The more I watch this sometimes ugly presidential campaign unfold, the more I observe a growing voter segment of compulsive self-serving “hoarders” prone to packing away a sometimes hapless clutter of ideas, beliefs, and wants they consider absolute, including far too many that are outdated, uncaring, useless, and even counterproductive.
Don’t take away my stuff, they say. The more I have the better, my guns, my one true religion, my way of life spent only with people who look, sound, and believe as I do. Just pile it up over here. This is a scary world. I may need all this stuff someday.
Don’t take away my stuff. The more I have the better, my tax money all for myself unless it benefits me personally, my freedom to do as I wish without restraint for my own financial advantage, even if harms the health and well-being of innocent victims. Just stack it up over there. These are anxious times. I may need all this stuff someday.
Don’t take away my stuff. The more I have the better, my nostalgia for a perceived better past, my celebration of a greater generation slipping way, my memories of imagined happier days. Just leave it right where it is. This is a threatening period in our history. I may need all this stuff someday.
Don’t take away my stuff. The more I have the better, my preoccupation that all the good jobs have been unfairly poached by lesser nations, that might makes right, that the U.S. military on the ground and dropping bombs are the only effective foreign policy tools we have. Just heave it into the corner. These are troubling days. I may need all this stuff someday.
No wonder an intervention is called for, a cleanup and clean out if we expect America ever to regain its sanity. Finding comfort trapped in the repeatedly unworkable debris of the past is not healthy. It’s time to back up the truck. There is a wider world out there that is less scary than we think, waiting for exciting and innovative thinking — not presidential candidates catering to hoarders by peddling junk!