2021 - The Year That Was Not My Dog

Where's Cato When We Need Him?

Thanks again to American Thinker for running this piece. You can visit the website at: https://www.americanthinker.com/

A note - the more observant may notice I referenced this premise in the last post. After considering the idea a bit I decided it might be fun to flesh it out a bit, hence this piece. Enjoy!

Last year was a lot of things – sadly, though, very, very few of them were good.

The nation was promised a new beginning, a restored sense of normalcy, a new unity, a lowering of the temperature of cultural squabbles, a new start (apologies to Tobias Fünke).

Instead – from inflation to malaise to not knowing how to handle a public health crisis to gas lines to inflation to drooling governmental incompetence to even Iran of all things and on and on – we got a 1970’s throwback, and not the good kind like a classic Hartford Whalers jersey.

The entire year was an elaborate bait and switch which can probably be summed up by one classic 1970’s movie scene courtesy of The Pink Panther Strikes Again:

Whether by choice (people who voted for Biden) or unwillingly (people who didn’t) or for some other even more nefarious reason (insert your opinion of the state of the election system here), the nation has been Clouseau-ified to the point that even those who excitedly donned the hat, mustache, trench coat, and accent last year seem to have now noticed (just look at the administration’s latest approval numbers) that there just might be a problem.

But, still, no matter the question being asked somehow the answer remains “That iz not my dog” and the American people are made to feel hapless for even asking and left impotently angry/baffled and nursing a sore hand by the answer.

So when you happen to hear certain statements from the influencers-that-be just remember you are being played by forces that have somehow managed to convince themselves that not only is your entire premise wrong you are not even asking the right questions.

Cancel culture does not exist – that iz not my dog.

Critical Race theory is confined to graduate school – that iz not my dog.

Inflation is a good thing – that iz not my dog.

Finally, the grown-ups are back in charge – that iz not my dog.

The border is secure – that iz not my dog.

That new government program is paid for – that iz not my dog.

Systemic racism is at the heart of America – that iz not my dog.

Even though you are vaccinated you must continue to mask and quarantine – that iz not my dog.

Everything that went wrong in 2021 is Donald Trump’s fault – that iz not my dog.

Defunding the police will reduce crime – that iz not my dog.

And so on and so on. 

As for the nasty yappy dog, there are far too many replacement candidates to even consider listing them all – one supposes that one could start with Anthony Fauci, continue on to Chris Cuomo, make a quick stop at Jen Psaki and just keep on going from there until the Rolodex-from-Hell has been completed.

2021 was so cognitively dissonant that maybe, just maybe, for once we should take life advice from and even emulate George Costanza when confronted with an utterly inexplicable, world-shattering situation:

Onward and upward, indeed.