Stranger than truthing

Going to the movies or watching a play you'll sometimes hear about the need for a "willing suspension of disbelief." The clown carnival that is the situationship between truth, reality, the media, and who knew what and when with regard to former President Joe Biden's health and mental acuity is entering the territory of the Emperor's New Clothes.

At the risk of mixing too many metaphors (or are they similes? I never know), I feel like I think Alice might have felt when she went through the looking glass. The pivots happen so fast I'm amazed there's no whiplash reported. Case one: Jake Tapper has a new book out. I don't know exactly what the book is about, but I know there are parts that talk about suspicions around Biden's mental state and what the media were being told. Good thing there's no video of Tapper castigating someone for daring to raise the issue and choosing to characterize her concerns as "making fun of his stutter". Now, though, he's ruefully shaking his head over the White House's deception.

Case two: Everything Trump says is a lie, except when he says something that can be flipped or twisted into sounding misogynistic/dictatorial/racist/bladibladiblah. Those words are of course verbal missteps that point to his true nature. Do I think everything Trump utters is gospel truth? Uh, noperlopes. Do I think he could be awarded a PhD in hyperbole? Yepperdoodle. But we're never going to get anywhere if a segment of the population is so set in their belief that Trump is the anti-Christ, Trump followers are troglodytes, and life would be so much easier and better if we would just sit down, shut up, and color within their predetermined lines with their strictly allotted crayons.

When did #metoo become #notyou

It feels like five minutes ago the country was championing the voices of women who were speaking hard truths about uncomfortable things, hello to the Harvey Weinsteins and Bill Cosbys and Sean Combs's of the world. "Go along to get along" became "It's not okay" morphed into "That's really not okay" turned into the superbly unironic Twisted Sister anthem, "We're not gonna take it (anymore)."

But then - someone decided we'd #metoo 'd for long enough, and it was time to put aside all that nonsense about championing girls and women and caring about their stories and their narratives. Because there was a new shiny group of people who have feelings that get hurt and can be championed. Because that's what it seems to be about, at least as far as I've figured out. It's not about nurturing individuals to become champions but rather to find a group, no matter how niche or how small, that can be championed? Do you see the difference? I love the concept of "agency" as it applies to personhood so I'm sure I'll get around to talking about that soon, but nurturing champions vs. championing causes are two very different things. The first is supportive, encouraging, "I've got your back", "I'm here when you need me". The second? "Let me stand in front of you, fight on your behalf (whether you ask me to or not, whether you need me to or not, whether my cause is valid or not)." The second is tricky, because it masquerades as caring about the individual being championed but it's really about the person wearing the cape.

One area where this seems to be on the fast train to upside-down world is the idea of biological males in women's sports. This is not a post about transgender politics, the ethics of bioengineering the human body, or appropriate interventions for individuals who feel as though they are somehow "mis-bodied". It is about one super-small, very niche issue. And I think part of the reason it's even an issue is that we're asking the wrong question. It shouldn't be, "why shouldn't we allow transgender athletes compete in women's sports" but rather, "why would we ever consider allowing biological males to compete against biological females?"

Because crossing fingers and wishing really really hard cannot change things that are truths. You can't wish away the biological differences in muscle mass and distribution, skeletal density and composition, or even something as simple as wingspan (think Michael Phelps with outstretched arms).

When the discussion starts getting cantankerous, you'll hear the argument, "Well, it's such a small group of people, it shouldn't be an issue to let them compete on the team with which they identify." I think the opportunity we miss is to say, "On the contrary. It's such a small group of people, they should continue to compete on the team that aligns with their biology.

We have to get on a good path with this and we have to do it soon. If we don't, our daughters, grandaughters, nieces, sisters, and all girls and women are in jeopardy of growing up not in a #metoo world but rather a #notyou society - a society that tells them their dreams, wants, and needs matter less than - and it will leave them to fill in that blank.

Figuring out what we the people want

I guess I just don't understand why it's so hard. Everything is so fraught with tension in the world of politics today but it seems to be that there are some fundamental things we should be able to agree on, right? Things like

• You shouldn't get Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid if you don't qualify for it - for example, if you don't actually exist (fraudulent SSN), you died a while back and someone continues to collect your benefits (fraudulent activity), or you were entitled at one point by now aren't (fraudulent paperwork)

• We shouldn't celebrate the complexities of a bureaucracy, especially when it's the bureaucracy that runs our country. Why don't we all want a government that is slimmer, trimmer, more efficient, and has systems that talk to each other?

I get - I truly get - that none of these things are fast, easy, quick, simple - whatever words you want to use. But what frustrates me is that so many people want to zoom by the fundamentals of "what" we are trying to achieve and go straight to the "methods". And yes, there are oceans and planets of room for debate about methods!

But here's where the next sticky wicket rears its ugly head. Let's talk for a minute about immigration; I can say that the Draconian policies put in place by the Trump administration have been necessitated by the lax border policies of the Biden administration. Someone else can then jump in and say that the Biden border policies came about because of Trump I policies, and so on, and so on. But how far back do we go? Take a look at a map of Europe if you want to see what it looks like to nurse disputes going back centuries. And we're only talking several decades.

I want us to collectively agree on the fundamentals, whatever they may be; then agree that the "yeah buts", finger-pointing, and "blamestorming" are done, and we're flipping over a new sheet in our pristine notebook. Now we can get to work on the hard stuff - coming up with a plan on how to get back to our fundamentals and have a nation we can all call home.