Cheap Seats 2022 By Rich Trzupek

Real Real Gone - 08/24

By Rich Trzupek
  The title of this week’s screed refers to the name of my favorite song performed by my favorite artist, Van Morrison. “Real Real Gone” is a brass-filled celebration of how it feels to fall in love. Check it out.
  Unfortunately, the phrase “real real gone” is also an apt description of the mindset of many of our friends on the left side of the political spectrum. There’s nothing pleasant about coming to grips with the idea that people who disagree with you have gone over the edge, becoming “real real gone,” but it’s happening and we need to be honest about it.
  I cast no stones in the direction of those who have been taken in by the leftist cabal of big media, big tech and big academia. Their unholy alliance has sucked in many a good and trusting person. My enemy, and the enemy of those of you who are like minded, should not be the people who swallow the propaganda, but those who generate it.
  The desperation on the left is palpable as the mid-terms approach. They use tactics that the Austrian fellow with the silly mustache employed to great effect. Hitler’s rise to power depended on demonizing the opposition. If you opposed the Nazi party in the early 1930s, you were branded a communist. There was no discussion. If you weren’t on the Nazi bus, you were off it and therefore an enemy and an extremist.
  Today, the term “right wing extremist” is tossed about routinely by the left. If you are one of over seventy million American who voted for Donald Trump in 2020 and would dare to vote for him again in 2024, then you must either adopt leftist good-think or be branded a “far right extremist” forevermore.
  If supporting Orangeman was the only test, one might be inclined to hold one’s nose and move on. But, of course, it’s not just about the Donald. I’m old enough to remember both Reagan Derangement Syndrome and Bush Derangement Syndrome. Neither can hold a candle to the wholesale insanity of Trump Derangement Syndrome. It’s mind-boggling.
  So what makes you a “right wing extremist” these days, besides liking Orangeman? I don’t think my esteemed publisher can afford the ink to list all of the qualifiers, but let’s take a whack at a few:
  - You believe, just as the Democrat candidate for President in 2008 professed to believe, that marriage involves a union between a man and woman. You do not condemn or wish to prohibit same sex cohabitation and relations, but you don’t believe that such relationships rise to the standard of “marriage.”
  - You believe that persons who are born with a penis are boys who will grow up to be men and persons born with a uterus are girls who will grow up to be women, absent surgical and/or psychological intervention.
  - You believe that human life starts at conception and therefore should be protected.
  - You choose to live your life color-blind, rather than accepting the antiquated idea that we ought all be color-minded at all times.
  - You believe that the Second Amendment guarantees your right to bear arms and that people who legally purchase and maintain firearms are not a substantial threat to the health and welfare of the nation. You can say this, despite all the left-wing hype, knowing that over 99 percent of all murders involving firearms are committed by people who obtained the weapon illegally.
  - You believe that defunding the police and getting rid of cash bail is stark, raving lunacy.
  - You wish George Soros would take up a new hobby.
  - You can acknowledge that the current President of the United States was declared lawful winner of the 2020 election, but given the fact that effective head of the Democrat Party is a veteran of Chicago politics and knowing how a striking percentage of dead people tend to vote Democrat in Chicago elections, you have lingering doubts about how those votes were actually counted.
  Now I get my fair share of what we call “hate mail,” although I prefer to think of it as “opposition mail,” because the word “hate” has lost all meaning in our hyper-sensitive society. Readers who disagree, with few exceptions, lace their correspondence with personal insults. And that’s fine. If you put yourself out in the public space, even for a suburban weekly, then you knowingly become a target.
  I mention this as part of a final point. People from the left can, and do, routinely send me the most vile, angry notes. I have never felt personally threatened by the words these correspondents choose. They’re just letting off steam. But, when somebody on the right says something even mildly mean about leaders on the left – calling the current occupant of the White House “President Dementia” springs to mind – then so many on the left lose their minds and start talking about “inciting violence” and how we are closer than ever to Civil War.
  Chill out guys. The vast majority of us don’t hate you and we don’t think you’re evil. Nor do we want a Civil War (although I’m pretty sure that side with the most guns typically win such contests). (I can’t help myself). (Sorry). Seriously, we don’t hate you. We simply think you’re wrong.
  Period.
  Email: richtrzupek@gmail.com