"I'm sick and tired of people calling me racist when I know I'm not," he said.

Weird Wally was more than a little miffed by the time he got home from his usual Thursday night at the local bingo parlor.  And to make matters worse, he was pissed at himself more than anything else.  After all, the man was a total asshole and Wally knew early on that he should’ve simply gotten up and moved to another table, but he did not want to be rude.

“I’m sick and tired of people calling me racist when I know I’m not,” he’d said, taking a seat across the table from Wally.  “I have nothing against Obama, it’s just that he was born in Africa and shouldn’t be president.”  Billy Carlson, it turns out, was a recently retired bricklayer from Alabama who’d moved to Denver to be close to the Mountains.   And despite all the empty seats in the hall, he’d chosen a seat next to an African-American, in order to make an obvious point.

Billy was frustrated and said that he wanted his country back.  He had issues with the blacks, the browns, gay marriage, White House scandals and cover ups and a whole lot more.  Several times Wally was on the verge of voicing his opinion, but thought better of it.  This isn’t the kind of guy whose going to listen to anything I have to say, he thought.  Besides, Billy was one angry redneck who probably carried a concealed weapon and was looking for any excuse to use it.

Maybe it was Wally’s silence, but for some reason, Billy thought he’d found himself a kindred spirit in black skin, and ended up walking Wally to his car.  “I don’t get it,” Billy said before departing for his own car, “how can I be racist when everyone thinks like I do?”

By this morning, however, Wally was no longer miffed.  As a matter of fact, he started feeling encouraged.  Something had come to him during the night.  If Billy thought that everyone thought like him, it could only mean that his world was limited to likeminded people.   And people who thought like Billy, Wally was aware, were most likely very old white men and hard core rednecks; the very people who would most relish the idea of impeaching and removing from office, America’s first black President.

Since it first became obvious to him that if the Republicans planned to Impeach President Obama should they gain control of the Senate, Wally began getting more and more depressed.  This whole impeachment thing, he thought, was red meat for the Billy Carlsons of the world, and they were always hungry for more and more. 

 But since people like Billy Carlson listened only to themselves and the Republicans listened only to people like Billy Carlson, the party was always in search of more red meat to feed the tiger that they had by the tail.

And with the Republican Speaker of the House adding to the frenzy by announcing his intentions of Suing the President on behalf of Congress, things were getting really ugly.  And with Billy Carlson seeking only the company of his own kind, and everyone else wanting to avoid that kind of ugliness, Wally suddenly realized that the Republicans may be in the midst of a flawed feedback loop, from which there is no escape.

Meanwhile, with all their talk of lawsuits and impeachment of the Nation’s first African-American President, the Republicans are starting to piss off a lot of people of color.  And Wally knows one thing for sure, it’s the pissed off people of color who will also get out and vote.

And although Wally is not quite ready to say, “Bring it on!” he is starting to feel better about the possibilities.   Funny how this Republican feedback loop is causing them to throw red meat both left and right and Wally can only hope that they don’t come to their senses too soon.