What is to Come: The Matriarchy

Well, Ok, this is another post that is not about fiction -- unfortunately.

Since the election of Donald Trump as President, many commentators have said that even when he is gone, U.S. politics will never be the same again.

And recently we have had some evidence that they are correct.

I'm thinking here of Rashida Tlaib, recently elected to the U.S. Congress after previously serving in the Michigan state legislature.  The other day, in public remarks, she referred to Trump as a "motherfucker." In the view of New York Times opinion columnist Michelle Goldberg, Tlaib's use of such terminology was perfectly justified -- for a variety of reasons -- (even though either Goldberg herself or her editors declined to print that word in her column).

Back in the 1980s and 90s, when I was covering various Congressional issues as a reporter, one of he most irascible members of the House of Representatives was David Obey, a Wisconsin Democrat. Very liberal, he had little use for many if not most conservative members of Congress and who knows in what terms he may have referred to them in private.  But in public, Obey was careful to say that he held such and such a member of Congress "in minimum high regard."  Translated, that meant Obey considered him a total scoundrel, or worse.

Those were back in the bad old days when "the patriarchy" pretty much reigned supreme and especially in Washington DC.

Well those days are over, it seems, with Democratic voters returning a flood of women to Congress. So much for toxic masculinity.  In its place, we can apparently look forward to equally toxic femininity.

Who is to blame?  Well,  the name Trump will undoubtedly come to the lips of many.  He broke all the rules of civility in public life and most importantly, deliberately and without apology, arguably thus thrusting open the floodgates for all that is apparently to come.

But I'm afraid it's really back to Pogo declaring "we have met the enemy and he is us."

We the people collectively elected Donald Trump even though he failed to win a majority of the popular vote, and even though we knew exactly who he was and how he operated based on his conduct during the primaries and the run-up to the general election.

Yes, things have changed. Welcome to the world of Rashida Tlaib and the impending "matriarchy."