Poised at the Edge

 It’s getting hard to write. I no longer know what to say about life in America.

On the one hand, as we are aging in place, Carol and I remain in reasonable health and are constantly surrounded by loving wishes from friends and family.

On the other hand, there exists in full charge, a world of America I know longer recognize as American.  Although I never lived there, I keep thinking of Germany during the 1930s, when ordinary Germans elected Adolph Hitler. Did they understand what they were doing? Were they really that angry?

And are Americans so angry that they will elect somehow the likes of Donald Trump? I mean he is under dozens of criminal indictments and, if we allow the courts to proceed, he will likely be convicted and then sentenced to live in prison for the rest of his natural life. But then we have his republican supporters, who have begun throwing out threats to life and limb to those participating in these various pursuits of justice. Rep Jordan threatening the Georgia prosecutors, and he is but one of many. That January 6^th violence did not spring from nowhere. Republican abound in violence.  And there are apparently no “normal” republicans any longer. And what do I mean by “normal”? Well, I mean people who understand and believe in the rule of law and the American Constitution. They used to be people who were opposed to fascism/Nazism. Remember, Dwight Eisenhower, that dude who was a general during WW II and then served honorably as US President? Yeah, him. Well, turns out, he was a republican. Yep, I know, it’s hard to believe, but it’s true.  I think, for heaven’s sake, as awful as he might have been in my eyes, even Ronald Reagan would not understand this crew of today’s republicans. Imagine Reagan trying to understand Donald Trump. Or, worse yet, imagine a dinner party with Ronald Reagan, at one end of the table, Dwight Eisenhower at the other hand, and in the middle, Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Green, Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz, Josh Hawley, and a half dozen other GOP Federal wannabees, like DeSantis.  Imagine that. I imagine the two at the table heads baffled, stunned even to listen to the idiot-malenfants at the table.

So, yeah, me, a mere libtard, I’m baffled. I don’t understand what I am witnessing. At this magic age of 88, I am actually contemplating in my head, where I should consider migrating. America seems actually headed towards oblivion, in the Germany-1936 sense. I think we may be at a not-so-early stage of national destruction. And then I think of grandchildren and even great grandchildren. What are we leaving to them? I still remember sitting in our front room during the 1940s, listening to the radio, and even hearing FDR occasionally on that radio telling us about the war.  Things seems grim, but my faith in America stayed strong. We would defeat those Nazi’s, I knew. Today, I am no longer so certain.  I listen still, but now I hear idiots like Jim Jordan threaten people because they are trying to maintain law and order in a country wherein Donald Trump is trying just as hard to move us back to 1930s Germany. And then Marjorie Taylor Green tells us all about Jewish space lasers.

So, David Brooks, where are you when we need you?  Where are all the republican intellectuals, telling their “conservative” followers to oppose GOP fascism? Where are you guys?? We need you.  The hordes of American pseudo-fascists need you to help them recover and return to sanity and to a civilized life. America is waiting, poised at the edge of a nearby cliff.  Do we head over, or will we turn around and return to civilized life? I think it may be in your hands. So do not fail us.