Anyone scroll through Facebook this week?
It’s been a parade of, “How could this happen?? How could you do that?? You ruined us all!! You monsters!! I hate you!!”
The vitriol around people choosing Downey over Tide in an online poll has been crazy.
Unfortunately, so has the election fallout. Friends turning on friends. Colleagues turning on colleagues. Family members at each other’s throats. It’s been a full-blown donnybrook. The kind of thing usually reserved for Little League grudge matches between umpires and parents.
It’s reached a boiling point, and it’s up to all of us to stop it.
We’re not going to convince the other of the righteousness of our cause, and since the results are in the books, we’re not going to alter the outcome either. We need to live with it, and with each other.
The only thing that can heal us is laughter. It’s the pressure release valve that prevents this whole thing from exploding.
In the great tradition of the comedy roast, we need to have a self-deprecating sense of humor. Trump supporters need to laugh themselves off when called deplorables and embrace the stereotypes in a goofy, ridiculous way. Hillary supporters need to march on Starbucks when they get the wrong size cup of coffee and demand an end to the hate of under-poured java roasts.
We have to stop taking ourselves so seriously. We were friends before this whole thing happened. There were things we ribbed each other about. Our hair, our loser sports teams (guilty as charged), our preposterous collection of novelty ties, our weird catch phrases. An election shouldn’t change that. The ribbing and humor and light-hearted fare is what allowed the world to turn and made getting out of bed tolerable once before, and it’s the only thing that can save us now.
I implore you, fellow citizens, take some cheap shots at each other and at yourselves today that have nothing to do with politics. Only a vicious joke about a man’s belt size and a woman’s highlights can save our precious republic now.
