This week, I feel it’s my responsibility as your relatively aware and more experienced Uncle Gen X’er to help you though a very interesting time in history where you may be feeling a little, well, freaked out.
Even if you, specifically, aren’t in the midst of a full on panic mode about where the world is heading with Trump’s election, the Brexit vote, global terrorism, a shirtless Putin’s shenanigans, China’s inability to admit that they are actually more capitalistic than communist and, let’s not forget batshit crazy Kim Jun North Korea boy and his massive insecurities being played out on the world stage in the form of threatening to nuke anyone that points out that emperor has no clothes on…I would like to offer up a little clarity as to why all of this shit doesn’t point to a pending apocalyptic, scorched earth melt-down…at least not as far as you should be concerned.

So, here’s the skinny,

Have you ever heard the riddle… “If a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it, does it make a sound?”

Well, that’s basically describes what is happening right now…

For the record, hell ya, that tree makes a sound, but only to those who can hear it. And, wayyyyy back in the day before the internet and smart phones and the ability to practically send a message from any part of the world at any time to anybody, there were times when really bad shit was going down, but most of the time, most people didn’t hear about it because they didn’t have the ability to get the message, with the exception of newspapers or let’s say network or cable news…both sources that are strictly controlled and filter out the stuff they don’t want you to hear about and react to.

So, let’s jump back to the big banana here, which, even if you’re not in the States, would be the Trump presidency, which is going to happen tomorrow (I am obviously taping this on Jan. 19th, 2017, but if you’re listening on a later date, all this stuff still applies). Because, and I want to really stress this point,
…just because this one guy is becoming president of the United States, it doesn’t mean that he has the ability to fundamentally change the world. Don’t get me wrong…yes, he has his own policies and direction that he wants the country (and the world) to go, and, yes, he’s appointing some real interesting people to his administration with some very interesting ideas that, let’s just say are pretty much polar opposite of our policy and direction under President Obama.

And, yes, both houses of congress do have a republican majority, so I can see where you might be a little freaked out that Trump word vomits about deporting millions of people and thinks climate change is a hoax, and is a massive misogynist and low functioning narcissist and a classless windbag that contradicts himself at every turn.
Even with all of that, there is some good news because…wait for it…we’ve been through this before, multiple times, and we have survived and actually grown from the process.
Here’s a quick look back in our own US history to show you the type of morons we’ve had “leading the country”. Yes, there have been a ton of incompetent idiot rulers around the world throughout history…I’ll touch on that after my Presidential rant.

So, let’s start with James Buchanan…he was the president right before the Civil War started…the one before Abe Lincoln.
Buchanan fought hard for tradition… the tradition of slavery. He supported the Supreme Court’s infamous Dred Scott decision affirming that slaves were property, and he helped those trying to spread slavery to new states and even Cuba. When the South announced its intention to secede, and states started dropping out of the Union — when America’s greatest existential crisis loomed — Buchanan boldly and decisively sat on his hands, giving the Confederacy time to organize, which, as we know, led to the Civil War.

How about Andrew Johnson? He was the President right after Lincoln.