As a kid, I used to watch the Wizard of Oz and wonder how someone could talk if they didn't have a brain. Then I started listening to liberal politicians on social media and it all became clear to me.
Dave Long, 2026
@tr____ijl Naw, I had just one of those start growing on my eye-lid a long time ago. Once it got long enough, I tied it up and strangled it with a thin length of fishing line. Days later it just fell off and never came back. The alcohol I used burned when I started the procedure though.
They keep using “Boomer” like it’s a diagnostic code. Fine. I’ll wear it. I’m the guy who still balances a checkbook in his head, thinks a country without a border is just a large park with worse customer service, and remembers when “living within your means” wasn’t a personality type, it was Tuesday.
Yes, I support Trump. Still do. That does not mean I think he’s a theologian, a poet, or my emotional support animal. It means I preferred the outcomes I got to the alternatives I was offered. Adults used to be allowed to make that distinction without needing a support group.
I am not the uncle forwarding 2009 chain emails about lizard people. I can work a smartphone. I just refuse to let it work me. I know compound interest is real, that deficits eventually come due, and that calling something “investment” does not magically turn it into an asset. I also know we had it easier in some ways and harder in others. Houses were cheaper. Mortgages were 2 percent.
You could ignore the news for a week, and the republic still stood. Now you can refresh for six hours, and the republic is apparently ending again by dinner. Most of the kids aren’t stupid. They’re overstimulated. We had three channels and a father who made his offspring changed them. That’s how I learned how to use pliers! You have an infinite feed that knows your insecurities better than your pastor ever did. That’s not progress. That’s a very expensive slot machine with better graphics.
I don’t want 1956 back. Air conditioning, antibiotics, and not dying of a tooth infection were upgrades.
I just want a few of the old operating rules to stay:
• Show up
• Don’t spend what you don’t have
• Argue the point instead of the person
• Stop treating every disagreement like a moral emergency
Now if you’ll excuse me, I must go mow the lawn and then convince my phone I’m not a robot. At this age, that last part is starting to feel like a philosophical question.
Dave Long, 2026