“…don’t stare too long into an endless black hole; turn your face to the light, as weak as the glimmer may be.” Ece Temelkuran, Nation of Strangers
I’m guilty of not following the excellent advice I read in Nation of Strangers by Turkish writer Ece Temelkuran. Of late I’ve allowed myself to fixate on the black hole that is America. More ICE killings of innocent human beings. Cowardly Republican senators lining up to confirm the detestable Todd Blanche as Attorney General. A war of choice in Iran that has claimed sixteen American lives thus far, and thousands of Iranian lives. Rampant corruption and theft of taxpayer money. Daily abuses of power by a cast of shitbirds. And Trump’s ongoing effort to undermine the integrity of our elections, and create the pretext to deny the results of the November midterms if the Republicans lose big as expected. Has American democracy, limited and limp as it is, ever faced so many threats at one time?
What’s to be done? Does anyone care? Am I doing enough? Is this the fucking Twilight Zone?
I feel like a stranger in my own country, alienated by a small minority of mediocre white men, all of whom attest to the fallacy of white supremacy. As if by some magnetic attraction, Donald Trump has pulled some of the biggest assholes in the country into his orbit. In fact, it seems clear that one must be a monumental asshole to serve Donald Trump. Stephen Miller. Todd Blanche. Tom Homan. Markwayne Mullin.
Speaking of Big A-Hole’s, was their a bigger asshole than South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham? Good riddance.
Cruelty and stupidity walk hand-in-hand, as always. How many more innocent people must die at the hands of ICE and CBP agents? What’s the tipping point? Does a tipping point exist? What will it take to rouse tens of millions of Americans to engage in acts of civil disobedience? I wish I knew. Solidarity seems a relic of the past, when unions were stronger and billionaires fewer, and people far less polarized by technological wizardry; working people, wage-earning people, had a way to speak out for one another, and wielded enough political clout to moderate the two parties. That window wasn’t open long before the backlash to slam it shut commenced. Ain’t that America, as Mellencamp sang, a story of one step up, and two steps back? I’m slowly making my way through the phenomenal Black Reconstruction in America by W. E. B. Du Bois, and recognize the time-worn American pattern: the minute we-the-people gain a little ground, make things a bit better for ourselves materially or politically, a reactionary opposition organizes and attacks. No one speaks for wage workers, cares about us or lobbies for us. Democrats pay working people lip service. We are the majority of the population and yet have no mass media outlets to compete in a landscape dominated by monopolies. We can’t advocate effectively enough for human needs, for climate mitigation and an end to our permanent war economy.
The midterm elections preoccupy me as none before. This time it’s different because Trump has control of many levers of power, and we are naive if we think he won’t use them to keep his unpopular party in power over us. Midterms are a corrective action, a check against power, and if we were back in the pre-Trump era, and if the party in power had done all the shit the Trump Regime has done to date, from ICE killings of innocent people, to the endless theft of taxpayer money, to a war of choice in Iran that cannot be won militarily, they would expect to lose, as the Democrats did in 2010. The indictment of Trump and his minions is an endless scroll. What is the GOP offering its voters? More of the same. They hold their voters in such contempt that they don’t even bother to offer anything. For what it’s worth, Trump gets my vote for the best gangster of all time. He didn’t bother taking over a street corner or borough, he took over the United States. Under Mike “Faux Christian” Johnson, Congress is Trump’s bitch. Yes, the House passed The Epstein Files Transparency Act, but look what has happened since. Todd Blanche flipped the Act on its head, protecting the guilty and exposing the victims. Defiant in the name of Trump. Asshole behavior with no consequence.
Come November we will learn a lot about this country. The first thing we must do is make sure that every eligible voter, registers and votes. This November we need turnout and results too one-sided to deny or steal. It’s a numbers game. 50 percent of eligible voters isn’t enough; 70 percent must be our baseline target. A big lift, I know, and I can hear the excuses, feel the apathy and passivity. I get it. But this time we’re not only voting against a malicious and destructive regime, we’re voting to forestall Trump’s second coup attempt. Are we prepared to defend our limited and limp democracy in the hope that by doing so we might reform it, not only for ourselves, but our progeny?
It’s dark in the abyss. Time to back away from the edge. Time to seek the light.
