Ranting On...Passing the Buck

There are few moments in my life I think about more than a conversation I overheard when I was about fourteen-years-old while on vacation in Orlando.  I had been given free reign of a ship that we were touring the Bahamas in (my life was not glamorous growing up, but this story's setting gives off that aura), and I was eavesdropping on the conversation of two people, a woman who was probably 50 and a man who was in his late 30's/early 40's (I was 14 at the time, so judging aging wasn't a strong suit, but this feels like a good guess in hindsight).  Suffice it to say, they were both sitting on a lido deck, watching the man's daughter, who couldn't have been much more than 7, play in the pool.  The woman and man, obviously strangers, were talking, and more specifically, complaining about the state of the world, and the woman said something I will never forget, "yeah, we've screwed up this world so much, she's going to have to fix it-our time is over, she's the future."

Even as perhaps the most obedient 14-year-old that you'll ever meet, I wanted to go up and start yelling in that woman's face, and decades later, that conversation and that attitude still fills me with rage.  I am a liberal by-trade, but perhaps the most overarching theme of my personal life philosophy is personal responsibility.  I am deeply regimented, and rarely (if ever) spend money I don't have or won't have in the immediate, presumed future.  I own all of my mistakes, and am very deliberate, and while I will occasionally (sometimes more than occasionally) complain about aspects of my life that I feel are unhappy or that I wish would be different, I admit that those things are my responsibility when they are obviously in my control.  It's no one's fault that I'm overweight but mine and perhaps a little bit Pizza Hut's, and my living room is messy because I chose to write this article instead.  Self-culpability is part of my nature, and even as a teenager was in my DNA.

So to hear this woman dismiss the problem's she (and her generation) caused onto someone else shot a white-hot rage into my bloodstream.  Partially this was because, while I was about 7-8 years older than this girl, I wasn't so much older than her than to realize that I was being grouped into the "fix our mess" conversation.  And also because, she was fifty, not ninety-why wasn't she doing something about fixing her own damn mess?  

This attitude, of pushing off problems onto the next generation is at the center of the tax bill that Republicans are likely to pass this week, but this permeation into society of doom, gloom, and dismissal of problems onto someone else radiates across the political spectrum.  Watching the GOP add a trillion dollars of debt via a tax cut during a robust economic climate is madness-when the economy is good, that's when you invest in social programs and paying down the debt through increased taxes on the higher earners.  That's basic economics.  That trillion dollars could go to ending our reliance on Chinese debt relief, making social security and Medicare solvent, fighting climate change, repairing our antiquated infrastructure...putting it in the hands of billionaires just means that they're going to stay rich and not spend it on fixing those problems, and that those problems will just get worse.  The Republican Party's lack of basic math skills is staggering here, and reeks of greed and pass-the-buck.  No person who votes for this bill gives a damn about children, and they're basically that woman sitting on a lido deck passing her problems onto some little girl while she enjoys a margarita.

But the pessimism is perhaps the thing that is getting to me the most in recent months.  Listen, I understand that reality is awful right now.  Trump has been a worse president than I could have imagined, quite frankly, and my expectations of him were so low I didn't think that was possible.  Perhaps more disheartening is that Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, and Jeff Sessions, men who should know better, have succumbed to his blinding greed and cruelty.  But perseverance and fighting for causes in the face of immense odds is how we got civil rights, women's suffrage, and gay marriage.  Fighting for your rights can be exhausting, but it's really the only option other than letting the bad guys win, and I am sick to death of so-called liberals waving the flag or just answering serious problems with snark rather than solutions and admitting that their antipathy or pessimism is part of the problem.

It's always a dangerous decision to bring up Bernie Sanders in my presence, but trying to make perfect liberals is part of the problem here.  Doug Jones' win in Alabama was a miracle, and one that should have been a foregone conclusion once the Roy Moore allegations came out (then again, if concrete and factually-provable allegations were grounds for a candidate's loss, Hillary Clinton would be president right now), but instead was a race where every vote mattered, every Democrat or moderate mattered.  Jones, however, is probably going to be a pretty moderate Democrat, more in-line with Claire McCaskill than Kamala Harris.  And yet his victory could mean the Democrats retake the Senate next year.  That's a big deal.  That's hope.

And yet you bring that up on social media like Twitter or increasingly in conversations, and it's dismissed.  It's as if everyone's decided that the world is going to burn, and there's nothing we can do about it.  We're all that woman on the lido deck, forcing the next generation to figure it out even though we have time, effort, and ability to do it ourselves if we truly wanted to do it.  Doug Jones proves that-a Democrat winning in the reddest state in the country means that Kyrsten Sinema, Jacky Rosen, Joe Donnelly, hell even someone like Jenny Wilson or Jane Raybould, could be reachable if we just care the most.  It may be "chic" or "hilarious" to pronounce "we're all gonna die" with a Wendy Williams gif, but it does nothing other than get you likes on Twitter.  You know what actually helps?  Voting, fundraising, and door-knocking.  Volunteering and reducing your carbon footprint.  Calling out a racist, sexist, transphobic, or homophobic remark.  Reading a damn book.  Not throwing away your entire cause because your preferred candidate didn't win and suddenly you can't tell the difference between someone who agreed with your candidate 90% of the time and one who agreed with your candidate 0% of the time. Not realizing that progress takes time, that it can't happen overnight, and that occasionally you have to settle for the middle for a bit before you can reach the top.  

Cynicism and pessimism are not things that I handle well in myself or other people, and I don't give up on things I care about or believe in.  My dating life has been a cosmic joke for 13 years, and I'll still inevitably be back on OKCupid come the new year.  I campaign for candidates I know are likely to lose because I know that the voters we find this cycle might build into a coalition that will get a candidate elected in the future.  If you actually believe in the things you espouse, you need to stop passing the buck to the next generation, and start tackling those problems now.  Great ideas would never be realized if your start-and-end point was "this can't be fixed."  Don't be that woman on the lido deck passing her problems on, glibly enjoying your luxury by making it harder for the little girl to get something similar.  Stand up and make the world a better place for the next generation, because if you caused the problem, you should fix it.