CHARLES HAYES - MY SECOND ANSWER TO AN OLD WHITE WELL-OFF REDNECK VOTER

​Charles Hayes, a multiple Pushcart Prize Nominee, is an American who lives part time in the Philippines and part time in Seattle with his wife. A product of the Appalachian Mountains, his writing has appeared in Ky Story’s Anthology Collection, Wilderness House Literary Review, The Fable Online, Unbroken Journal, CC&D Magazine, Random Sample Review, The Zodiac Review, eFiction Magazine, Saturday Night Reader, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, Scarlet Leaf Publishing House, Burning Word Journal, eFiction India, and others.

My Second Answer To An Old White Well-Off Redneck Voter
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I truly feel nice about where you all are in the worldly sense, no esoteric rhetoric intended. But your missives continue to confuse me to some extent. 
     You say that you are happy. Yet, before, you said that you wanted a new world order, not the existing one that you felt would last for another thirty years without Trump. Now you have your new world order. It is one that any geopolitical analysis of places us at the hind tit of humanity. Millions will die because of it. It is hard for me to understand how much happiness can come from that. 
     I am disappointed that most of your priorities have been achieved. Yet now it seems that you, in an academic sense, publicly lament some of those things. However there is, like Trump, no real tone of loss nor empathy in your words. This aberration is, as we can plainly see, the underpinning of the leader that you voted for. And, while you may have started to scratch the surface of doubt in the man, it seems that his happiness du jour or big tax cut may be pulling you along. 
     When we finally see what he has destroyed you will either be ashamed of your small part in it or deny it. Remember your thoughts about the "values that we grew up with." Those values were not all good but since Trump has no finesse, they all must go. It is good that you can still reference them. I rue such a loss as well. 
     I don't know if your present take is an attempt to moderate your past statements or not. But I must say that, to me, your statements seem in-congruent with any take on the present. To this extent I believe that you have fallen for the typical flim flam man. I consider you naive in this or at least not one of the pros in this field. Therefore you deserve some leniency. You were my best friend, though I know now that I was a burden that you gracefully bore. Because of that I give you more room to move without condemnation.
     In my years I have started to look at this country in terms of its political geography. The people of your area were Trump's strongest supporters....and still are. I can tell you that the world, a much bigger and more significant place than our past string of hills, sees our hind tit, where we now feed, as wretched. It will not support any growth either. Too bad, it didn't have to be this way. But it is and as one who has lived it enough to know, "deliverance" and the dueling banjos is just the preschool for the legacy that Trump's ride will leave our old hills. 
     I no longer feel safe there. Not so much from the affront of ignorance but from the asset it is to Trump. His asset is plenty smart enough.
     Surely you can see that this administration, from the beginning, conspired to enrich themselves and/or join the Russian oligarchy, american style. 
     I'm as socialistic as the next person but oligarchies are not part of real socialism. In the end I just want Trump to get what he has earned. This country will never be as good as it was unless there is a mass vengeance of this sort.       
     Lastly, you are not the only one who has proposed happiness as a succor for our illness but I will take a different path simply to calm the anxiety I face when dealing with such leaders as ours. You and I are different now, I expect, but I don't think either of us believes happiness is everything. With your exceptional tolerance and yin for a little HONEST fun you were good to me. And I tried to reciprocate when I could. I hope you get my drift. Thanks for your message. Best to you all---stay aware of your surroundings and remember your mistake: “You knew damn well he was a snake before you took him in.”

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