For years now, every week I take the trash to the bottom of the driveway my mind begins performing complex combinations and permutations of “if” I’ve set my garbage out correctly for the garbage man. And, more times than not lately, I’ve guessed incorrectly. I lug the uncollected refuse back to the garage turning over and over in my fuming head what I might possibly have done wrong. How did trash pickup become more convoluted than string theory? In fact, it has nothing to do with logic, norms, or guidelines. I’m convinced the garbage man simply decides what trash he deigns to collect and what trash he decides to leave behind.

It serves as the perfect metaphor for America today, where the uneducated run the country, where a president with an eighth grade vocabulary who doesn’t read, speaks for the uneducated white population, the evangelicals (figure that one out), and the boat owning Ayn Randians, where a self-serving millionaire/billionaire is elected to speak for those who went to the “college of hard knocks.” Libertarians unite! Even if he destroys the system you claim you don’t need while you continue to cash the checks.

The bible states, “Blessed are the meek; For they shall inherit the earth.” Somewhere that was bastardized to “the ignorant shall run things now.” Science and logic, facts and reason are passe’. “Manliness”, racism, and “coal rolling” pickup trucks now pass for civilization, and masks are an infringement on individual rights rather than a collective attempt to control a deadly virus. Make America great again, circa 1850.

I’m tired of seeing it play out all day, every day. Every damn day. I’m exhausted. I’m accused of stereotyping people. Guilty. I’m accused of being intolerant of ignorance. I’m not intolerant of ignorance. I’m intolerant of those who choose to remain ignorant but claim knowledge. They’ve built a castle atop Mount Stupid on the Dunning Kruger effect graph from which they now draw pithy conclusions and make the rules. I’m exhausted. Publius has withdrawn and been replaced with Karen.

Election Day is seen by many like me as an opportunity to clean house and take out the trash. Unfortunately, I have no idea if the garbage man will pick it up.