, or just make promises, as Democrats tend to. 

Sure enough, just before the meeting, I found video of him on YouTube surrounded by strikers, and defending the workers demands for much higher wages and benefits on a bullhorn!

I’m eighty now and tend to get overly emotional. I got tears in my eyes listening to him talk. I have been a union member for nearly fifty years, both with the Teamsters Union, and then the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers for the last forty or so.

As I went into the room and sat down to listen to the State level Democratic speakers, I waited to hear of the historic event that transpired just this day in Detroit.

I ate, and I waited. It was like nobody cared. Nobody even mentioned it in passing. 

After the speaker finished the Bryan County Federation of  Democratic Women started their own version of fundraising, called “Cheers!” Each person can pledge a dollar amount cheering some event that they feel needs recognized.

I could not let this go by. I raised my hand and loudly announced that this day the President of the United States, for the very first time in history, had stood with striking workers in solidarity on a picket line. That was worth a twenty dollar cheer to me!

I got loud cheers and a handshake from a State Representative on my left. The meeting continued onward. There may have been a couple of us who understand why this is so critical to Biden’s re-election.

Here is another quote from that article:

“Trump’s main power is rooted in the fact that a majority of Americans now feel systematically looked down on by those with a college education.”

If you believe you are going to convince a voter to change to a Democrat because of logic and reason, you just made another MAGA voter.

They are so disgusted with “college elites with degrees” they no longer believe in doctors, vaccines, or climate change. It has nothing to do with facts - it is purely despair and fury by the forgotten ones.

The article is a long one, with what I thought were many questionable assertions and assumptions, but he does make some great points. I believe Trump has a better chance than most people give him.

I also believe he will never see the inside of a jail cell. The powers in the present government don’t have the guts to do anything but rattle the keys. They know it would just get him more die hard followers.

Here is a link to the article:

https://medium.com/@andrewmtanner/when-vichy-comes-to-america-2e5a9699bc2a

The Great Oklahoma Turkey Chase

 I was almost six years old. I know this because it happened on my brother John's first birthday party at Grandma Gove's house out on South Bear Creek Drive. Baby Johnnie was a cute little roly-poly guy and we used to have a photo of him sitting on a blanket behind a clown face that was propped up beside him with a big open mouth to throw the ball through for a point. Everybody called John "Punkin" then. We had cake and peach pie if memory serves me.

When the party was over, Mom picked Baby Johnnie up and went in the house with the rest of the adults. Billie must have followed along, because I don't remember him in the rest of the story.

I stayed outside tossing the ball through the clown face by myself. I suddenly became aware of a black wall moving toward me from the hen house. Big black turkeys! They were gobbling loudly and didn't look friendly at all. I was near a tall fig tree on the east side of my Grandma's house and I lost no time climbing up the knobby tree until the turkeys couldn't reach me.

Those turkeys surrounded the tree and just stayed there, gobbling among themselves and looking evil end very menacing. After some number of minutes stuck up in the tree, I started yelling for help. Nobody heard me inside the house. After some more minutes, I began wailing and bawling, convinced that my fate was to be eaten by the turkeys.

After what seemed like a very long time, my Grandma came out of the house. She immediately saw the problem, picked up a stick from somewhere and chased the turkeys away. I climbed down and went inside and stayed in the house for the rest of the day, I think.

Here it is September 9, 2023, over 74 years later. Early this morning I was riding my bicycle south on Newberry Creek Road only a mile from my house. There is a steep rise in the road, maybe 10 feet or higher, but it is steep enough to slow me down and make me shift gears. As I came over the crest of the hill, from a driveway in front came a stream of black turkeys, heads down and attacking. They are very territorial and not at all shy like some people think. I started pedaling faster and got out in front at about 20 miles an hour. They chased me for at least fifty yards.

Since I started wearing these cycling shorts with bare legs exposed, I feel like I've got two drumsticks for legs when the dogs chase me down the road. If they are too big to outrun, I've found it best to stop and order them back to the house. Amazingly, they always do, because they just want to chase - they don't know what to do when the rabbit stops!

I'm not at all sure that will work with turkeys. I think they would just peck me to death if I stopped. Now that I know where they live, I'll have an extra burst of speed coming up that hill from now on.