Yeah, the Dems Suck at Being Bullies — And I’m Kinda Glad

Way back in the Dark Ages when I was in what used to be called junior high — it was 7th and 8th grade then — I came real close to having my one and only after school fist fight.

Now, we’re talkin’ the south side of Chicago here. So this was serious bidness. The girls at my school knew how to throw down. Or, most of them did.

I was a little book worm. Teacher’s pet in all my classes, pretty much. I didn’t want to be, I just loved to read. And write. Which would eventually be my ticket to a wonderful career but at the time, it made me a total geek.

And easy prey.

So on one dark day, a tough girl whose rep had recently been tarnished somewhat — meaning somebody’d kicked her butt but good — decided to get her mojo working again by turning on me.

Her pretense was that she’d “heard” that I’d been “talking shit” about her. Or that’s what she kept saying as she and a crowd of kids followed me down the block after we cleared the school gates.

I didn’t remember saying anything about her. Nothing others hadn’t said, anyway. She was forever in some kind of trouble, this girl. So she was a frequent topic of conversation among all the cliques at school.

I didn’t really have a clique. I had a little geek squad, sort of. Just a couple of other geeky girls like me. But nobody ever really noticed us sitting around reading on the playground while the other kids literally battled for bragging rights.

I hated all the violence. I understood it, though. These were kids who felt powerless. Forgotten. Some had grown old before their time because they had to raise siblings. Fend pretty much for themselves.

Though intellectually sympathetic, I was still terrified as the tough girl fell in behind me, incessantly barking, “I hear you’ve been talking shit about me,” until she was close enough to reach out and shove me every time she said it. A little harder each time.

And I do not know where this came from, but when we reached the second corner en-route, I spun around, puffed up like a little black blow fish, and said, “So what if I DID?”

Rocked her back on her heels. And also got the whole crowd yelling and laughing and pointing — at her.

I was stunned. All the kids jumped back and went, “Daaaaammn,” and “Whooooaaaa,” and just generally gave her holy hell about being bullied right back by the book worm. In fact, a few of them went after her for going after me in the first place.

“She don’t never bother nobody,” I remember hearing. And a chorus of “Yeahs” and “You got that rights.” The tide had turned. On a dime.

The tough girl shrewdly used that as her “out.” Folding her arms, staring down at me, and saying something like, “Yeah, I bet you can’t even fight,” as if she’d decided a fight with such an unworthy opponent wasn’t going to win her any points.

But I was still standing there with my fists balled up. Knees knocking under the nerdy dress my mother had made me wear that day, but they couldn’t see that.

So she leaned in and growled, “You say anything else about me I’ma kick your ass!” And turned, very sharply, to walk off in the opposite direction.

The velocity of the spin was, I supposed, her way of letting everyone know she was still a bad mamma jamma.

I don’t think it worked. But I was so relieved, I didn’t question it.

And I had won, in a way. With words. Wow.

So what does this have to do with the Democrats shutting down the government for a few days? Well…I guess the actual point is that pathetic as I was, I was a better bully for a few minutes than they were for a few days.

I mean, at least I had the element of surprise. Nobody expected the “blowfish defense.” Or that I’d find the strength to stand my ground like that.

Everybody knew what the Dems were planning. And that it wouldn’t work, because of their bleeding hearts. You tell them the military is suffering and refuse to do a deal that would help the troops get paid during the shutdown — it’s over. The Dems just can’t be that mean.

Comes natural to folks like Trump, of course. He’s got that act down — remember the mountain man in Jeremiah Johnson who claimed if he kept screaming like a crazy man all day long, the Indians wouldn’t mess with him?

Have you noticed how quiet Kim Jong Un has been lately, after Trump tweeted all kinds of crazy at him for a few months?

Oh, I’m not saying I condone “crazy” as a bona fide political strategy. Cause I’m still not sure “Little Rocketman” won’t lob a big old missile at us in the middle of the night or something someday. And he’s making nice to South Korea now, too, for reasons we’d probably be horrified to know later.

But the snitty tweets have slowed down. For now, anyway.

Trump’s entire party got good at crazy during the Obama years when they were so freaked out about having that Black man in the White House that they wigged out completely and spent more time plotting ways to stop him from doing anything than trying to effectively run the country.

I spent the first years constantly slapping my forehead and saying, “Aw, c’mon! They’ve gotta be kidding!” But then, I started realizing that they’d gone totally bat shit, and nothing they did really surprised me anymore.

Trump wants to build a wall — his party became one. A united front, blocking damned near every move Obama tried to make and letting us know, out loud and proud, that this was their sole objective until this last day in office.

I kept wondering how low they’d go. But they never found the bottom. Even Machiavelli would’ve been impressed.

I, on the other hand, just got more and more depressed.

So, the recent shutdown — which was really “caused” by a president who still uses the “crazy” defense better than anybody — was doomed from the start. The Dems tried to use it to their advantage, but like I said, they got all worried about hurting someone, apparently.

Wimps.

Now, they’re politicians, let’s be honest. And many of them were worried that hurting someone would get them booted out of a job later. And also hurt their party’s chances of winning some seats in the next election. It’s not all altruism. That we know.

But I have to admit that after I got over being embarrassed that their big “battle” only lasted three days, I chuckled, shook my head, and forgave them.

Because I want people who worry about people to run my country. That seems crazy now, in a way.

But it’s a good kinda crazy. They just have to figure out how to make it work.

Drawing: VixDojo, http://www.vixdojo.com/Politics/Vix_Politics_RepublicanElephantVSDemocratDonkey.jpg