“Regina, you’re wearing sweatpants. It’s Monday.”
“So…?”
“So that’s against the rules, and you can’t sit with us.”
“Whatever. Those rules aren’t real.”
“They were real that day I wore a vest!”
“Because that vest was disgusting!”
“You can’t sit with us!”

Mean Girls
Okay, so I may not have actually ever watched this movie, but I feel like almost anyone who went to high school has pretty much lived the movie. There’s always at least one group of kids who think themselves above their peers, and retain their exalted position by the ridicule and demeaning of their fellow students. If you’re fortunate, you fly beneath their radar and they are unaware of your existence. If you are less fortunate, you become their targets because your hair isn’t perfect, or your clothes aren’t the latest style. Either way, you can’t sit with them.

For years now, we have been at the mercy of the counterparts of these “mean girls” in our society. Repeatedly sacrificed on the altar of political correctness because we didn’t endorse the latest trend of societal change, didn’t use the enigmatic jargon of the academic left, didn’t understand the fantastical paranoia of what seemed like overstated and sometimes fictional crises. We walked on eggshells for fear of their condemnation. We were the geeks and nerds, the gear heads and the pimple faced, the less than best dressed, the fat kids; we were the regular people just trying to get along. But instead we were given all manor of deplorable labels, condemned for our heritage, demeaned for the color of our skin or the persuasion of our politics. We had a President who saw us as bumpkins and imbeciles because we disagreed with his politics; we had the glitterati of Hollywood with their endless lectures and commercials telling us how wrong we were, so un-cool; and we had a sneering slanting media snobbishly mocking us as a minority of pariahs and losers.

Of course such snobbery is like heroin, addictive to the point of self-destruction. So the media continues its bias, the Democratic politicians, for the most part, continue their kamikaze dives, and Hollywood elitists continue to repulse us with their self importance. The first lady was rejected by designers she never requested, and forced to wear Ralph Lauren, she looked hideous, didn’t she?   After death threats, boycotts and social media tirades frightened away many of the so-called “A-listers” from participating in the inauguration, the mean girls of the media jeered Trump for their absence and disparaged the few that did perform. Typical of such, Quartz’s Amy Wang ridiculed Jackie Evancho as a “fair-skinned, light haired… teen-aged game show contestant… who sang the national anthem in a shaky voice…” Wang’s criticism seemed to center around the fact that the girl was white, and wasn’t cool like Beyonce… maybe if Jackie had shown a little more leg? I’m really happy for Beyonce, but with apologies to Kanye West, when Jackie was 9 she was a better singer than Beyonce! Such was the entertainment I saw on Friday, plenty of talent, just not the “right” talent, not cool enough.

So today the mean girls anticlimactically try to close the proverbial barn door after the horse has already escaped by descending on Washington. We are told it is not an anti-Trump rally, just a call for unity; but Trumphobia seems to be the overarching theme and pro-life feminists were rejected from being sponsors (“You can’t sit with us!!). The original name of “The Million Women March” was changed to “Women’s March on Washington” because the original name offended blacks who saw it as coopting their 1997 Philadelphia march. Though pro-lifers have been excluded from sponsorship, apparently sex workers have been welcomed with open arms… let me rephrase that… “the march stands in solidarity with the sex workers’ rights movement”. For a moment, someone got confused on the rules, and altered that statement to indicate support for “those exploited for labor and sex.” There was outrage in the liberal activist world over portraying sex workers as victims instead of women working according to their personal circumstances, and the original statement was quickly restored. Jahmalia Lemieux writes for ColorLines explaining why she won’t be attending the march, “I’ve never felt anything resembling sisterhood with White women.” and “A tiny, tiny part of me felt a tiny, tiny bit of satisfaction at seeing how sad many white women were.” She says she’s “really tired of black and brown women being tasked with fixing white folks’ messes… tired of being the moral compass of the United States.” I guess she’s too cool to sit with them! It’s as though they’re in some exclusive club, and they keep kicking even more people out. Just more things us less enlightened cannot understand.

“Calling somebody else fat won’t make you any skinnier. Calling someone stupid doesn’t make you any smarter. All you can do in life is try to solve the problem in front of you.”

Mean Girls

Please don’t get lost in my mean girls analogy. When I speak of not being allowed to sit at the table, I am speaking of elitism pushed to the extent of intolerance. Degrading others is often a misguided attempt to exalt ourselves. Of late this degradation has descended into destruction; conservative values have not only been demeaned, but denied the right to exist, and as Israel has found, it’s hard to negotiate with people whose ultimate goal is your utter annihilation. The mean girls need to finally understand that this isn’t their cafeteria anymore, it never really was. We won’t tell you where you can sit, but neither will we let you tell us where we can’t… we’re all free. It’s good to march on Washington, I’ve done it myself, almost everyone does now, but these advocacy causes seem to be dividing the nation into factions; women against men, black against white… as though some of us are heroes and others villains to be vanquished. If the women marching on Washington see themselves as courageous rebels and warriors fighting the good fight against the Orange Tyrant, do they not see us Trump voters as their enemy? But it is not so! We wish them well, pray for their safety, and encourage them to lift their voices to loudly express their misguided ideas. It is a free country and you can march, or sit where you please. While you march this weekend, we will sit at home, watching Fox News on Saturday, and football on Sunday, our work is done for now. If you do get home before the game is over… be an angel and get Daddy a beer.