One of the benefits of living overseas and detaching yourself from traditional social media such as FB and Instagram is that when something "big" happens in the USA like a bunch of people descending on the Capitol building and making asses of themselves in an ill-fated attempt to show that they "can take over the country" (you can't) is that I didn't even know about it until nearly a day after it happened.
I do not watch the news despite the fact that Fox and CNN are part of our building's cable and I only use messenger aspects of FB because well, a lot of my pals refuse to convert to other, more secure, and better messengers. All of my social media is provided by this network and 9gag. When I saw the pictures of the guys dressed like Vikings or whatever storming the capitol it was on 9gag and I figured it was a joke.
It wasn't until later yesterday evening that I found out that it really happened and a few things went through my mind.
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For one thing I was thinking that if these people wanted to prove a point they definitely shouldn't have resorted to this sort of activity. I feel as though the protest was probably a lot more effective if they had kept it in the streets, kept it peaceful, and just let their numbers speak for themselves. In the past, the protests that were done by the other side were the violent ones and the one thing that the conservative side had going for them was the fact that they didn't break stuff or raid buildings. Even though the media tried as hard as they could to portray them and violent thugs, it was pretty easy to see that it wasn't really like that, until now.
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I mean honestly, what exactly are you hoping to accomplish with this? It is one thing for the idiots over in Portland to take over a city block in a city that is on their political side already, but to storm what can likely be considered the most important government building in the USA and "take over?" Did you really think that anyone was going to allow this to stay that way? Did you really think they were just going to let you hang out there and take over for a while?
I suppose if there is one thing I can say for these guys that is kind of good (I guess) it is that they didn't destroy any of the priceless stuff in there because what a tragedy that would be.
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Another thing that passed through my mind and I am not trying to say that this is what happened but it wouldn't surprise me if it was the case that the people who "initiated the friction" were actually not conservative Trump supporters at all but rather were agitators from the "other side." I am not suggesting this is what happened and when these people are arrested - which I hope they are - that information will likely come out. We'll wait and see but I for one am not going to be glue to the TV screen to find out because I have zero faith in the media anyway. I would much rather find out from BitChute and the comments section of 9gag than from a major news network, even if some conspiracy theory stuff gets thrown in there as well.
The last thing in my mind is that I think it wouldn't be a terrible thing if the USA were to split into two different countries but of course it is really easy for me to have this opinion since I don't live there and have no intention of ever doing so again. Most of my family has elected to not live in the USA and this decision was made long before the two political parties split into the deeply polarized groups they are now. We made this choice for economic reasons and also because we are lucky enough to have positioned ourselves in careers that enable us to live wherever we want and work remotely.
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The point of all of this is that if someone hadn't mentioned it two days ago at our post-bowling meeting I wouldn't have even known that any of this happened. I will admit that I wanted Trump to win but not because I necessarily like him but because I really enjoyed how he stuck it to the corrupt media... at the end of the day I have been of voting age since the first time "W" ran for president and during all of those years since I have seen next to nothing change in my or my family's lives during all of their administrations. "Same shit different asshole" comes to mind and no, I am not interested in hearing how great "your guy" made things because I don't think that is the case and it certainly hasn't seemed that way for me.
Of course I haven't lived in USA since 2004 and that could be a big part of the reason why I feel that way.
No matter what happens from here I hope that people can calm the eff down and stop wrecking stuff and I also hope that some serious reforms happen as far as the voting procedures are concerned. Joe Biden isn't going to change anything either - no matter how much the Trump haters want to believe that he will it is going to be the same ol' same ol' and in 4 years I can all but guarantee that we will have yet another "lessor of two evils" election all over again.
In the meantime I will continue to live my life and look after my dog, who just got a brand new squeak toy today and is currently sleeping next to it. This is what is important in my life and I am perfectly happy for it to remain that way.
