I’ve been rather torn-up, emotionally and intellectually, for a while now, because of political trends in my beloved USA. I like to think I’m a patriot, a believer in the Founders’ optimism of what a true meritocracy could accomplish, but the last decade has been insistent on making dents in that image. I’ve come to realize, with growing horror, that I seem to loathe a great swatch of my fellow Americans. And that’s neither healthy nor is it helpful, although it certainly helps in the lowbrow jokemaking.

This last week, since the Restoring Honor rally led by Glenn Beck, has been one of those times when I look around me and I wonder if I’m a different species than a large portion (or at least self-described large portion) of the nation. It’s been eating me up, angering me, intruding on my daily life (and not just through watching the media), and I’m trying to come to terms with it all.  Reading Intrepid Flame‘s recent blog posts has helped me a great deal, although I couldn’t even finish the embedded video of ralliers in this post, for reasons he mentions.

There’s a line from the tv show In Plain Sight, spoken by the show’s resident hard-talking misanthropist (and my hero), Mary, that my husband and I think suits me perfectly: “I love humanity; it’s people I can’t stand.” While this is funny on the surface, I don’t want to be a person who hates other people.

Going to work/school the other day, I realized that I extend far more goodwill toward my teenaged students than I do my fellow Tea Party American adults, and I pondered why that was. It’s because they’re kids; they’re learning, they’re seeking, they’re unfinished, and it’s my job to help them and see the good in them despite the sometimes stupid behavior. Others have remarked that I’m able to see the good side of just about any kid, and it’s true that I often get along with the kids that are difficult to, well, love, but I do.

So why can’t I do that with adults?  Why can’t I do that with people who not only follow, but admire, Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin and Jan Brewer and Dick Cheney? I mean, I even saw a couple good qualities–and spoke of this aloud–in George W. Bush (he knows Spanish and appears to be not as racist as many privileged white guys; he recovered from a substance abuse problem, which is hard to do; he appears to love his wife).

Why am I assuming that these adults that I can’t stand to be around, or view on a video, or read about, or acknowledge existence of, are finished baking? Are any of us? If we were, wouldn’t life cease to have a point?

I know, I know…most of them, just like me, myself, won’t be changing their politics, no matter how much logic and factual evidence is thrown their way, but there’s always a chance.  And even more importantly, I have a job that not only enables me but requires me to do my best to see that up and coming adults are better equipped to deal with logic and factual evidence, and critical thinking, so that they don’t make the same mistakes.  We live in a time of change and fear; we always do, of course, but the climate right now is, indeed, one of those changing more.  That leads to more stupid behavior, and the grabbing of supposed life rafts that seem solid but are, essentially, spun sugar (only in this case, filled with a gooey bigoted vitriolic center). Scared people have always been more likely to hang on the words of someone like Beck, for whatever reasons, and it’s no different now.

Fear and bigotry sells.  As I’m writing myself, here, hatred is easier than understanding.

So, as I try to remember that these people are scared and ill-equipped to deal with it (as elitist as that sounds as I’m also scared, but for different reasons), and try not to hate them so much (I’ll work on “love” later, as I’m a realist), I will also try to get my kids to make logic their friend, and to view all things from various perspectives before latching on.

And maybe I should stay away from the media a bit until my blood pressure returns to normal.