The Gift that Keeps on Giving
I wrote a story almost two years ago about my saga of trying to get Mercedes Benz Escondido to install a trailer hitch on my new GLS 450, as they had promised they could and would when I bought (actually leased) the car. The outcome of that story involved MB Escondido splitting the outrageous $3,600 cost to install what is a $575 factory option. Today is the first time I’ve tried to hook up the trailer and guess what? The brake lights don’t work. The running lights and the turn signal works, but not the brake lights. I am sitting at MB Escondido right now trying to resolve the issue. So far they are telling me that the harness attachment for the electronic connections do indeed not work for the brake lights. That absolves the trailer as being the culprit and puts this squarely on MB Escondido Service for somehow not installing this properly. They are unclear if it is the wiring or the connector which is faulty. They need another day to sort it out. I have said OK on one condition. They need to have a backup plan to lend me a vehicle with a hitch to use for the week of travel we have planned.
Even though the service representative has said he would look into that for me, it is enough of an unusual request and he is enough of a young new rep that I have no strong level of confidence that that Plan B would actually come to pass. I guess we will see. Plan C is to simply have Kim drive to Utah in the car without the trailer. That would require Chris and me to ride our bikes to Las Vegas from here and then on to Utah. On the return, since Chris and Ann are flying home from Las Vegas, I would take my Kawasaki to my sister Barb’s house and leave it there until I can drive through and ride it home. If that happened I would probably leave it there until we pass through Las Vegas again in July on our return from our great Eastern road trip. Barb has already agreed to that program as a contingency.
I can’t decide if the universe it telling me that I shouldn’t indulge my whims to the extent that I have by owning this motorcycle trailer in the first place (I use it so infrequently), or whether its telling me that Mercedes Benz Escondido cannot be relied upon and my next car should be an entirely different brand. Whichever it is or might be, bad decisions seem to always reverberate their mistake over and over again.
This situation stands in stark contrast to what we are seeing these days on the national political scene. All the talk these days is about how any and every Republican politician who does not openly pledge fealty to Donald Trump is forced to rue the day, both in their Congressional caucus and with their constituents at home. There is little or no doubt in the minds of any thinking American that the frivolity of supporting Trump back in 2016 cost the Republicans the House of Representatives in 2018, it cost them the control of the Senate, it cost them the reelection of the incumbent in 2020, it cost them half a million lives due to COVID ignorance, and it almost cost them the rule of law and democracy as a whole when it all led to the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6th. Common political punditry contends that in the long run, Trump and his ways may, indeed, cost the GOP their party as it crumbles under the cult of personality that now governs it. I am such a strong believer that common sense and truth will always prevail in the long run, that I am prepared to accept that it might cost us hitting bottom one more time under another Trumpian chapter in the 2022 or even 2024 election. But sooner or later, the GOP will wear their mistake like a death mask. In the meantime, the Trump redefinition of American life continues.
This week Liz Cheney is standing as a symbol of the outrageous distortion of the political landscape. Bernie Sanders, the icon of the progressive movement, is standing in support of Liz Cheney for her righteous stand against Donald Trump as leader of the Republican Party. Who would have ever thought that would happen since Cheney’s voting record has absolutely no commonality with the Sanders stand on any single policy issue? We have been saying for a long time that it is less the aberration of Trump that is so disturbing, but rather the blind faith and loyalty of his base, that is prepared to swallow every lie that comes out of his brain and mouth. Nothing that flows from his idiocy seems able to deter that base from following him like lemmings over the cliff.
Personality and presence have always been a part of the political calculus, but at no time since the dark days of bold fascism of seventy years ago, has personality played an all-consuming role as it does in the GOP today. One of the most startling outcomes is the hesitancy by the Trump base to get vaccinated. Rarely do people do such direct harm to themselves and their loved ones and friends for the sake of fealty to a despot. I will be on a trip next week and there are at least four of the group of twenty three that will arrive unvaccinated into what will be a social gathering (for us, the first of this size in the past year). I still don’t know what these interactions will be like. Will the vaccinated simply stay away from them, perhaps using masks indoors and out? What will the other staunch Republicans do with these vaccination outliers? We have a few Republicans, including a Republican ex-Governor of notoriety who was reported to have paid a large political contribution to Ron DeSantis of Florida in order to get access to a vaccine). How does that guy deal with the no-vaccinators?
We will also be talking about a ride to Spain later this summer. That will be an interesting discussion because Spain requires visitors to be vaccinated. This bit of verification will clearly be seen by the loyalists as an infringement of their personal freedom. Since motorcycling is, to some, the essence of the expression of personal freedom, those people are standing on a political principle in favor of personal freedom, only to see it be the cause of an even greater curtailment of their personal freedom. Furthermore, they must realize that this stand they are taking is singling them out, even among their GOP community, as being stubborn to the point of stupidity. It is truly a badge of shame. My nephew works at Trader Joe’s and they have an approach to those unwilling to use masks. Those people may shop in the store, but they must be restricted to one person at a time and they must use a special cart that has a tall flag attached that identifies them to other shoppers. The TJ employees call it the cart of shame and those using it are stared at and laughed at by shoppers and employees both (whether openly or stealthily).
Trump is the trailer of the American culture. He is the gift that keeps on giving. That will be the case right up until he is not. Most of us thought that day came on November 3rd, again on January 6th and yet again on January 20th. When I resolve my trailer issues today, I will think about the caboose of the American people. Yes, I am calling our former President an ass, but you wear your mistakes in life until you throw that gift out once and for all.