D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
February
2009
Winds of Change
Change Lightcap isn't sure he can believe in — but he's hoping for the best, nonetheless.
I know it's still the dead of winter here in the Land of Enchantment, but I can't seem to keep the chill off my skin lately. I just can't pull my greasy old denim jacket around me any tighter without risking a wardrobe malfunction. This isn't any meteorological phenomena that I am combating, however, but rather an ideological one. It ain't the chill of Jack Frost I am experiencing, but rather the chill of a new political reality that's sweeping the land like a blizzard of self-righteous snowflakes. It doesn't take a weather man to know which way the wind blows, and it's getting to be hard times for a good conservative.
Truth be told, I didn't know I was categorized until the last year or so. What I thought of as just good old-fashioned common sense has been reclassified as "bad policy." There isn't really any political intrigue and aren't any policy decisions to be made when there's generally just two approaches to take: the right way or the wrong way. For example, if a coyote is harassing the chickens, it needs to have some holes punched in it. If a saddle bum isn't pulling his weight, he doesn't get cornbread and beans at night. Growing up, there were never any political discussions at the dinner table because we all understood how things are supposed to work. The American Dream is built upon three simple ideas: God, guns and guts. Praise the Lord and pass the pancakes.
But that smirking old saddle tramp from Crawford, Texas, went and messed things up pretty good. Even though I voted for "W" — twice — he demonstrated all the intellectual cunning of a bag full of hammers, and left me with the exact same feeling a man gets when his wife goes with his friend to get a six-pack at the QuickSak, and they get back an hour later. Kinda "ewww." He couldn't have left a bigger mess in the Oval Office if he'd abandoned a box of hyperactive wolverines with crack pipes stapled to their lips.
Times change, which is why I have come to accept some things about myself. I know that my fashion sense isn't exactly up to Tommy Pullmyfinger standards, and that nobody really listens to Merle Haggard any more. As slow as I am to change my ways, it's even harder for me to change my politics. In my circle of unwashed friends, we still wax rhapsodic over an actual death penalty, eschew superfluous government involvement, and would really rather not pay taxes. At all. Ever.
This kind of attitude generally gets me an upturned nose and a scornful glance askance at the local Bohemian coffeeshops, but that might have to do with the fact that I always confuse the waiter by asking for plain black coffee. (I thought a barista was just a Nicaraguan freedom fighter, but they're a latte more than that.) Of course, it could be the way my head shakes and I smirk when I see unemployed hippies lying around, drinking overly complex caffeinated drinks and talking about Proust and poverty and politics.
Due to the shenanigans of the Republican Party, however, conservatives are now only slightly less reviled than child pornographers or asbestos. My own sainted parents, who molded me into the fine upstanding citizen that I am today, broke ranks in the recent elections in a pique of anger against incompetent foreign policy, a bad economy and a president who cannot pronounce the word "nuclear."
I am not unfamiliar with the concept of "transfer of power." When I had children, I surrendered all power of the remote control and vacation destinations. As far as politics go, I have seen both conservative and liberal political fashions come and go, without much discernible difference between the two. Regardless of one's political bent, we all get a turn. In the halcyon days of Saint Reagan, conservatives were gods among men, and set the course for a new morning in America. Liberals were forced into dank, dark opium dens and unlit public housing, unable to show their faces in the glaring light of the Gipper's day. When Willie C. was elected in, we conservatives had to grumble and hold a civil tongue, our popularity on the wane. Ups and downs, highs and lows.
Back to that chill wind that I mentioned earlier: Things feel different this time around. The previous occupant at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. has screwed the pooch so completely that the conservative brand is worth less than CitiCorp stock, and to speak out against all this rampant hope and audacity evokes cries of ignorance, zealotry and/or racism. One wild-eyed youngster with granola breath even called me a "redneck," which confused me as my neck is indeed rather red, which is still a positive attribute in my neighborhood.
Although I never really aligned myself with a particular political party, I do tend to call myself a conservative, which means that I am now on the new-and-improved Homeland Security watch list. Emboldened by our new reality, the coffeehouse hippies no longer feel the need to restrain their comments to me. I am worried that I will soon have my ear tagged, a number serialized on my arm, and an invitation to a re-education compound somewhere in North Dakota.
I love my country, and I wish nothing but the best for Mr. Obama and his supporters. After all, if he fails, we all fail, and that would be a bad thing. I did not vote for the man, but I support him. I will just have to learn to pull my hat down lower, turn my back to the wind and flip up my collar, waiting for the next political season to warm my bones.
Henry Lightcap is lying low in Las Cruces.