From Barbie-Pink Gloves to the Proud Boys and The Cult

Sitting at my computer I was racking my brain for a topic to write about when down the road came an 18-wheeler flatbed with six U-Boxes and a Donkey on top. The giant U-Haul rig parked directly across from my windows. And before I get any farther along I should explain to anyone who might be confused that the Donkey was the four wheeler kind, not the four legged kind. In other words a Donkey brand forklift was attached to the back of the rig extending the normal 72 feet length of an 18-wheeler out another 5-6 feet.

I've see moving vans and trucks of all sizes and descriptions parked across from my windows. It's one of the few downsides of having a main floor apartment near a building's entry door. But like many other things this can be a two-sided coin. It's an advantage to, say, a gossipy-type person who loves to see other people's possessions paraded by her windows or it could be a disadvantage to a person who likes the tranquil view of the woods on the other side of the road and green space that, on occasions, gets blocked by a wall of metal and rubber. 

I normally don't care what is loaded or unloaded outside my windows unless it's a person into an ambulance. But the driver of this particular rig caught and held my attention. She was a petite thing with a bouncing blonde ponytail and as she jumped down from the driver's seat and walked back to the Donkey she pulled on a pair of Barbie Pink work gloves that made me smile from ear to ear. And in no time at all she had that Donkey down on the ground and whipped it around to unload one of the U-Boxes. I held my breath thinking if she didn't turn her load just right she'd end up backing into my windows but my fear was short-lived. She was good---no, she was great at her job. She handled herself with the confidence of a tattooed, biker-bar bouncer and she parked that U-Box in the designated space with the ease and precision of a Victorian era maid setting a table for high tea. And like the Amazon drivers do after delivering a package to our mail room, she took a photo of her delivered U-Box, then she drove the Donkey back to its hookup brackets and straps and she was back on the road in less than six minutes from when she arrived.

It hit me that what I was seeing was the results of the second wave of the Feminism Movement that I was a part of back in '60s and '70s. We have equal opportunities for women in the labor force now that we didn't have back then, but not without getting some societal stretchmarks from people like The Proud Boys who feel they are being left behind or out-shined by women. That's an over simplification, of course, because the Proud Boys don't just hate women. They also hate transgenders, Muslims, immigrants and they are hardcore White Supremacists. Wouldn't it be nice if they died out for lack of breeding opportunities. I can't imagine a woman as capable and confident as my Barbie U-Haul Driver being attracted to a guy who spends his weekends playing soldier in the woods and planning for an Armageddon.

Still, social anthropologists who study hate groups like this say the danger is thinking that all hardcore racists are contained in these pocket groups that can be tracked. I, for one, have a hard time taking them seriously because their very name says they are proud that they haven't matured into fully functioning men---men who take responsibility for their own life choices instead of blaming go-getters like Ms Barbie Pink Gloves and so-called 'woke' people and others who don't look like them. In the meantime we forget that the Proud Boys have aunts, uncles, parents, grandparents and other family members who have the same agenda of hate, but they keep a low profile. They are quietly running for offices on school boards, in townships and counties all over the country. They might not wear labels like the Proud Boys or even think of themselves as racists, but they are also in this culture war, while those of us on the other side are blissfully and willfully ignoring them as if they are as insignificant as a fly bussing around a family picnic table.

According to a website that tracks the Proud Boys we should be afraid of them and their extended orbit if Trump gets re-elected. Even though the January Sixth Insurrection decentralized the group when many of their leaders ended up with long prison terms, Trump is now promising to pardon them all if he's re-elected. In other words he's blowing his dog whistle again for them to stand back and stand by. 

Because the Proud Boys are equal opportunists when it comes to hating others, their members belong to a wide variety of other, more targeted hate groups as well and that's one of the main factors that helped coordinate activities that resulted in our first Insurrection at the Capital. I say "first" because it will happen again if Trump doesn't win our next election. Maybe the mobs won't be as big or maybe they're bring bigger weapons or both. But hopefully, the powers that be will be ready this time. 

<Rant On> Those of us who value democracy cannot stay complacent. We cannot stay silent! We must do what we can, while we still can, to get people to tune into what is at stake with the coming election. All the gains we've made in Equal Opportunities for women and people of color in the last 50 years will be undermined if the Democrats lose. Not to mention reproductive freedom is at stake. All the strides we've made towards cleaning up the planet will be turned back, and Trump is promising to throw out the Affordable Health Care Act along with getting rid of the regulatory agencies that protect our water, food chain and medical supplies. His plans to round up immigrants is literally right out of the 1930's Nazi handbook.

Biden may have made mistakes but he's a moral man of honor who we can trust to surround himself with good people should he die in office. Where Trump is a man with no moral compass who the first time around surrounded himself with people who are now either sitting in prison or who have come out against ever letting Trump near the Oval Office again. The polls all say that these two men are running neck to neck and that means too many people are turning a blind eye to the dangers of another Trump term. So those of us who aren't under the spell of the Trump Cult need to step up to the plate and help them see we're on the Crazy Train headed toward Fascism. We do that by speaking up whenever we are given the opportunity. We can, we must be willing to have some uncomfortable conversations with the goal of helping our Democracy to survive. The world does not need another immoral dictator. <Rant Off> 

Until Next Wednesday.  ©