‘The Numbers Don’t Add Up’ Problem
On Colbert, Trump and the slippery slope that is leading us to the apocalypse
Oh, for Chrissakes.
Living through this time is about having to explain many things that you thought didn’t need explaining and having to defend many things you don’t particularly want to defend. I’m sick of disagreeing with arguments that aren’t even being made in open daylight but just floated out there in background whispers, echoed by eager sycophants, of which there is never any shortage.
If these were normal times, maybe we wouldn’t have to do any of that. But it isn’t. So, I’m really sorry, but chalking the firing of Stephen Colbert up to the suggestion that “the numbers just don’t add up” isn’t adequate in the face of catastrophe.
If you think I’m being alarmist about the looming “catastrophe” — getting all worked up about what’s just run-of-the-mill political hardball — all I can say is that I envy your equanimity. Until a very few years ago, I felt that way about every alarm bell of imminent doom people on either side of the aisle pulled, and I miss that feeling.
Although I suspect more than people who roll their eyes and guffaw at hysterics about the “catastrophe” are actually rooting for the catastrophe and see nothing wrong with all the potential authoritarian guardrail-busting.
No matter how you want to wrap it up, if you feel at the end of the day that the times we’re living in are the same as any others, the stakes no more or less, just things have gotten more obnoxious — well, then, this isn’t the column for you. What follows is premised on the idea that these are abnormal times. So if we don’t see eye to eye on that, come back next week and, hopefully, I’ll have something to write about that isn’t armageddon or the end of the republic but just like, “Movie theater preshows should be shorter!” (They should, btw.)
Anyway, back to the point here.