Self-Made Idiocy

“We are not all equal. I worked very hard my entire life to get what I have. Most of the people I know have, too. I deserve where I am in life. I will not give up what I have earned so that someone who has not can feel ‘equal’. Nor will I assume their debt. I have had to pay my debt. I insist everyone else be held to the same standard.“

This quote, floating around on Facebook, indicates to me someone who is likely to think that Donald Trump has his shit together. It is an incomplete thought, echoing a familiar yet lazy self-interest and suspicion of anyone who might get what would be considered a handout.

Someone who proudly uses this quote as an example of “what they believe”– as if such belief indicates a true-blue American with “American” values– only tells me that they’ve likely ingested the Kool-Aid, bought the tired and short-sighted premise that immigrants and poor people are inherently lazy and even amoral.

And these true-blue Americans just know they’re right. Assumptions are made, no grace is given– “Those people are all gaming the system. They must be on the dole, with no plan for or intent of getting off of it.”

I can hear the tone of voice, the disgust, the self-righteous indignance. The ignorance is palpable. I think it’s the selfishness, the rash generalizing, the unwillingness to consider someone’s circumstances that bothers me the most.

I, of course, make my own generalizations, pass my own judgment on people who think they know so much about how some stranger’s life is going. This attitude is nothing more than a symptom of the MAGA mindset. It’s lazy in its own right. When I hear someone express it, I want to know if it’s what they actually believe. Or are they just parrots, having heard it somewhere and only too willing to repeat it?

What’s fair is fair, the thinking goes. We make our own way. Simple enough. Maybe that’s the problem, though– people want simple. People expect transactions– you get something, you give something. You don’t just take. What are they being taught, after all?

When I read something like the above quote, it has me wondering if there’s some selective remembering going on, as if all the critics have never needed a helping hand, can’t relate to being down on their luck.

“We are not all equal… I deserve where I am in life…” Really? No pause for self-reflection or gratitude? Just pure bootstraps, right?