Eschatology Nation

The Cold War really did present a threat of worldwide annihilation by nuclear weapons within hours of instigation, I know that. I don't privilege that threat just because I grew up through the tail end of it. Every generation of people is certain they're living in the Worst of Times, where all of civilization balances on a knife's edge. I won't say the crisis of my time was real-er or better, but it did give us some top-notch political thriller movies up to and including one where Sean Connery played a Lithuanian-Soviet submarine commander with an unapologetically Scottish accent. You wouldn't get that now.

Last week it was Ebola that was going to get us and there's always the lurking danger of climate change of course, which you have to admit is a bit more of an abstract threat than Russian ICBMs raining from the sky, but previous generations were afraid of communists too, and comets and Revelation and more-virulent-than-usual Iberians or who knows what other plagues or calamities that would finally, mercifully, shrug the burden of mankind from the shoulders of Mother Earth and simultaneously decide once and for all that the generation that saw it all end was indeed the Most Important One Ever.

End-is-Nigh-ism is in our nature. The scariest thing about it is: they're all right. We were right about the Soviets. We're right now to worry about the climate stuff. You can't minimize the threat without the benefit of hindsight and the perspective it affords, after the thing you are currently swerving to hopefully miss starts to shrink in the rear-view mirror. The violent thrashing at the controls in the moment, though, shouldn't be as risible as it appears. It's like making fun of someone for how they looked and acted while being trapped in a car with a single bee. In the moment of crisis, all terror-faces, frantic head bobs and wild avian flappings of arms are all on the table. Only afterward, when the danger has passed, does it become hilarious. Especially to the people who are supposed to like you the most, like your friends and family.

The problem is when the threat is less physical (bees, road-crossing deer, hydrogen bombs, etc.) and more metaphysical. What happens when you can't actually agree on what the threat is? Then it becomes a fight over priorities. And everyone knows a fight over priorities means a fight over resources, both in holding and in deploying. And everyone also knows a fight over resources is a fight over money, which means, at last, we're talking about politics. And every time we're talking about politics, we're immediately also talking about crazy people.

Like the guy who wants the South to secede and form an anti-gay utopian state called Reagan. I get the idea: we can't get the bisexuals on the coasts to agree that the gays are an existential threat to our way of life, so we'll have to stake off our own lot, marshall our own resources and stand up to this threat as we see fit, without their confused, contrarian, AC/DC input. And it's a crazy idea of course because a state made up of just the South will never hold itself together. It will immediately become a shooting war as it turns on itself, probably over college football. Alabama fans and LSU fans aren't living in an ecosystem that small for very long, not without the pee-water Big 10 and backwash ACC schools to dilute the pool. One controversial fumble call not overturned upon further review and the Crimson Tide army will march all the way to Baton Rouge to pull babies from their mothers' breasts and dash their heads upon the rocks.

Lots of liberals like me are probably struck with the first instinct to say "Fuck 'em, let 'em go have their Jesustan" and probably include a joke about banjos or incest or something. And while the banjos and incest are valid points to raise, I'm certainly not in the "fuck 'em" category. Maybe I'm getting old, but I'm definitely in the "We're all Americans, can't we have a conversation?" camp. Just because it's maybe too soon for the conversation doesn't mean it isn't out there, eventually, to arrange.

My lady-friend and I were walking through a perfectly charming town here in SoCal last week, enjoying boutique shops and some of the more traditional features of our region like ample parking and dehydration, when we passed a politically themed information booth manned by a few entrepreneurial self-starters. It was decorated with an Obama-as-Hitler motif and featured more than one poster-board sign in that weird kind of third-grade Crayola-marker scrawl where the words are legible only in the emotional sense. It was in our path, so we walked by, remarked (maybe only mostly) non-confrontationally that no thanks, we would not like to partake of the literature and maybe things were doing fine. Which was met by us being shouted at for most of a block as we walked away, helpfully pointing out our own stupidity and willful blindness. What struck me of course was: these people are genuinely convinced that we are living in the worst time in memory for the USA, maybe ever. And they really, really wanted to make sure I knew that but had no interest in actually trying to convince me of it. I either already agreed with them, wherein we would ostensibly shake hands and I would accept some pamphlets reiterating stuff I already assumed was true OR I would be shouted at and cursed at and chased away. There were no other options.

Mostly these kinds of exchanges just leave me feeling exhausted. It has to wear off eventually... right? This isn't the worst time ever to be an American. There are no riots like the 1960s or national-level wars like the 1940s or internecine bloodshed like the 1860s. There was worse. There was always worse. I'm willing to stick it out. Maybe it's just the black president thing that is beyond them to tolerate. That won't last forever. And hopefully that's just generational. But I know we need our nascent Nation of Reagan people to stay American. Eventually it really will be the Worst Time Ever and we'll really, really need them to be on board for... something. I don't know what yet. Just think of them like the mishmash of stuff you keep in your glove compartment: tampons, Kleenex, dusty old packs of gum, a flattened box of Benadryl, just one actual glove, whatever. One of these days you're going to need it. All of it.