Living in Surreal Times

In the spring of 1968, just four and a half years removed from the assassination of our country’s 35^th president, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, we watched a year dawn unlike any we had seen in our young lives.

Martin Luther King was gunned down in April. Bobby Kennedy was murdered two months later. And two months after that, we watched unprecedented violence in Chicago at the Democratic National Convention. In subsequent years we also had college students shot and killed at Kent State, Gov. George Wallace (the man who physically stood in the doorway to prevent two black students from entering the University of Alabama) shot multiple times and political unrest like this country had not seen since the Civil War.

It was a surreal time to be an American.

Something like now . . . but let’s revisit that in a second. First, let’s recap the last few years or so:

June, 2017. Remember the shooting at a Republican baseball practice when Rep. Steve Scalise and four others were shot?

How about November that year when Sen. Rand Paul was attacked by a neighbor while mowing his lawn?

Less than three years later, FBI and Michigan State Police broke up a plot to kidnap Michigan Democrat Governor Gretchen Whitmer.

Remember the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riot? Take whatever side you want, the fact is things got very out of control that day.

In June of 2022 an armed man mad about Roe v. Wade was arrested near Supreme Court Justice Brett Kvanaugh’s home.

A couple of months after that, a man showed up at Nancy Pelosi’s house with a plan to kidnap her. She wasn’t home but husband Paul Pelosi was and got a fractured skull for it.

Of course we all remember the assassination attempt when President Donald Trump got nicked in the ear, an inch or two away from a very different outcome.

That was in July of last year. A year ago this week what might’ve been a second assassination attempt was subverted when Secret Service saw and shot at a man hiding on Trump’s golf course in Florida with a rifle.

Ancient history? OK, fine. How about just this year?

In April, Pennsylvania Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro, his wife and four children (as well as another family), fled the governor’s mansion after someone threw a Molotov cocktail inside, causing significant damage to the home. This came just hours after the family had Passover Dinner there.

In June, someone shot and killed Democrat State Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband in the Minnesota home.

Earlier that same day Democratic State Sen. John Hoffman and his wife were also shot. They fortunately survived. A list of alleged targets was found with Rep. Ilhan Omar and Sen. Tina Smith on it.

And just last week of course we lost conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

Maybe it’s because we were kids, but it felt different back then. Yes, it was surreal. But somehow it felt like a good part of the country realized right from wrong. I don’t remember anyone celebrating the deaths of JFK, RFK or MLK. Sure, there was plenty of hate in the country. Some of us recall the wanted for treason posters that circulated before JFK was shot and killed.

There have always been lunkheads. There always will be.

But the big difference is that on Nov. 23 of ’63 there was no widespread celebration that Kennedy was killed. Nothing the day after Bobby and Martin were gunned down.

Maybe it’s the faulty memory of an aging newspaper vagabond, but it sure seemed like most everyone shook their heads at the senseless acts. No one agreed it was the right thing. And it surely wasn’t celebrated.

Have you looked at social media since Charlie Kirk was murdered?

Of course – like they always do – the politicians blabber about unifying, coming together as a nation. I’m sure they mean it, too . . . so long as you unify on their side.

Trump: “It’s long past time for all Americans and the media to confront the fact that violence and murder are the tragic consequence of demonizing those with whom you disagree day after day, year after year, in the most hateful and despicable way possible.”

Really? This from the guy who calls every political opponent names straight off the schoolyard playground? It’s the same on the left when Bernie Sanders took a break from calling Trump and conservatives fascists to issue his own pleas for singing Kumbaya around the campfire.

It really doesn’t matter whether it’s global, national, regional or local. Heck, I had several emails asking if I was worried that I could be a target because of the conservative and Christian viewpoints I’ve taken. One delightful reader – who used to be friends with my parents, wrote that she’s worried for me. I wrote back and told her how much I appreciated the concern, but folks like Charlie Kirk touched millions. At the very most I’m seen by thousands – and probably read by 11 or 12 of you.

She wrote back and said it only takes one.

And that’s the world we live in today. Too often those on the outer edges – left or right – preach tolerance but are anything but if you dare disagree. Do I publicly oppose abortion and those who say they can choose to be whatever sex they want. Do I stand against those who want to drive Israel from the river into the sea? Do I disagree with liberals who see a very different country than I do.

Yes. Yes. And Yes.

Does that mean I’m right? Not my call to make. I believe there comes a day of judgment when my Boss – a former Jewish carpenter – will tell me how I did. I’m scared to death I won’t measure up, but I’m certainly OK with the concept.

The problem it seems, is that we live in a polarized world where almost all sides have decided they get to do the judging.

How surreal is that?

Two cents, which is about how much Timmons said his columns are worth, appears periodically on Wednesdays in The Paper. Timmons is the publisher of The Paper and can be contacted at ttimmons@thepaper24-7.com.