Oh, Peggy, You've Spoiled my Illusions.

In one phrase:

This is how I think normal people are experiencing what is happening:

Nay, how speak thee for the norms, now, Peg O My Heart, when "normal" never encompassed the like of such a Stupor Mundane as this?

It's like you live in a house that's falling apart. The roof needs to be patched and there are squirrels in the attic, a hornet's nest in the eaves. The basement's wet. The walkway to the front door is cracked with grass growing through it. The old boiler is making funny sounds. On top of that it's always on your mind that you could lose your job tomorrow and must live within strict confines so you can meet the mortgage and pay the electric bill. You can't keep the place up and you're equal parts anxious, ashamed and angry. And then one morning you look outside and see . . . all these people standing on your property, looking at you, making some mute demand.

 

Little children looking lost—no one's taking care of them. Older ones settling in the garage, or working a window to the cellar. You call the cops. At first they don't come. Then they come and shout through a bull horn and take some of the kids and put them in a shelter a few blocks away. But more kids keep coming! You call your alderman and he says there's nothing he can do. Then he says wait, we're going to pass a bill and get more money to handle the crisis. You ask, "Does that mean the kids will go home?" He says no, but it may make things feel more orderly. You call the local TV station and they come do a report on your stoop and then they're gone, because really, what can they do, and after a few days it's getting to be an old story.

There's squirrels, there's hornets, and then there are traumatized migrant children. Just waves of infestations happening to normal people and the kinds of neighborhoods they live in--will an exterminator do something to get them off your lawn? No, not at any conceivable price. Vexing, I'm sure.


Does this mean the president, a bad person, must have invited the infestation? Oh yes. Because bad things happen because bad people make them happen.  Is it likely that a president of the US doesn't actually want bad things to happen on his watch because it looks bad and is bad? Why no! Optics that make sense are only for people who matter, but bad president supporters (also known as liberals) want bad things because they are like that. Bad liberals make border crises happen to make the good Republicans pass immigration reforms that they don't want. A border crisis could not ever happen because of a screwed up immigration/border security situation that has never been remedied by Congress to begin with. That would be far too plausible--let's go with the crazy.

And that was when all illusion was dropped, and I realized Peggy Noonan was pretty much Alex Jones with pearls on. And mimosa-breath.