Friday, October 9, 2020

Redneck High School

                                                                   A classmate against the wearing of masks for Covid, and an ardent supporter of Trump


 I've never gone to a high school reunion.

Maybe this is a good thing, because since I befriended several classmates on Facebook about 10 years ago, it has astonished me the conservative vs. liberal rate among my Generation X [1986] classmates. I would say the conservative rate runs at about 85%-95%. I've watched with horror as my classmates grew far more fundamentalist--mini mega churches with canned rock music and blue lyric screens, have popped up around my old Midwestern teenage town like mushrooms. The vast majority are now enamored with Trump beyond anything that is healthy.

The cult got them. Generation X usually has more liberals in it. So what happened? At the age of 13, I was moved to a backwater medium sized town not known for liberalness and open minds. I remember crying over being moved to a "hick town", those early teenage feelings were correct.

A few of the gay kids escaped to big cities and this one classmate with a far higher IQ than mine who could pick up Spanish with ease escaped to Mexico to be a college professor and is a Marxist. One smart guy who had a fondness for me despite my outcast status and his being the Homecoming King of our class, became a civil liberties based libertarian, I can deal with him. He at least has the intellect to support basic freedom over fascism and see through Trump's antics.

The folks above however are rare exceptions among the whole. I am tempted to ask the Mexican college professor,  if our past classmates fill her with horror, but she was far more popular than me and may not have a good attitude towards my dark opinions of her past friends.

My classmates seem to love owning pitbulls too. Something I can't seem to figure out. One became a United Methodist minister who is nice but seems to have David Ramsey attitudes towards the poor people she serves in a homeless shelter. I attempted a few messages towards her to tell how the world of poverty really works, but didn't get anywhere. Many became far more dedicated Christian fundamentalists than I ever could claim to be but they embraced Republican politics and Trump with gusto. I would say the number of active evangelicals is at around 70% with a few religious moderates/mainliners who are still Christians in the mix.

Many are actually quite well off, which belies the view that Trump's followers are all impoverished though there's a few lower working class types who have held factory jobs for the past 30 years. All the shop kids grew up to be Trumpsters too, one blocked me for being a liberal.

It's weird to be over 50 and think, "Damn so wonder I never fit in that place!" I knew as my wizened World War II veteran teachers, told me to vote for Reagan and one used racist slurs like "wetbacks" in the classroom, that the seeds of brainwashing started early for my all white high school back in the 1980s. I sometimes look back at horror at the things I was taught in that place, especially the level of narcissism and "winners" take all attitudes. One can see this in my classmates. There is this hardness among some of them, where all the talk of "reaching the stars" at all costs in the 1980s must have had their affect.

My political outspokenness wasn't appreciated. I got unfriended and blocked by a few old classmates and unfriended and blocked a few myself this week.  The old high school Homecoming King, of the class in the year before mine, came on and told me off, as well for supporting the use of masks. One wonders at times what has happened to the world. The ones I am "friends" with on Facebook all know I am very high risk, but that didn't change their views.

I definitely won't be showing up to any high school reunions now.


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