Rage And Anguish

 I'm angry.

It often appears a constant in my life now, but the events of July 13th, 2024 have catalyzed it in a way that leads almost to despair.

Our country is fallen, that much has been clear in the last decade. A six-decade plan by the Republican Party to cede control of the nation to White Christian Fascism continues apace and now we are in a political and ideological battle for our existence as a nation. Just shy of 250 years since the Declaration of Independence said we chose to be free to live our lives as we see fit, we are on the precipice of an authoritarian abyss.

Fifty years ago, as a small child, I watched the Watergate hearings on TV. I couldn't understand the balance of what was being discussed, but I knew enough to know it was serious, because all the other TV shows were preempted for it. The nation was being forced to watch as a painful reckoning was begun. Years later, a lot of what I'd seen and heard made more sense, once I had a better idea of how our government worked.

Flash forward fifty years and the world of then seems but a fairy story, a distant and dim memory closer to the Dark Ages than the 21st Century. We have fallen that far.

Even the simplest mind should be able to make a decision based on the simplest of inputs. There are two men running for the office of the President. One is the President, who has done a stellar job recovering our country from the disaster of the Covid-19 Pandemic; one if the man who created the disaster that was the pandemic. One is an old, articulate man who sometimes stumbles over his words; the other is an old, inarticulate man who routinely confuses people's names and blurts out word salad instead of coherent thoughts. One man had some secret materials in a box and promptly returned them; the other man had boxes and boxes filled with secret material and is still trying to prevent people from taking them away and putting him in jail for an offense many others have been jailed for. One man is capable; the other man is a lousy businessman and convicted criminal.

And yet... the streak of long-simmering anger that has festered in our nation, and erupted like a pustule when Donald Trump rode down that escalator, forces us to confront that this election may be closer than we think, though the data suggests that he is in for an even worse drubbing in this next election, one he will undoubtedly contest and his rabid, sycophantic followers will proclaim fraudulent in his defense, before finally being proved wrong yet again.

Then July 13th happened.

Someone shot at Trump. He was grazed. He is fine. Far from being the "heroic" candidate, he was barely scratched. This was not Ronald Reagan and James Brady being punctured by a dozen bullets. This was not the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. or Robert F. Kennedy or Abraham Lincoln. It was not even, plausibly, like the attempt on Franklin Roosevelt, or Teddy Roosevelt, who had a bullet in him but stayed and finished a political speech before being whisked off. I cannot speak to the shooter's motives, but they have not done us any favors in painting Trump with a similar brush, making him look less like a Degas and more like a child's finger painting, but nonetheless giving him the "cachet" of having been shot at.

Yesterday catalyzed in me the anger I'd been carrying, that we are having to put up with all this nonsense. That anger was transformed by this moment into anguish. Anguish, that we are not beyond political violence in the 21st Century. Anguish, that society is crumbling inexorably around me, and my family, and I don't know how to stop it. Anguish, that I, as a reformed Catholic, adherent to the words of Jesus, could fall into a miasma of conspiracy (staged?), disingenuous politicking, and worst of all, barely concealed disappointment (missed?) at the attempt. I disgusted myself. I put down my phone, took up my dinner, and went outside to sit in the relative quiet.

I'm still angry, not in the way I was, but mad, now, at myself. That I could allow myself to fall into the sinkhole that is the province of the "Make America Great Again"" crowd. That my dislike and demonization of the man would lead to the untoward thoughts in my head, that I will not repeat here, but which many of you can guess. I'm angry that I've been lowered to the level of a savage animal, seeking to rend flesh from the bones of my adversary. I'm angry that my intellect has been infected by a primal desire to harm. All that anger is now anguish, for what I've allowed myself to become, how sucked into this process I've allowed myself to be. So great is the resolve to see him pay a price, that I am reduced to one of the shouting hordes in the Colosseum, delighting in the combat of men to the death.

All roads lead to Rome," the ancient saying goes. Perhaps they knew more than we give them credit for.

Independence Day

Would you like to know who said this?

"Those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. And let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies. Absolute power does corrupt, and those who seek it must be suspect and must be opposed. Their mistaken course stems from false notions of equality, ladies and gentlemen. Equality, rightly understood, as our founding fathers understood it, leads to liberty and to the emancipation of creative differences. Wrongly understood, as it has been so tragically in our time, it leads first to conformity and then to despotism."

Barry Goldwater, in his 1964 Republican Convention acceptance speech.

The one where he opened the door to disaffected White bigots and racists who were put off by the Democratic Party's sudden veering toward "woke." A speech, best known for this utterance:

"I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."

Emphasis mine.

This July, sixty years later, Donald Trump will give an acceptance speech. It will be equal parts lies, self-aggrandizement, and grievance. It will contain invective toward all the progress made in the 20th Century and it will outline a roadmap to how his next administration will dismantle the "Deep State" and create "freedom" through the oppression of anyone he does not like or approve of. He can do so, if elected.

He can do so, if elected, because the hand-picked "originalist" legal sycophants from The Heritage Foundation that were placed on the bench of the Supreme Court by him, along with the current crop of Conservative Justices, handed the President of the United States nigh-unlimited power. They said, in essence, as long as the President is doing their job in an "official" capacity, anything goes. Assassinations. Murders. The rounding up of protesters. The detention of "enemies of the State" in camps. The President cannot be legally censured for any acts deemed "official." Well, not quite true; while in office, the mechanisms of impeachment and removal still remain. But if a President's "official" acts are legal, how do you impeach and remove a President for "high crimes and misdemeanors?"

Mind you, this seems to be at odds with the very document the United States Supreme Court is supposed to be protecting and defending: the Constitution of the United States. Specifically, Article 1, Section 3:

Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.

That would seem to be a problem, for a Conservative super-majority court that clings to the nonsensical and improper doctrine of "originalism," which was created out of whole cloth by Conservative jurists. The intent of the Founders was to create a nation, conceived in liberty, wherein each individual was free to pursue their lives as they saw fit, provided doing so did not harm their fellow citizens. And, to do so, free of the tyrannical grip of a monarch or autocrat who assumed the powers of ultimate lawgiver.

This abominable ruling by the Supreme Court came down on Monday, July 1st, 2024, scant days before the celebration of America's official "It's not me, it's you" to Great Britain and King George III. The Declaration of Independence put into words the feeling that a majority of the nation felt: that, having been told they were not wanted in their countries of origin, and having survived the perilous journey to start anew in a foreign land, they were now a little tired of the same authority claiming dominion over them. (Yes, I'm ignoring the indigenous inhabitants and the Black slaves hauled here from Africa, but fear not - their story is not forgotten, merely set aside for this narrative.)

In essence, the Supreme Court Justices who voted for this reprehensible fiat against Constitutional law have violated their Oaths of Office, and deserve whatever punishment can be accorded them, which is, sadly, none, thanks to the American electorate insisting on continuing to give the Republican Party power when it is clear that they do not intend to govern with us, but rule over us. The current Republican-controlled House will not impeach the Justices their party has placed there for the express purpose of undermining the Constitution. Even they are not so stupid as to give up a power they spent sixty years building.

Yes, you heard me right. What will seem to be an out-of-the-blue Judicial Branch overreach, voiding the balance of power expressly set out in the Constitution, simply to allow the putative Republican nominee for President to escape Justice, is all part of a six-decade plan to usurp control of the nation, to toss it officially into the thrall of White Christian Fascism under a pseudo-King. That plan started with that fateful speech by Barry Goldwater, which opened the door to the kind of nationalism and bigoted fervor that would inexorably consume the Republican Party like a antibiotic-resistant bacterium, slowly consuming the flesh of the Party of Lincoln. One would understand, given the circumstances, if the great marble likeness of the man were to rise from his vaulted pedestal and smite ruin upon those who have so sullied the party that defeated the Confederacy and freed millions of Black slaves.

This Independence Day, as many have observed, the American democratic "experiment" would seem to be over. Having ripped Lady Justice's sword from her hand and dashed her scales to the ground, you could be forgiven for thinking that the doors have opened on an America that will soon resemble Orban's Hungary or worse, Putin's Russia. The body blow we suffered on Monday bent the strongest of us, so inconceivable in its execution and timing. The wailing and gnashing of teeth set off by this, was enough to make you think that Jesus had come back and written the whole planet off, rather than bothering with Armageddon.

But...

If we cast aside, for a moment, the pain this has caused us, I think we can see more clearly what this means in a larger context. The fact remains, that the Founders, especially Jefferson and Madison, were of the opinion that the Constitution had to be a "living document," free of the constraints of time, built to match the march of progress, which they, themselves, had seen through the changes brought about by The Enlightenment. They knew that the United States would not remain static, that there were yet to be discoveries made and lands won, that would change the shape and character of the nation. They also knew these changes would take place elsewhere on the globe, and the country had to be ready to meet the challenges that would eventually arise from those changes.

That's why the Constitution was made pliable, via Amendments. The Bill of Rights was a starter set, meant to outline the kinds of things that should be protected, but also not setting them in stone by making them part of the body of the Constitution. They were called "amendments," because it was expected that the Constitution would be rewritten frequently to absorb the changes in American society and the world. This was important, because the Founders, being slave holders to a larger degree, knew that the moral failing of slavery was something they could not address at the time, for fear of destroying the fragile union-to-be. Having spilled blood for it, they were not simply going to toss it aside because they failed to compromise. We look back now at some of those compromises and are aghast that deals could be made to so inculcate slavery into the core of our founding document, but the Founders, perhaps misguidedly, had faith the nation would "iron out" the compromises.

We did just that. Sadly, it took blood to do so.

So, here we sit, in a similar situation, our nation hanging by a thread, unfettered Executive power like a Sword of Damocles over everything we have built in almost 250 years. We are afraid. We are angry. We are frustrated. What is there to do about it?

We must, on this Independence Day, look to the Founders again, for all their flaws and vanity, because they gave us the template, the blueprint, for the radical changes necessary to turn aside monarchic tyranny. It will require a fight, though we hope not the kind where blood is spilled. It will require every one of us to acknowledge the flaws that were exploited to allow White Christian Fascism to ensconce itself in our Federal government, and our own culpability in letting it happen. Then each one of us must use the one tool we still have, to force the changes that need to be made: we must vote. We must act, as the Founders no doubt did when they sent the Declaration off to England, with the intent to defend what we have worked so hard to create. We must make any sacrifice, use any means, to restore the Union to its rightful form of Liberty and Justice for All. Once we do that, we also need to make sure that those words - Liberty and Justice for All - are not a hollow refrain, but the bedrock principle on which the nation must always move forward.

Today, this day, we declare AND affirm our independence from autocracy. Instead of celebration of the past glory of the founding of the nation, we should celebrate the future of the nation, as we once more take up the mantel of Freedom, and defend our shores from those enemies, foreign AND domestic, that would seek to enslave us for their own personal greed and lust for power. Today, this day, is OUR Independence Day.

It's the 21st Century, In Case You Hadn't Noticed

Ignorance is bliss, only to the ignorant.

If you prefer to live your life in a superstitious fervor, making life decisions based on two-thousand year old precepts that have little to do with an age of the Internet and space travel, leaving your fate on Earth to the machinations of an unseen, overarching spirit that you claim has a "plan," which is not obvious to anyone, then so be it. Be who you want to be. Think what you want to think. That is your right.

But that right stops at the tip of your nose.

Whatever you may believe, it's your belief. Whatever is in the best interests of all of us, that is a matter of the common good, and yes, that means that sometimes what is in the best interests of everyone comes up against your beliefs. That gives you no "divine" right to decide for the rest of us what is best, just because your beliefs tell you otherwise.

Vaccination. Trans rights. Abortion. Books. Whatever you may think about any of the "controversial" topics of the day — and that is in quotes, because only you make them so — the fact remains that your beliefs do not give you any right to deny others the right to participate in them, use them, talk about them, etc. You have a say, but your say is not the ultimate word. Your beliefs do not give you superior moral suasion, nor guarantee you the objective power to simply force your views on the rest of us.

And if you will now harp on the government, because it does have the power to enforce moral order, then you are talking out of both sides of your mouth, because you cannot proclaim to be restrained from the exercise of your beliefs while simultaneously having your representatives in government attempt to force everyone else to abide by them. Hypocrisy is a weak word for what you are doing, but it fits.

No amount of ignorance anoints you with special authority. No desire to fold the 21st Century back into a mobile-phone using version of the 13th Century is worthy of the time-and-effort of serious people trying to solve serious problems in the United States and throughout the world. The only reason we have to engage with the you on the topics of the day is that under no circumstance will we allow you to drag us back through the centuries to a place where burning witches and torturing people to profess a love of God is considered the "height" of sophistication. If we have not moved well beyond that in this new millennium, then there is no hope for humanity. So, we will fight back, and prevail, to because we can afford to do no less.

The Sack of Rome

In 410 A.D., Rome was sacked by the Visigoth leader Alaric. For the first time in 800 years, the city most closely associated with the rise of The Roman Empire was ruined, stripped of wealth, left in disrepair. It was the moment that signaled the end of Roman Imperialism and the reign of the Roman people over a large swath of the globe. It was a stunning moment of clarity, after centuries of slow, inexorable decay, as the Imperial bloodlines moldered and withered, and the Empire fractured after the rise of Christianity. Most of the 800,000 inhabitants of the city did not see it coming.

History is filled with moments where the citizenry of a place and time go about their business, struggle to survive every day, act as if what they know will always be so, then turn to look over their shoulder to see flames rising upon the horizon. Humanity settles into patterns and "normalcy," because that is the survival tactic that served us best in the tens of thousands of years leading up to the advent of "modern" humanity. When people found a means to survive, and do so regularly, in a fixed manner, that became "normal," and anything that deviated from that was considered with a skeptical eye. Long periods of sameness lead to complacency, when it is adaptation that is the greatest strength of any evolving species.

Physical evolution is easy, by comparison to social evolution. Changes in physical DNA occur constantly; changes in our social "DNA" occur with glacial place.

At this moment, in the United States, we are at a social inflection point. Right now, our social forces are balance precariously between progress and retreat. The seesawing back-and-forth of our society is straining the social fabric of the nation, and the first tears are beginning to show. A tug-of-war has begun, and right now both sides have a firm grip, but it will not stay that way much longer.

Mind you, it should not be this precarious. At the end of the 1960s and beginning of the 1970s, social change was alive and alight in America. Piggybacking on the success of going to the Moon, was the identification that Earth was a form without lines and borders, a place we were all going to have to get along on if we, as a species expected to survive. But the conflict between Progressive social forces and the Conservative backbone of the country led to the beginning of the tears we see now in our societal fabric. Conservative thinking determined that Progress meant the loss of freedom and liberty for a select portion of the country, the "ruling" portion, which was mainly White, male, Conservative, and prone to fear of change. This idea that the ideals of the Founding Fathers were meant to apply to all people, equally was anathema to Conservative thought. They saw the White, male Founders as exemplars of just how the nation was "supposed to be," and to deviate from their vision was to admit a hatred of the country.

In 1968, the deaths of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy heralded the reestablishment of Conservative values. The election of Richard M. Nixon put a rubber stamp of the idea that Conservatism had to ensure that Progressive thought and action were stamped out at every turn, to prevent the continued "dissolution" of White Christian male power in the United States. Watergate was the most obvious attempt by Republicans and their Conservative backers to ensure that the power Liberals had managed to forge into the new Democratic Party was snuffed out at every turn. Richard Nixon wanted the Democratic Party smashed, so that it could not pose a serious threat to Republicans. That seed, planted in 1972, has borne a bitter harvest in 2022. Fifty years later, post-Trump, the Republican Party has made a shambles of Federal government, filled the Judicial Branch with partisan witchcraft, and worked to ensure that Progressive voters do not actually have their votes count.

Right now, we are at the tipping point. It cannot be made any clearer. The only way to avoid the plunging of the United States into a White Christian Fascist abyss is to damage the Republican Party so thoroughly, that they cannot recover their strength. To do that, given current political circumstances and the need for expediency, requires the support of Democratic candidates. No, not necessarily the Democratic Party, but definitely their candidates, because these are the only people with sufficient power and backing to run up against and defeat the juggernaut that is the Republicans Party.

This is certainly not what many want to do. The rhetoric surrounding the "inability" of the Democratic Party to get anything done is less a product of supposed Democratic ineptitude and more a product of fifty years of Republican machinations, painting the Democratic Party in unflattering terms while pandering to a base that is seeded with the hate and fear required to drive them continuously to the polls. Democrats cannot defeat Republicans without help.

It is often said that the choices during elections are "the lesser of two evils," but whatever you may think of the Democratic Party, and there is plenty to admonish, it still attempts to do the work of governance, whereas the Republican Party has abandoned all pretense as to governing the country. Republicans simply want to tear down anything build by a century of Democratic Party progress and install an unquestioned White Christian Fascist autocracy. Even if you want to consider the Democratic Party "evil," it is not even anywhere near on par with the complete and total subjugation to evil that the Republican Party represents in the 21st Century. How can you not vote for the lesser of two evils, when one of them is completely and thoroughly evil?

There is nothing I can say, no magic words that I can utter, that will suddenly dissuade you from wasting your vote on anyone other than a Democrat who has decided to put themselves out there to try and arrest the social decay of our country. If you cannot see the forest for the trees, I cannot clear your vision. I can only encourage you to take a look, see for yourself, examine the paths that Republicans and Democrats have taken to get to this point, and ask you to think critically about what you see. If you cannot see the pure evil of the Republican Party for what it is, there's nothing to be done. But if you can, and you want it to be stopped, there is one simple way. It is not too late to bar the Gates of Rome.

If You Choose Not To Decide

We are in one of those moments in the United States of America which will ultimately wind up in a history book, should there be anyone left willing to write the book. The last five years saw the bitter fruit of our neglect for the maintenance of our Federal government come to full fruition. We now stand in a place where there is no longer certainty that there will be a United States left in as little as a decade.

It sounds hyperbolic, but when the Founding Fathers fought a war, then wrote a Constitution, it was with the express intent that we preserve, protect, and expand their legacy. The flowery words and flowing script were a down payment on a future that would see The People take the nation to its logical extension. Now, over 240 years later, we have done what we always do: left the maintenance until the structure is on the verge of collapse, hoping to get one more year out of it before we have to do something.

It's not as if the political quandary we face is difficult to figure out. Over the intervening two hundred or so years, we have become a nation of parties, and most often only two, whose names and alignments change but are in essence flips sides of the coin. There is always a Conservative party, struggling to halt the inexorable march forward and the change inherent in, and spawned by, that march, and a Progressive party, coaxing, urging, cajoling, and pleading with people to ride the wave forward toward the future.

Currently, those parties are represented by Republicans and Democrats, respectively. The divide between the two parties, always there but usually bridgeable, is now an ideological chasm, the political version of Monty Python's "Argument Clinic" sketch. Any moderation between the two eroded away through six decades of Republican intransigence and catering to the more sycophantic in the Conservative sphere. What few rope bridges remained between the parties were savagely hacked away in 2016 by the election of a self-important, blustering con artist to the greatest position of power in the land, and his subsequent ravaging of Federal government, akin to Godzilla strolling through downtown Tokyo.

The election of Joe Biden, far from de-escalating the situation, has cemented it. Frankly, one wonders if that wasn't the plan all along: let the bumbling, incompetent President adored by his ignorant legions fall, only to spin it as a "conspiracy," to provide provender for the raging horde of Conservative sheep. It certainly led to a moment -- the January 6th Insurrection -- which for all intents and purposes was an attempt to prevent the President-elect from taking office and therefore worthy of the appellation. The seething rage of what is an increasing minority of Americans was brought to a full boil by their "Dear Leader," who acted as if it could be any other thing but an attempt to reinstall him to office. And his loyalists are, in the true fashion of King George III's two-and-a-half centuries ago, willing to make any excuse for it, short of calling it what it was.

All this said, it is becoming clear -- and you'll forgive glossing over the past few months of revelations and investigations -- that whatever "intent" may have been behind January 6th, whatever planning may have taken place, we are living with the end result being as clear as day. The Republican Party, one of only two viable parties, has thrown its weight behind a complete and total march toward establishing White Christian Fascist hegemony in the country. In States all over the country, Republican Governors and Republican-controlled Legislatures have done their level best to ignore, downplay, or sabotage the response to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, have taken steps to retract the necessary and warranted alterations to voting rights to allow everyone equal access to the vote, have begin the systematic dismantling of settled law by attacking the legality of abortion, and have removed meaningful and necessary restraints to the purchase and wielding of firearms. This is a clear and present danger to the majority of Americans who do not not share to any great degree the arcane, backward, and ignorant views driving these changes.

Which leads me, unhappily, to my point.

Because this is all very obvious. To pretend, for an instant, that events as we see them hold any other meaning is denial on a scale not seen since the Romans thought they still had an empire, even as the Visigoths were knocking down the gates of Rome. I'll avoid the quotation of Santayana, but you get the idea.

And still... the mainstream media is filled with the reports of Democratic infighting. Much of it is an amplification of such minor fluff as to be ludicrous, but there are definitely fault lines in the party, which slide and creak ominously when elections are approaching. Now is no different. Next year, 2022, is the bellwether year for our nation, because to hand Republicans control of any branch of government at any level, no matter how tenuously, is a prescription for catastrophic failure.

To that end, it would seem clear enough: vote for Democrats. But therein lies the rub. Because the Progressive side of America is a rainbow of thoughts and ideas, and unlike the lockstep machinations of Conservatives, Progressives spend a lot of time arguing instead of doing. This, invariably, leads to the weakening of Democratic power and a further erosion of actual progress in the nation. Some factions within the Progressive movement simply take their toys and go home, rather than support Democrats, when it's Democrats that are the only ones who have a realistic chance of advancing Progressive causes. This maddening passion play that invariably unfolds every election cycle is frankly the final pin to be pulled in the grenade that will trash American democracy once and for all.

Now, I preface the following thoughts by saying: I'm no longer a fan of parties. I believe, in the age of global communication, that the organizing principle of the political party -- never a necessity -- is now an abject waste of resources. It is possible, as we've seen repeatedly in the last decade, for people to organize on large scales through the auspices of the Internet, and to create a force for action on many levels.

That said, in the arena of politics, we are not there yet. We're still dependent on an archaic system that is driven by two parties, and we won't be able to change that at all until we change our outlook and accept current realities. Those current realities are pretty simple. Republicans have now made it clear that they will not advance Progressive policies. Period. They will not work toward the betterment of all, as the Constitution enjoins them to, but will seek to establish their vision of what America is, also know as White Christian Fascism. To make any other read, at this point, is ludicrous and unconscionable. The writing is on the wall.

The only group of sufficient size, power, and organization that can oppose the Republican drive toward an authoritarian regime is the Democratic Party. Love them or despise them, they are it. If we do not support them, if we do not vote for them, if we do not work toward ensuring that they have a fair shot in elections, then we lose more that just those elections; we lose what America is supposed to be. The Republicans will have no problem enacting policies that will basically strip power away from anyone who does not swear fealty to their views. If you think it can't happen here, then I have news for you: it already is. Republicans in several States have been ensuring that the power of Democratic election officials can be circumvented to allow them to install their own candidates instead of rightfully elected Democrats. They are aligning the electoral network to ensure that they can simply seize power, upon the pretense of "rigged" elections, which are rigged, but in their favor.

So, you have a simple choice in upcoming elections: vote for Democrats or don't. If you can't vote for Republicans but won't vote for Democrats, and decide to sit it out, you've voted in the most inimical fashion. You've also shown that you do not care even an iota as much as you claim to about people, because you are condemning the rest of us to tyranny to salve your wounded pride. "Principles" are a wonderful thing... until you're staring down the barrel of a gun and realize they don't stop bullets. This may be your last opportunity as an American citizen, to participate in the thing which is your most solemn dusty as a citizen. Do your duty.