Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said he isn’t buying all that Democratic “joy” on display at this past week’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago during a Sunday appearance with Jake Tapper on CNN’s State of the Union.
During their conversation, Tapper brought up the “disciplined” and “well-produced” DNC this week that, as the journalist put it, “conveyed patriotism and unity.” Graham didn’t see it that way.
“Well, I didn’t see what you saw,” Graham told Tapper with a laugh. “If you’re a Republican, you saw a hate fest. You saw a hate fest full of insults.”
“Americans are not joyful when they go to the gas station and fill up their car,” he continued. “They’re not joyful when they make their mortgage payment. They’re not joyful when they go to the grocery store. People are hurting, and this whole joy love fest doesn’t exist in the real world.”
To bolster his claim, Graham pointed to the gas prices, the state of the border, and inflation during Donald Trump’s presidency when “the world was not on fire.”
He’s either lying or what he said gives us a look into his shitty perspective of the world. Either way such a miserable and pathetic existence.
There is so much stoic wisdom to respond to this with. Momento Mori would be the most widely known idea, Negative Visualization is similar to that, and the Last Time Meditation is a more obscure one.
There are people who know they will die in the next week. If you can pay your mortgage, and you have good health, that is reason enough to be joyful. Those people would do anything to trade places with you and your good health and your mortgage payment.
There are people who cannot pay their mortgage. People who got a foreclosure letter from the bank last week. Would Lindsey Graham rather us all be in a miserable situation like those pitiful people?
Sure, paying your mortgage is not great, but you can mope about it, or you can be joyful with what you have. You will not have another today. Would you rather spend it moping about what is impossible to achieve today, or joyful about the positive things in your life right now? I know which one I would pick.
At the same time, I know this may be hard to grasp because it took me decades to discover that joy can be a choice. It can be really hard to see that, which is why I pity Lindsey Graham.
I definitely chose to spend my day organizing for better conditions instead of settling for scraps and being joyful that other people have it worse.