So…as a reminder, there is caffeine in chocolate. So if you’re going to make ice cream at home, consider this. I didn’t and here I am.

 
So guess what I’m thinking about. That’s right, space battles between Vikings and dragons. Nope, not nearly that creative.] Actually something less exciting: A lack of cynicism and a different perspective on the protests and indeed the new NeverTrumpers.

Here’s the thing, I’ve been trying to reign in the cynicism on the page because…well, frankly, it’s a lot less natural, and there are times what is -supposed- to be sarcastic and meant to make a point is actually kind of uppity and condescending. There are still moments like that where I’m thinking “should I keep it”, and I don’t.

So anyway, a few points from an unintentionally caffeinated mind.

Number 1: General Mattis is Secretary of Defense, a bald eagle probably screeches proudly every time that is brought up and there’s nothing more America than that sentence.

Now that’s out of the way, here’s something funny and strangely indicative of the funhouse mirror we now inhabit: the comments section is the home of rationality. You’ll remember we closed the evening with the video of protestors throwing water on the people attending the inaugural ball. Every single initial comment (screw the replies, that’s troll turf) was about how there are ways to redress grievances, but this is not it. Either there is a group that is actually sick of the petulance that has always been there or that group is just now starting to come around to the idea that maybe beating up an effigy of Trump or breaking windows might not be the best form of reasoned discourse. This is a good thing, and I’m hoping that this becomes the trend over the next four years.

That said, I maintain what I said about protests when BLM was leading the charge, protests without anything on the backing them up are useless and are growing more useless with each passing day. I’ve described this once in a conversation with my friend Zach as “sowing division and hoping unity comes from it.” Zach, by the way, was one of the few people from the other side of the isle to openly hope for unity, and is frankly the only reason I even consider it a remote possibility. That said, we have become increasingly relativistic and it seems now (at long last) have begun to switch to a less emotional, more reasoned form of discourse that will lead to objective truth.

And therein lies the problem. What we have here is, simply stated as an increased need for the truth, but a ridiculous difficulty in finding the truth through the information that is available from all sides. It is almost rational to shave the mainstreams (with their proclivity towards covering violence) and the sidestreams (with their proclivity towards spinning a story to push what they MUST know is a fringe yet profitable collection of passionate activists) and just live on experience alone. Experience however is purely anecdotal and doesn’t help anyone.

So here’s what I’m doing. I’m not covering these protests. I don’t care anymore. They’re violent, they’re insane, and if the public perception of these things continues as it has, there is a good chance Republicans can point to this and say “is THIS what you want deciding the direction of the country” and boom, Trump’s got years 5-8 to look forward to. Although that election does put him at age 74, so we’ll see where that goes.

There’s not going to be much of that here anymore. The fallout is just depressing at this point and, as we covered in “Reflection” yesterday, we reached the nadir of a major news outlet running a story on a terrorist attack that would put an Obama appointee in the White House, delivered in a “Oh please let this happen” manner. So we’re going to wait for major events, bill signing, appointments or whatever, and I’ll bring up what I can and hopefully we can have some discussion here.

That’s how this is going to go from now on. I don’t really have anything useful or a grander point to make, I’m awake at 2:15 on a Saturday and the mind’s going crazy. So I’ll close with three questions

What’re you afraid of
What’re you looking forward to?
And what, to you, is the way forward?

Eyes, minds and hearts open.
Evidence over emotion
Evil exists, prepare for it, fight it, defeat it

Good night.