ASSERTIVENESS

     A white male with political or economic stature is expected to be assertive, it is considered a desirable trait. A black man, or woman of any color, with political or economic stature is accused of being a tyrant, in the first instance, or pushy in the second, if they assert their stature. Sometimes "uppity" is used but that has fallen out of favor. Assertiveness in that instance is considered an undesirable characteristic, or so asserts the white males. The presidency of the United States is supposed to be held by a statesman or diplmat who, while asserting his/her stature, must be seen as thoughtful and reasoned. The election of 2008 gave us our first non-white male president. He was thoughtful and reasoned, a gifted diplomat whose assertions were a model of statesmanship. The aggrieved white males whose candidacies were handily rejected could not tolerate this interloper on their rightful domain. "Right" in this instance can have dual meanings. He was a (gasp) black man who had moved his attractive and morally upright family into their Whitehouse. A house previously only occupied by whites. His desirable traits were a tyranny and he was a tyrant, they asserted. The people who made these assertions may have known the historical definition of tyrant, but the people who heard these assertions, and parroted them to their sycophantic cohorts, did not.

     In 2016 a white woman sought the presidency. She was an ambitious female (ambition being a virtue for males) who had been active from a young age in racial and sexual justice. White males, who felt it necessary to defend the province of whiteness before, felt it necessary to now defend the province of maleness. They found numerous ways to assert her unsuitability without exposing their male priviledge. They lost no time labeling her as "pushy", and tarnished her reputation with lies, half-truths, and innuendo. They were aided by Russian oligarchs who had an interest in electing her competitor. She did not become president of the United States. The white male who won, had no qualifications for the job to which he was elected . He had no interest in learning them. He was bombastic, and his assertions were often unbalanced and preposterous. The distinction between bombast and assertiveness is not well understood by the aggrieved white males in his party. The Russian tyrant who assisted them does not tolerate those who assail his assertions. Political opponents of the Russian tyrant tend to live a short and tragic life. Political opponents of the president's party tend to have short political careers, which is at least more humane. Consequently, this did not bother the aggrieved white males who elected our president, nor were they bothered by his other disqualifications or his unbalanced assertions. To our great relief we were only stuck with this president for one term, but his presence will stain the history books forever with his undesirable traits.

     The election of 2020 saw a new president elected. The president who was not reelected and his party could not steal the election in the ways that they had previously been used to using. In addition, the new presidents party had added two Senators to their number which changed the leadership of the Senate and allowed the Vice President to break any tie votes. The new president had been the Vice-president for the first black president and once more had a more thoughtful and reasoned approach to the job. He also had a long history of honorable public service. His vice-president had two undesirable traits, she was of a color not approved by the losing party, and she was female. She was also capable of a deft reposte to critics from the other party. We know how pushy that made her in their eyes.

     Not being able to assail the new presidents diplomatic skills or statesmanship, they sought to label him as having dimentia, and at the same time to have the mental agility to steal the election they failed to steal. This led to the aggrieved white males taking their grievances to Washingto DC on Jan. 6, 2021. Instead of expressing those grievences in diplomatic ways, as had previously been the case, they tried the novel approach of violent insurrection. The aggrieved party were not, apparently, moved to contrition. They are now threatening to use parliamentary moves that have been used in the past to support legislation preserving white supremacy. The future is now in the balance. What we have so far is a cabinet and political appointees that is drawn from a diverse cross-section of society including cultural and sexually diverse cultures, even sexual orientation and identification. The aggrieved party does not see the irony of people who actually have a reason for historical grievances in charge of departments that the aggrieved white males were accustomed to controlling. Thus, they are making the usual assertions that they have relied on in the past: communism, socialism, the tyranny of liberalism, we've heard these assertions before. Few if any would be capable of defining these terms. It does not matter. The fact that they are asserted makes them fact, not opinion. For now, the 47% who voted for the no longer president, believe their assertions should take precedence over the 53% who elected the white president and multi-cultural female vice-president. Whether that sense of grievence persists or dies away as their white male colleagues are tried and convicted for their insurrection, remains to be seen. However one assertion cannot be assailed, the majority of the electorate had had enough of the bombastic white guy. Another assertion is also possible, the party of aggrieved white guys have shown us that their assertions were made by asses. Some of us have asserted that before.