In this year of woke CRT (consciousness-raising theatre), we didn't do a traditional Thanksgiving.  Our daughter and her family took off for Disney World.  My wife and I were forced to navigate the holiday alone, so we splurged at a nice hotel.  As an artist, I like to look at art.  The museum, close by, was filled with art — some of it famous.  We dined at a packed restaurant where nobody wore a mask.  Liberating! 

We were also astonished that contrary to CNN and MSNBC, not a single hotel guest "of color" or others we encountered and with whom we "actually" had conversations seemed to be angry at us, nor were we angry with any of them, nor were they seething on the inside and just hiding it.  No, they were as genuine as people who are genuine are.  Everybody smiled and engaged in conversation.  The takeaway?  Most Americans (no matter what race or economic strata) are, in the main, decent and genuine.  Maybe at times we all adopt some pretense, are uncharacteristically rude, or struggle with bad habits, but people are generally happy and approachable in most circumstances. 

The problem in America and the world at large is that most every person you see pontificating on TV or whose accusatory work you read online is not genuine.  These people are self-promoting, self-hating leftist agitprop — the elite media, the elite politicians, their elite cadre of organized hacks (waiting for the crumbs that fall from some elite's table), the elite corporatist sponsors who launder money for the cause through high-minded 501(c)(4)s like the pretentious and pernicious Tides Foundation, which then donates to far-left candidates.  It's a racket posing as the world's savior. 

My wife and I had breakfast Friday morning at the hotel.  On the café's TV were Joy Behar and company.  The sound was down, but one could see their shallow earnestness.  Four and a quarter hostesses riffing on "pop" politics as if they possess "The View" Americans don't have but thirst for.  As they pan the audience, I am reminded how minute it is.  Genuine doesn't even enter into it.  Leftist politics is no deeper than the channel guide spreadsheet at which one aims his remote.   

I refuse to buy into the cynicism on the right that because of the elites' mega-influence, America is done for.  One cannot successfully battle cynicism with a better, stronger cynicism.  I'm with John Nolte at Breitbart, who was "glad Thanksgiving offends all the worst people."  The "worst" are, in reality, a small population like The View's studio audience. 

On our Thanksgiving staycation, my wife and I didn't meet any "worst" people.  We met nice, genuine people, which tells me that the battle is not lost.  While the "worst" must not be dismissed, we are winning because we provide a backdrop of being good and decent God-fearing Americans.  Fraud is exposed only when it contrasts with the genuine.

Spruce Fontaine is an artist and retired college art instructor.

Image: Currier & Ives.

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