Myself, I’m proud to live in the state of Illinois. A hardworking, mind-your-own business kind of place. We wake up, do our various things, whatever they are, whether parking cars or assembling them, without constantly looking over our shoulders, worried about what everybody else is doing.
Which brings us to other parts of the country, not as far along the Noble Eightfold Path as Illinois. Places to the south and west that seem a permanent carnival of anxiety over anyone unlike themselves.
From a distance, it can seem simply nuts. Places like Florida, where they passed a law designed to gag school teachers from discussing sexual orientation, because parents are so good at that. The Walt Disney Co., burned by the backlash to the $250,000 it donated to backers of the bill, cleared its throat, raised an index finger and quietly objected. Setting Gov. Ron DeSantis on a mad, endless vendetta against Disney — using the full power of the state to punish the Magic Kingdom, Florida’s largest employer, which is now suing in federal court, trying to make them stop. You’ve probably read about it.
The Bud Light tempest is even weirder. Every beer company has an endless amount of promotions and sponsorships. Hundreds — minor league ball teams, stock cars, barn dances, you name it. But let Bud send one custom can to one trans influencer, a certain Dylan Mulvaney, and red states have mounted one of the rare boycotts that actually works — sales of Bud Light are down 17%.
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"here are these supposed Southern tough guys who have so little faith in their own children’s ability to navigate a complicated world filled with other people that they try to put blinders on them and everybody else and jam the law books with prohibitions of every book or whisper that there are lives other than their own."
ReplyDeleteI'm one of the lucky souls who live in Illinois, where reality isn't distorted by ideological madness. But I live right across the river from Missouri, where the loons control the levers of government to great and bigoted effect. Those of us in Illinois must count our blessings.
It's not just south and west, it's to the east as well.You are probably aware, Mr. S, of the many shenanigans in benighted Ohio (North Missitucky), which is going down the same sad road as Indiana (West Missitucky). We are not there yet, but we're well on the way to catching up to the land of Mikey Sixpence. When I moved to Cleveland, almost 31 years ago, Ohio still had a few patches of blue. Now there are just blue island cities in a vast, dark, GOP (Guns Over People) Red Sea.
ReplyDeleteOver the last three decades, Ohio gradually became a purple state, then a red one, and finally Ahia...a deep red one. In too many ways, we're now the northernmost southern state. Trump by eight points...TWICE. I didn't mind living here at first...not nearly the way I do now. The winters have always sucked, but now our politics do, too. Physically and geographically, Ahia is, as always, a green and beautiful state--its people, not so much.
I've resigned myself to the fact that I will live out my final days here, and that my ashes will remain here. I don't miss Chicago as much as I miss the vanished Chicago that I lived in for almost half my life. That Chicago, like the America I grew up in, is long gone.
I'm so sick of boycotts, when I'm told not to buy something, I want to buy it. So last week, I bought a case of Bud Light.
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