October's Close 2018

Today is the first of the Days of the Dead. In Mexico, it’s a time for creating altars to deceased loved ones in remembrance. Many small villages practiced a tradition of scattering flowers to mark the way from grave to door, an invitation to the spirits to visit, catch up on the latest doings. 

Altar from 2016

Since living in Mexico and learning about this tradition, if I’m home at this time of year, I like to gather items my dead enjoyed and arrange them around photographs and candles, inviting my departed to stop in. It didn’t happen this year; I thought about it, then let something else take my attention. Yesterday I realized why. It's a comfort to know that my parents, who were deeply engaged in political action, are not here to see what’s happening to our country. It’s a relief that a cousin by marriage who experienced life under a fascist regime in Europe, is resting in his grave. Another beloved relative with whom I enjoyed no end of argument is spared seeing what “conservative” has been reduced to.

Race. Politics. Religion. All have become distorted in our current reality. Each apparently supported an attack last week, amidst the turmoil of the approaching mid-term election.

On Wed., Oct. 24, a man in Kentucky went off the rails and after failing to get past the doors of a predominantly black church, went into a grocery store and shot a black man in the head. Then he went into the store’s parking lot and shot a black woman. A white witness reported that the alleged shooter, Gregory Bush, told him, “Please don’t shoot me and I won’t shoot you. Whites don’t shoot whites.”

CNN reports on pipe bombs

Meanwhile, a series of pipe bombs addressed to targets of the president’s rants (Barak Obama, CNN, Hillary Clinton, George Soros, etc.) were discovered from New York to Florida. They were allegedly made and sent by one of the president’s super fans, judging by the van that belonged to him and pictures he’d had taken at Trump rallies.

Finally, on Sat., Oct. 27, a shooter went into the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburg and shot eleven people before engaging in a gun battle with police that left him wounded, but alive and in custody. This shooting apparently served two objectives: an attack on Jews because they were Jews, and an attack on Jews because they extended aid to refugees trying to cross our borders.

When this president was elected, I hoped it was an aberration, a protest against an admittedly flawed Democratic candidate. (I’m not saying Hillary Clinton wasn’t qualified, but we all knew at the outset she was carrying a lot of baggage; anecdotally, I know several people who didn’t like Trump, but just couldn’t vote for Clinton). I prayed that people had ignored his rhetoric as nonsense, “just Donald being Donald,” and that they, like me, hoped that’s all it was: rhetoric. 

But we’ve seen, over the past two years, that the president’s rhetoric is a tool he wields with purpose. His calculated claims are like mold on the body politic. No one is scraping it off, so it spreads, filament by filament. Now we’re hearing the president say that he can unilaterally repeal a constitutional provision—citizenship as a birthright: “we can do this by an executive order,” he said on the lawn of the White House on Halloween. Cherry-picking bits and pieces of past actions, he tried to justify the basis for such an assertion, using unapologetically imaginary numbers.

Proponents of the president point to the promises he’s kept. “Less government regulation,” they say; good for business. Except a closer look shows that instead of applying a scalpel, his administration has slashed regulations imposed for the health and safety of citizens along with marginally necessary rules. “Stopped China from cheating!” But his tariffs are causing harm to average Americans, from family farmers to lobster fishermen, and he seems unwilling to negotiate in good faith. As to standing up to foreign countries and America being Number 1—by disrupting our alliances, we now seem to be first in a line that didn’t exist until we turned an international united front into a single file line. We may be in the first position, but it’s like being the first domino in a string of dominoes: if we’re pushed, no one stands beside us for support. Instead, we stand alone, and if we fall, it will be against the next block, and so on until all lie prone.

Watching a segment from a presidential rally, I was struck by this president’s cynical dismissal of his audience’s intelligence. I’ve heard some reports that among attendees are folks just there for the show; whether they actually support him is open to question. But clearly many of those chanting in his crowds do support him. 

I’ve tried to engage some of them in conversation on line. It’s an eye opener. 

For example, I posted the following on a Trump page: “This country was based on the understanding that everyone has different views, and from honest and open debate about issues, we can reach solutions to problems that consider the complex factors of a diverse population living in diverse environments. So the fact that ‘no one is going to hand’ the administration its agenda without debate and questioning is exactly the POINT of our democracy. Let's keep it by voting for candidates who think deeply and ask questions.”

It generated responses like “STAND BY OUR MAN, DONALD JOHN TRUMP. VOTE RED ALL THE WAY” and  “I might do that but first, do three things for me and 63 million other Republicans. Open Obama's records, Do not send unarmed soldiers to the border, send an armed deterrent, and thirdly arrest Hillary Clinton and Eric Holder for Treason!”  While there were also murmurs of agreement, I couldn’t find any comment that responded to my point. So much for discussion.

Now the president of the United States, who swore an oath to uphold the Constitution, is threatening to issue an executive order directly contrary to a Constitutional provision. I get that complex times inspire fear. People look to a leader who can steer them safely through. But this time, it’s looking more and more like folks don’t want a leader; they want a dictator. There's a strong current that, rather than embracing the opportunities of change, seize on demagogic expressions of certainty. "What he says," the president's supporters seem to be saying--without examining what, exactly, he says, hearing it only as what they want to hear.

Two years ago, I asked the country to chose hope, not fear. It didn’t. We have another chance now, an opportunity to curb the irrationalism and scrape away the filaments of authoritarianism before they take hold. Fear does NOT make you free! We’re so much stronger together confronting whatever may come than we are divided against each other in the service of our worst fears and instincts. 

Please vote! And vote blue, because at this point, it’s the only defense—the only wall, as it were—against the narcissist in the White House. Any illusions that may have existed as to hyperbole, or rhetoric, are long gone. If the Republic is to stand as our forbearers intended it, we have to stand for the Republic.