Wanna know what we’re experiencing? It’s a grudge match, plain and simple – between white mediocrity and everyone else.

How else to describe “Jews [or anyone] will not replace us”?

The first time I heard that, I thought “why are you so afraid of being replaced? Replaced how? In what way?” Can I be honest? I’ve never thought of myself as “replace-able”. Yeah, sure – I’ve held countless jobs where I was one hundred percent replaceable. But, even doing those jobs, I knew I did most of them in a particular way that no one else would or could. Because they weren’t me. I’m sorry, you can replace me, but you can never replace “me”.

So, when I heard and saw a line of white guys in Charlottesville chanting Jews wouldn’t replace them, it baffled me. Until I realized what they were actually saying. They suck at whatever they do and don’t want to compete with anyone as a result. If we compete with you, we’ll likely lose and we think that’s unfair. Thus, we will go to war with you instead of competing.

Here’s something no one will deny. We really are living through history in real time.

Lenin supposedly said “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen”. That’s us.

That’s what we’re living through (and at a breakneck pace).

We’re engaged, like it or not, in both a culture war from the past and a war for the future. White culture declared war on the rest of us and have been engaged in a surprise attack. Like the Japanese at Pearl Harbor, the right’s culture warriors have been bombing and strafing everyone not them for a while now. We’re only just rousing from our slumber – aware of explosions and bombs going off.

These white cowards aim to destroy our democracy at its foundations. If they have their way, white mediocrity will be completely institutionalized. White mediocrity will be “America” and that is how the world will see us – as hopelessly mediocre.

First and foremost, Joe Biden did something un-mediocre. Not all white people are mediocre. Some – hell, many – are remarkable, extraordinary, exceptional and beyond. Like Joe Biden did, they see their place in a diverse America. No one’s going to “replace him”.

Joe Biden understands that. That’s why when facing a “George Washington Moment”, and soared upon it.

Joe grasped and recognized that as much as he was the right person at the right time four years ago, he’s not the right person for this particular time. Could he continue on and do the work? Yes. But, could he capture the moment – seize Americans by their emotions and compel them to defeat the authoritarian shitheads at the gate?

The argument against Joe was his age. And – I’m just playing storyteller here – trying to defend his vigor while hoarse from Covid – drove home the point. The torch is everything. The torchbearer is merely that – its bearer.

Bad things happen when the torchbearers forget that fact.

Torchbearer Joe Biden recognized that our race is every bit a relay race and the torch must be passed on regardless. And, since he’d chosen his veep wisely…

Who better to prosecute not just a criminal but the criminal’s argument FOR white mediocrity than someone who epitomizes the thing white mediocrity fears most: the excellence that flows from diversity.

That is what this culture war is all about. White mediocrity versus the rest of us – and our infinite capacities to excel at whatever we put our minds to.

Who was shocked by the sudden transformation that accompanied the switch from candidate Biden to candidate Harris? The white people. The mediocre-as-fuck white people.

The most galling thing about Donald Trump isn’t his obscene corruption. It’s the mediocrity inside it. Donald Trump has sucked at everything he’s been or done – including just being a rich guy.

If Trump is actually incredibly good at being something? It’s being mediocre. There ya go, Donald! We finally agree – you are good at something. Too bad that thing is “sucking at everything”.

The whole breadth and width of conservative ideology is about maintaining the status quo – or dragging it backwards in time if possible. Back to a time when white mediocrity ruled.

Hell, white mediocrity took a great idea – representative democracy – and screwed it up at the start by compromising with slavery. Though they wrote “all men are created equal”, they meant it in a particular way. White men are equal to each other. No one equals them. White women – and everyone else – can fuck right off.

At long, long last, we’ve come to a moment where an accomplished, smart, funny, self-assured, attractive, appealing, dynamic Black woman (and South Asian, too!) can go toe to toe with white mediocrity in the form of Donald Trump and JD Vance.

And, right from the jump, the white boys sat back on their mediocrity. Hey, Donald & JD, if you have to point at the other candidate’s laugh? You got less than nothing to play with.

But then, that’s how it’s been your whole lives. If you hadn’t grown up swaddled within a white culture that swaddled its and your mediocrity?

I guess I see your point now: someone would have replaced you.