We are so fucked. I spent some time at my local winery this sunny afternoon, having a glass of good Italian wine and bringing pasta home for dinner.

At the table next to me, well within a reasonable eavesdropping limit, were two 25ish women. One of them spoke loudly about the privileged people who disgusted her. Not sure who she was referring to. I don’t have background, I don’t have context, except for this – two twenty-something white women drinking wine at a posh place, 4pm in the afternoon, railing about the injustice of other folks’ privilege. What is wrong with this picture?

Full disclosure and disclaimer: I’ve spent my life on the Easy Mode in the game of Life. White, male, healthy, educated; rode the real estate equity train to Easy Street…I’m the definition of privilege. I get it. But that’s the point – I get it. I understand that I could have been born in the Sudan suffering from cholera and starving to death. Like millions of other less fortunate people. But I got Easy Mode.

These two women had no thought, no concept, that drinking wine in the afternoon in a free country, having others wait on you, soaking in the sunshine, is privilege by definition. All they see is “the other”, someone they want to demonize because of race, sex, religion, or politics. When the war starts, when we need all hands on deck, I don’t expect these two to be much help. They’ll be dealing with the surprising immediate reality that the world can be a hard place, and they’re not prepared.

I think this is the norm for the US, not a random observation. That’s why I think we are fucked.