Wednesday, November 30, 2016

It's the End of the World as We Know It

And I feel fine........

Well according to Oxford we started the year 

And now after a year of Brexit, ISIS, the Olympics, creepy clown sightings, and now even creepier elections we get to the end of another year and another word of the year.

Oxford, in their infinite wisdom, has given us "post-truth" as our word for 2016, just nosing out "Brexiteer" and "alt-right."  At first glance it seems like an odd word and perhaps a contradiction.  And then I remember the type of blog I write and imagine that a lot of us infidelity bloggers and Ashley Madison connoisseurs have in fact lived in a "post truth"world or imagined a tough "post truth" discussion if certain accounts or activities were to be revealed to certain people in our lives.  So I guess I have to say I get it.

But because I'm all about specifics, specifically "post truth" is a term describing "a political culture in which debate is framed largely by appeals to emotion disconnected from the details of policy, and by the repeated assertion of talking points to which factual rebuttals are ignored."  Or if you watch MSNBC, a bunch of gunk Russian hackers are posting on Drudge, Breitbart, and Fox!

Btw, perhaps now would be a good time to mention that people are saying that I, Ryan Beaumont, am the greatest Ashley Madison blogger of all time and perhaps the most amazing lover the world has ever seen.  I'm not saying it but people are and perhaps they are right, I don't know; I'll leave it to you to find out.  I would put a laughing out loud emoji next but that's so last year!

So I guess my first task is to eat a little crow.  I did imply in my last post that Hillary had it locked up.  And now we know she didn't.  The thing is that as I watched Dave Chapelle and Chris Rock do their post mortem on naive liberals I realized I should have known.  I've lived in Trump world for much of my life and it really isn't so odd to understand what happened.  Maybe I'm a hypocrite, heck I've written about that "locker room" talk before, though with a little humility and questioning my morals and self deprecation.  But if people have looked past my indiscretions I guess they can look past those of someone who says he is going to make it all better.

But in our "post truth" world and with a big old case of cognitive dissonance we have elected a reality star.  And yet are all those angry white people in the Midwest to blame, you know those out of work steel workers as well as textile workers in the Carolinas?  Well that is what all us elite liberals allowed ourselves to believe.  And so we didn't give anyone anything to believe in.  Yet the truth is many of those Trump'sters are not racists, they are not stupid, they are not even down and out of work.  They are just tired of the sense of entitlement and smugness from the Clinton clan and frankly people like me.  The Clinton's were out maneuvered in 2008 but we just didn't put forth a fight in 2016 because we were self assured.  Sure, Bernie was interesting, but he was just a "post truth" faux foil for the inevitability of Clinton.

Oh well, lessons learned.  But don't all us Ash Mad'ers know that.  In the post truth world of Ashley Madison you find the most truth of all.  Passion and adventure sell but that first meet and greet always reveals the truth and so if you don't give a vision of something to embrace and believe in you may as well never send that first priority message.

If you do move past post truth to the real truth on Ash Mad, you may find someone you can spend some truthful time in that created alternative reality bubble in your hotel room, vineyard, or place by the river.  Sandee has been a real dear the last few weeks.  Yes, she is a real Trump'ster Tea Party chick and yes she has been poking some good natured fun at your's truly.  But that very light hearted play makes my real dissonance fade as things can't be so bad if someone as wonderful as Sandee is happy with the outcome!

And as Colbert said on election night "you cannot laugh and be afraid at the same time....the devil can't stand mockery!"  

So maybe it's the end of the world as we know it, but let's try to be Shiny Happy People!










Cory Booker 2020!!!!