I had a passionate interest in following the world of politics around me until late last year, when in the month after November 8th I became one of those millions of Americans who had to take a sabbatical from it all. It was a tormenting month of reflection and renewal.
I re-discovered my abandoned Netflix account. I found my garden interesting again. I bought a car and learned to program some seriously funny comedy stations on my free (for a limited time) Sirius XM radio.
Then I took a peak at what leaders I respected were saying. I heard them tell me to carry on, to work on what I do best, and when “they” go low, as they surely have and will for the next four years, I am to go high.
It didn’t jive with what I had expected. No one I respected was giving up. My favorites — Rachel Maddow, Randi Rhodes, Stephanie Miller, Hillary Clinton … — they were all saying the same thing, which brings me to here, to this place, with you.
I’ll start with telling you what upset me so completely last year and, yes, the election was one of them but not the main cause of my strife. Like on September 11, 2001, when I believe the terrorists won, I believe that on November 8, 2016, the people I call the new ignorati won.
While I call them “new,” there’s nothing actually new about them. Ignorant people have been around forever. I call them new because, this time, they’re about to affect my life.
Who are “They?”
My brother once said to me way back in the 1980’s, “I know how to read,” and with a flip he added, “I choose not to.” So shocked was I that I filed it away in my brain, bringing it out from time to time for a laugh with my reading friends. But last year, that was no longer a joke.
What the 2016 election proved is that there is an outrageously large minority of Americans who are today just like my brother was in the 80’s. What little they read is fake news. The worst part, for the rest of us, is that this minority includes Donald Trump.
They are the people who don’t read … much. They are the ones who’ll tell me to “get over it” when I express my horror that a self-admitted sexual predator just got elected POTUS. They are the ones who accepted a media message that provided a false equivalency between presidential candidates. They are the ones who don’t believe I’m Hispanic, because I don’t act like “them.” (Yours truly, “the undercover Puerto Rican.” More on that in another post. Anyway…) They are the ones who are easily conned, and they are the ones not likely to read any of my posts because, well, they will “choose” the route of the new ignorati.
If you got this far, you are not the new ignorati because, seriously, “they” can’t get this far; however I hope you will help me find them. We need to reach them. How will be the subject for another day.
Related
2010 – The Ignorati Becoming the New Ruling Elite
2016 – Donald Trump Can’t Read
Darhlene.com 
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