You know who thinks and talks and frets and bitches every day about the president of the United States?
It's not civic-minded adults, who understand that there are many thousands of relevant people between them and the president. They're aware of all the powerful national, state, local and neighborhood leaders in every sector of society. They know that, in order to make the States more United and American, these more local people are the ones they should vote for and cultivate and help.
It is boys—have you noticed?—who fixate on the president. These are 30, 40, 50 or 60-year-old adolescents who never figured out that their parents aren't responsible for their destiny.
So (and I realize that I'm entering the theoretical territory here) the boys replace their dead parents with the president, and find the paren—president wanting. Weekly, daily, hourly.
Mostly, they keep their bitter complaint to themselves. They don't bother their colleagues or clients with it, lest they be found obnoxious and injured professionally. They don't want to start trouble at family gatherings, either, because, in their inevitable words, "It's not worth it." And their spouse stopped listening years ago.
But they can't keep it in. They gotta let it out. World's gotta see. See all the rage. Rage that's in me. So they stream it almost nonstop on Facebook.
It's sad, really. Classic arrested development cases. Boys in grownup suits, upset all the time because every day isn't their birthday and we almost never get to go to Chuck E. Cheese. And no one will listen.
It would be no business of mine, except that I don't include boys in my Facebook feed (or girls either), only groans.
And grownups have a lot more on their minds than the popularity of the U.S. president. So if you're going to be a Facebook friend of mine, you get one post on the president per month. No matter the president, no matter the nature of the post—one per month, 12 per year, 48 per presidential term. What with everything else going on at the federal, state, county, municipal, neighborhood, household, spiritual and bodily level, doesn't that seem like it ought to be enough posts about the president?
Well, if you're going to remain Facebook friends with me, it's going to have to be, starting next month. Okay, you have until the midterms. But after that …
… just know that if I wind up having to cut you off as my Facebook friend, I won't think of it as defriending you, but rather as friending mature, adult citizenship in a representative democracy.
David that was very good commentary. Keep up the good work.
Amen that.
Funny, I know someone who is precisely as you describe.
Always a rant, always unfiltered (neither by his better angels, nor by use of FB’s excellent filtering options), always ready to turn it up to scorch if you push back. The gonzo-naked-man child screeching at friends, acquaintances, clients and colleagues.
Friggin’ embarrassing to watch, so I stopped watching.