Toleration is when one allows, permits, or accepts an action, idea, object, or person that one dislikes or disagrees with.
In my mind, the ability to be tolerant is a super power. Being tolerant — especially under trying circumstances — is key to our survival as a species. It may be the linchpin. You know what happens when linchpins are pulled. Trailers careen into the ditch. Grenades explode. Railcars run amok.
I can’t pin down the tipping point for Americans but we sure have grown less tolerant since the turn of the century.
Maybe it was the Brooks Brothers Riot followed by the Supreme Court selling their allegiance — along with their votes — to the highest bidder, which ushered in the smirking chimp as our 43rd president?
Maybe it was the honorable Colin Powell’s shameless show and tell at the United Nations where he emasculated himself for all time in order to lie for Defense contractors like Halliburton and launch a war against a country populated with non-white citizens?
Maybe it was when we carpet-bombed and then invaded the very same nation even though the perpetrators of September 11th were almost all Saudi nationals?
Maybe it happened when our State Department decided torture was legitimate intelligence gathering?
Maybe it was when some no-name congressman from Bumfuckville, SC shouted “You lie!” at our first Black president when he was addressing Congress in regards to the Affordable Care Act? You know the health plan also known as Obamacare that everyone loathed as Obamacare but when it came to the ACA they’d tell pollsters you’d have to pry it from their cold, dead hands?
I’m no historian but these little American vignettes — along with dozens of others — are seared into my psyche.
I worry too many of us are too young to comprehend what we’ve lost. And still have to lose. I worry too many of us are too indifferent because we’ve convinced ourselves politics does not affect us. Even though it does every single day. I worry too many of us are too weary to carry the fight forward. Too tired to continue speaking out.
The cultural whiplash we have endured is real. From Clinton to Bush to Obama to [REDACTED] to Biden. With Obama we thought we’d achieved political nirvana. People who had never wept over presidential elections wept. The catharsis was real. Americans had, finally, or so it seemed, embraced a Black man. And not just any Black man — an attractive, well-spoken orator.
But for every ten of us who wept, there was one who went out and bought more weapons and unleashed their anger online. There were those who bonded together online over their fear of ‘the other’.
Then, with the ‘antichrist’ we elected after Obama, toleration was a thing of the past.
I once considered presidential hopeful, and senator from one of the most politically wacky states in the Union, John McCain to be honorable, yet a buffoon, because somehow he allowed an incompetent, airhead from Alaska — Sarah Palin — to become his running mate. Any respect I had for John McCain was shown the door when he introduced what was — at the time (since eclipsed by a bevy of political bamboozlers) — the least qualified candidate to ever walk in the shadow of a potential president.
But do you remember when he confronted one of his racist constituents (sometimes referred to as the Republican base) at a rally? Remember his response? You need to because it was one of the last tolerant responses you will ever hear from the conservative right.
His response left a bad taste in the mouths of Arab-Americans because he seems to leave hanging whether he believes Arabs can be decent human beings, as well as American citizens.
Even so, it is clear he meant to show tolerance.
And he certainly meant to dial down the anger and show respect.
However, the lesson politicians on the Right learned from this exchange is that you need to double-down in your meanness, encourage intolerance, and never apologize or say you were wrong. The lesson they learned was ‘no low was too low’.
Eight years later, the carnival barker some Americans chose as the 45th president would regularly exhort his increasingly agitated supporters at his rallies to rough someone up. From his podium he would promise to pay their fines, bail and court expenses. All of this following the musical warm up where the venue’s speakers would blast Village People’s Y.M.C.A. and Queen’s We Are the Champions.
The irony — I assure you — was lost on everyone who ever attended one of those pep rallies for the breeding of fascism.
It’s as if the culture of zero tolerance which we have embraced for our laws and school policies has bled over into our daily lives. Those of us on the other end of the spectrum have also been struggling with being tolerant. The apocryphal tale of a waitress refusing to bring a glass of Chardonnay to a young pregnant woman believing she was doing the woman and her fetus a favor ticked all the boxes for a socialist-scold-in-training.
A rash of Karens falling all along the political spectrum have found themselves the stars of unwanted viral videos policing all kinds of acts and behaviors. Of course, the Ken and Karen Of All Time were these two intolerant jackanapes:
Video Courtesy of Dan Shular via Storyful
And, just in case you’ve heard otherwise about Patricia and Mark McCloskey, they are NOT Democrats, they contributed money to the former guy’s campaign and this incident was not the first time they had threatened someone with their weaponry. In fact, three dozen members of their private neighborhood signed a petition admonishing their intolerant, gun-toting behavior.
After pleading guilty to something along the lines of reckless endangerment for brandishing their weapons at protesters who were “trespassing” on a disputed piece of property, which the wealthy community of Portland Place believes to be a part of their Commons, they had to relinquish their guns.
So, Mark ran for Senate in 2022, bu lost in the Republican primary. Wah wah wah. He’ll have to go back to chasing ambulances.
Bless their intolerant pea-picking little hearts.
I’ve been reading and following Dave Barry of the Miami Herald for decades. I have a framed copy of one of his columns where he actually referenced me because I had suggested he write about this video I had stumbled across made just for dogs. From a dog’s perspective. I invited him to come out West and go rafting with me. He sent back a postcard that cut right to the chase — “Hey, James. Thanks but no thanks. Dave Barry, Poor Swimmer”.
Dave Barry can get me to laugh uncontrollably at times. Here’s his end of the year review for 2023. Spot on as always.
Also, here is a movie I am really looking forward to:
Cheers!