Ugly

Obama's candidacy and Sarah Palin's ignorant rhetoric a few years ago began to bring some underlying ugliness out of something of a hibernation and started gradually oozing it toward the surface, often crossing the threshold. Trump's campaign has given that ugliness a voice and a champion.

Earlier today, I had a somewhat tense conversation with someone. This person absolutely loathes Clinton because she's "liberal", doesn't outright support Trump and isn't voting for him (to my knowledge), but seems to have sympathy for and borderline-identify with "the deplorables". The conversation turned toward the Supreme Court, and this person was passionate that Clinton would appoint liberals and "we'll lose our rights". I asked which rights he was afraid of losing, and unable to pinpoint them, the conversation degenerated until we reached the true fears - losing the "right" to legally discriminate, an example being gays needing to stay in the closet. This person thinks Hillary will declare war on Christianity and the South. This person has been exposed to many actual facts on these issues (for instance, acknowledging that while science can't pinpoint the genesis of sexual preference, it has shown that it's considerably more than a "choice"), but seems to struggle to put those facts into application or see the damage that not doing so can and does cause.

I urged this person to think about what he was saying and the ugliness in it - likely to no avail. I left the conversation somewhat internally broken.

Aside from my regular career, I've done some work for WalMart as an HR representative in the last couple of years. I, being one of the few people in the facility certified to sell a firearm, sold probably 12-15 in my time there. With the notable exception of ONE, I repeat, ONE customer among those to whom I completed the sale and legal process, they were all completely, completely delusional. Delusional. They all believed they needed to buy a rifle before Obama could stop them. Literally. All of them. Each sale was an hour-long master-class in crazy talk. Super crazy. Biblical levels of crazy and paranoia. Obama. FEMA camps. Illuminati. Anti BlackLivesMatter stuff. You name it, I heard it. A couple of these people might fit the redneck stereotype, but the rest were otherwise everyday people. One looked at the pocketknife display case and asked, "Any of those good for killing Democrats?" He was joking, but was he? How sociopolitically crazy do you have to be to see the opposition as something less than human, their life as less valuable than your own? And if you can be so easily baited by your bigotry and cultural bias to believe such crazy and delusional things as you'll freely flaunt in front of me, what other delusional things have you been baited into believing?

And the thing is, no matter how stupid, how delusional, how crazy their beliefs, as long as they met the legal criteria, I had to sell them a gun. I, as a rational American, certainly don't feel more secure with them armed.

I also know a person, a gun owner, who's determined to buy something more powerful than what he already owns. Why? Because he believes if Hillary's elected there's gonna be a civil war. Maybe he's right. I haven't asked which side he'd be on.

I'm sorry, people, but this is effing deplorable.

I'm tired.