To What Extent American? To What Extent Hungarian?
A few days ago, I went into one of my Hungarian moods, most likely from feeling extremely dissociated from the Scotch-Irish Confederates that seem to be making so much of the political news. My old friend Lynette commented that she felt I was mostly an American who just happened to think of himself as a Hungarian.
To be sure, if I stepped off the plane at Budapest’s Ferihegy Airport, I’m sure I would think of myself as mostly American, especially if I got a whiff of Hungary’s own Right Wing, the (un)worthy descendants of World War Two’s Arrow Cross, which bid fair to out-Gestapo the Gestapo.
I find it helps to think of myself as a Hungarian whenever I take a sustained look at America’s ugly politics. Think of it as a distancing maneuver. Here is the America of Donald Trump, Wayne La Pierre, Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, John Boehner, and the Tea Party—and there I am, off to the sidelines, with an expression on my face of having stepped into something particularly nasty and pungent. Me? I’m a Hungarian, folks: I had nothing to do with this stramash except, perhaps, to admit to having nothing to do with it.
Some people might say that instead of standing off to the side, I should be more directly active politically. Here’s where I must sadly shake my head and say, “Sorry, folks! I’m not really a people person.” I’m fully as capable of damning Progressives as I am of damning Tea Partiers, except that I hate the latter even more.
Some day, the last raggedy elements of the Confederate States of America will sink into the mire. I will probably no longer be around to celebrate. Besides, knowing American history as I do, I am sure it will be replaced by other tendencies equally repellent.
Tarnmoor 
Jim, there have been odious elements/groups in every society over every time. As some have pointed out, the political situation here isn’t as bad as it was in the 1850’s, with one group of people even more implacably opposed to another, if possible.
Part of the problem in these days is that every single comment made by every nutcase on either side of any political argument is available to the world virtually in the moment it’s uttered. Plus the media insists on covering any and everything in totally hyperbolic fashion, as if everything is another sign that the world is about to end.
And in the end, a lot of the idiotic statements and actions happening right now are a lot of theater, on both sides, and a lot of the people saying/doing those things know it. Maybe part of your problem is that you’re paying too much attention to it. The break-up of a political party, whether or not it’s one you like, is a very distressing thing to watch in the short term. It will continue to happen, though, whether or not you’re watching.
I suspect you are correct, Bill. To quote Yeats, “the best lack all conviction and the worst are full of passionate intensity.”
I think Confederate states are dead, but unfortunately, what is now present is myth–and that is even more difficult to get rid of than reality.
Well, I love the South, if not all the people now living there, or its appalling history of racism and apartheid. I like Southern literature, Southern musical roots, Southern food. Many Southerners are black (African-American, which takes longer to type), but not all blacks are Southerners. Not all Southerners are of Scotch-Irish descent. Floridians are Southerners, many are Hispanic or Cuban, or whatever. Many Louisianans are of French descent, or Arcadian. Let’s see….You are Hungarian, in the same way that I am Irish, except I have never visited Ireland.
Mostly, I think of myself as a Californian.
Jim, make a nice goulash, or chicken paprikosh, or whatever is your favorite ethnic Hungarian dish (I had some Hungarian crepes with almonds once that were the greatest crepes in the world) and forget about the American political scene entirely. It’s not worth thinking about. The right-wing propaganda is mostly fueled by fascist billionaires, who have their money in offshore accounts in the Cayman islands.
I probably spend too much energy on knee-jerk reactions to things that the running dogs of these fascist billionaires you mention say to the media. There’s a fresh crop of quotes today — requiring reading Ayn Rand’s ATLAS SHRUGGED to graduate from High School in Idaho, an Alabaman saying he gets his dictates on abortion straight from the Bible (“Thou shalt not abort”?), and Wayne La Pierre saying everyone over the age of two should own an AR-15.
I think it’s about time for me to retire from politics. I’ll still vote, of course, but I feel nothing but an attack of bile whenever I contemplate American right-wing conservatism.
HA HA HA Ha Ha…ha