Stupid Sleepy

Some nights – not many, but, by the gentle mercies of the Lord, some – pass in blissful, undisrupted slumber, unbroken by anything – bad dreams, blanket-hoggers, odd noises of nature or neighbors.  

More often, something disgruntles the dormant hours: the dog barks a blunt midnight bulletin … nature nudges and prods its discomforts. Bad dreams creep ominously down the subconscious hallways. An errant phone call, a late texter, or an unbalanced washing machine shatters the pervading calm.

And, even then, sometimes a beleaguered sleeper can shake off the blur of night and trudge reluctantly to the window, the bathroom, the kitchen, the thermostat – remedy the problem and re-enter the land of Nod with minimal fuss and some opine arithmetic.

But then, come those nights when sleep is not nearly so easily shrugged off. When Nod shuts down its borders, dream-goers are directed to remain seated ‘til the end of the show, and one’s wits simply will not reassemble for reveille.

These are the nights when “rolling out of bed” is not a figure of speech … when slippers prove bitterly elusive, and doorframes clip passing shoulders … bureaus bang into toes and water glasses fling themselves across bedside tables.

This is stupid sleep, where reality steadfastly refuses to reassert itself in the face of nocturnal delusions and subconscious preoccupations. Where focus flees and common-sense collapses. And where one’s pillow, once regained, hardens fast to even the most pathetic pleas for swift passage back to insensibility.

“Life is but a dream,” the boat-rowers serenade us, and sad to say, we are a culture plagued by stupid sleep. Alas, what is mostly hapless and irritating in the wee small hours is infinitely more worrisome, when describing the muddled minds that may soon vote the future of our country.

To read the jarring polls is to marvel at the growing numbers who seem unable to shake off the pervasive delusions of miseducation, unrelenting propaganda, and emotional immaturity.

· Exhibit A: a recent survey found nearly half of American college students say violence is a perfectly valid response to any kind of speech that bothers them. “People say something mean, just shoot ‘em.”

But 72 percent of those same students want it understood that the First Amendment protects hate speech.  

In other words, “I reserve my right to beat you up or kill you if you say what I think it’s perfectly within your rights to say.” Does that sound like a mind that’s wide awake?

· Exhibit B: Another survey shows that 59 percent of the population would be more than okay with the U.S. military staging a coup and removing President Trump from office. One-third of those polled said they’d be delighted to hear the president had been assassinated.

After all, why bother with voting, when we could just take a man’s life, or destroy our national government at gunpoint?

How’s that, for a wide-eyed and thoughtful citizenry?

· Exhibit C: A flurry of polls show 60-70 percent of the populace opposes our war on Iran.

Granted, Iran, unencumbered with American opposition, would do its best to build atomic bombs and launch them at American cities, while funding mass terrorist attacks on our most vulnerable population centers … "but I just hate having to pay this much for gasoline and milk. If a war like this can’t be wrapped up in a month, it’s just not worth the effort. What are a few 9/11s, more or less – heck, what are the lives of my children – as long as I can eat pizza and drive to the beach when I feel like it?"

That’s the logic of an increasingly drowsy, half-unconscious population.

Yes, even in this splintering nation, we can all agree that our president can be a jerk – arrogant and uncouth, vain and stubborn, engrossed with trifles and a poor communicator of even his own best decisions and strategies. The solution – to judge by those who, when polled, were less inclined to just kill the guy – is simple:

Vote into office a plethora of mad demigods with contempt for history, ignorance of economy, and disgust for every aspect of the American dream. Dismember the Constitution, eradicate just courts, persecute Christians and Jews, and hand the keys to a swarm of eager terrorists bent on self-destruction and fascism.

Seems reasonable. Punish one man’s excesses by destroying the lives of millions – and the hopes of a world already suffering from a surfeit of similar bad choices. Choices made by leaders who’ve shown a lot less skill and savvy than the one now rebuilding the White House.

Yes, the man’s utterly in love with himself … but he’s also demonstrated, time and again, a genuine love for his country. Which, for all his grievous faults, is more than has been expressed or demonstrated by most of those running hard against his legacy.

None of us are at our best when we’re half-asleep. And all of us live in a nation where a terrifying array of media experts and moneyed fanatics and human CPAP machines are working overtime, 24/7, to keep us dozing.

But, oh, the dark wake-up call a-comin’, if we cannot rouse ourselves to some clear thinking, before the polls close in November.