Old But Still Pissed

But First... After the 2020 election, the first thing every Democrat should do, after expelling a sigh of relief, is to get scared all over again. 73 million American people and counting voted for Trump, despite a pandemic running wild, widespread economic hardship and 22,000 (and counting) documented lies to the American people. While this is unconscionable to the rest of the country, it is a fact.  Abraham Lincoln said, "A house divided against itself cannot stand" and I believe this is also a fact. Our country will never be anything more than the dysfunctional mess it is today unless and until the two Americas find common ground and start the reconciliation process.  We don't have to agree on everything, but we can't continue with the tribal mentality that has resulted in our hating each other more than we like our own leaders. We need to start talking to, rather than yelling at, each other. To get this started, it's going to take the more clear-headed and prag...

Starting Somewhere Steve Crane In 2015, I travelled throughout the midwestern and southern parts of the United States for business. My work buddy Matt and I did a lot of driving and the hours piled up until the conversations started getting abstract. I somehow bet him dinner that I could get any person sitting in the next bar to agree with my political opinions.    If you know me, you know that I am an older version of a stereotypical Southern California, punk rock beach type. While I can’t hear it, I am told that I speak with a type of “dude” accent – not completely Spiccoli-like, but in that vein. Makes sense as my tribe was the genesis of that character. I generally live in a t-shirt, shorts and flip flops; which I wasn’t wearing on this trip because it was snowing most of the time. But you get it.   During this period, we were driving around some of the most conservative areas of the country – Arizona, Texas, Iowa, Ohio, North Carolina. To say that we were immediately...