I don’t know where Qatar is.

I only vaguely know where Syria is, and somebody apparently just declared war in my name over there. I don’t know where Eritrea is, or South Sudan or Djibouti, though the Jeep radio tells me “we’ll” probably be killing people for humanitarian purposes over there very soon.

I simply don’t care that Robert Mueller is investigating Trump for collusion about something, or obstruction of justice over something, or because he tweeted something, or not at all. I don’t accept that it’s vitally important for me to be outraged that “the Russians” may or may not have hacked some files relevant to the 2016 election, but that I must utterly ignore the established fact that the Democratic Party definitely rigged their primary. Y’know what? I didn’t vote. I don’t care. Do what you will. The real tragedy of that election is that both of those utter assclowns couldn’t lose it.

Some guy drove a van through a crowd outside a mosque that spends a certain amount of time in the news even without vans and crowds and it’s either the worst terrorist act in British history, or a regrettable but inevitable Isolated Incident, or What Those Bloody Wogs Deserve, depending on who grabbed the microphone, and … Okay, I’m a bad person but I really don’t care.

Apparently Megyn Kelly had Alex Jones’s love child on broadcast television last night. I may have made that up. Why should I be different? The important thing is that some parents who were bereaved of their children several years ago didn’t like it because it distracts attention from … something, I dunno.

Somebody (finally?) emptied a rifle at a gaggle of congress denizens at play last week, and people are actually arguing over whether it was terrorism or attempted justifiable homicide. Okay, I’ll confess that was mildly interesting, even though it took days for the highly-trained journalists on the story to agree on what sort of rifle it was. Which was my only question.

A couple of days ago somebody said in a comment, …

This taking everything with a grain of salt is exhausting and I’m not sure it isn’t intentional. Eventually people will just give up trying to understand the facts and swallow the line like a big ass Bass.

Alternately, they’ll just begin to ignore the news or treat it as seriously as a Dilbert strip. “There is no truth in Pravda and no news in Izvestia” said the Russians, who understood these things long before we began to catch on.

Which is a long-winded introduction to a much better screed on the topic by Claire…

I was raised to politics at my mother’s knee. In the seventh grade I recall selecting a political assignment from a term project list and not only making up a booklet full of diagrams and photos about How Our System of Government Works. I actually found pictures of all the cabinet secretaries and knew all their names and histories. Coulda told you where the Secretary of Agriculture was born, even.

Mom was so proud.

I also knew the names of the leaders of Thailand, Germany, France, Laos, Indonesia, England, Ireland, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Russia (of course; everybody knew that one), and probably Lower Slobovia and Elbonia, too. (And Elbonia didn’t even exist yet!)

And look how much freer the world is because I Informed Myself and Did My Civic Duty!

Now? Pffffft. I wish I couldn’t tell you the name of the president of the U.S.

I used to sneer at that huge percentage of polled people who couldn’t name the vice president. Now I envy them.

Most of them may have genuine apathy. I’m merely post-caring. A recovering carer.

Plenty of people will tell us we’re not doing our duty as citizens, that we’re betraying future generations or the American System or some damn thing if we don’t swallow every hook that comes along. But it’s time to admit the truth: “The system,” if there ever really was one, has betrayed us. As usual, Claire is right. In taking it and its eternally fake news seriously, we’re just acting like a bunch of gullible putzes. It’s time to shrug. To the best of our individual ability and circumstance, it’s time for that belly laugh.

But – weak chuckle – for those of us who remain political junkies in spite of our wiser inner voices, it’s kind of a … process.