DAMN IT!!!!

     I told you so. Of all the most annoying words of the English language, that is certainly among the top ten. It rubs the "correct" prediction or statement right into the burning wound and smacks of snarkiness. And yet, here, in today's situation, what else is there to say but "I told you so."
      Hence the title. Damn it!! This is not a time when I was happy to at least say that in my head or the privacy of my home. Yet there it is. I truly wished I was an outlier in my belief, in my thoughts, in my posting how our democracy is on a downward spiral and yet, and yet, folks, damn it! I am not an outlier and there are others, far more experienced in the realities of the world, of American government, who also make the same statements, come to the same conclusions. Damn it all!
     Worse yet, is when the damning evidence comes out of the mouth of the man who frightens me, who stands to take away what makes America great rather than contribute to its ongoing greatness. His own words condemn him and threaten us and our future and the future of generations to come.
     "He's now president for life. President for life. And he's great," Trump said. "And look, he was able to do that. I think it's great. Maybe we'll give that a shot some day."
     So a man who is the farthest thing from a democratic icon, Xi of China, is now the openly self confessed example par excellence of Trump, the supposed head of our country. G-d help us. He wants us to try to do the same thing here!!! So what then, he uses the books of Brave New World and 1984 as the blueprints for a new American society? Damn it!! Told you so.
     At times I thought that perhaps  I was a bit over the top in analyzing the flaws, the oh so many flaws of this man, and yet it appears that it was not so. His own advisers, generals, political commentators, the man in the street - all are now verbalizing what I have maintained for so long. The man is not only nuts, he is dangerously so. He is obsessed with Hillary Clinton, obsessed with his Inauguration, with the ever so naughty weasel, Sessions, who has somehow found a bit of backbone here, but seriously, how does one take the abuse he is getting from his boss without retaliating or telling the truth of it all.
     Trump is a man enmeshed in a crisis of his own making. He was so embroiled in a mess of financial questionable or even alleged criminal behavior, so admiring of our enemies who now threaten that they can destroy us, so unsteady in his affect, that people are stating that he has not yet "bottomed out". “I think the president is starting to wobble in his emotional stability and this is not going to end well,” .... “Trump’s judgment is fundamentally flawed, and the more pressure put on him and the more isolated he becomes, I think, his ability to do harm is going to increase.” "Pure madness" is how another describes it. Oy vey!!
     There have been times throughout the history of man where a madman has ruled a nation, has had insane dreams of conquering the world and subjected hundreds of millions of people to misery in chasing those delusions. But we should be better than that now, recognize and acknowledge madness and take the proper steps to eliminate it, to keep our nation safe.
    But instead we bounce from one scandal to another, from one shameful deed to another, and we shake our heads and murmur "tsk,tsk". Do we need to hear another told you so in the future? WE must hoist up our pants and take firm steps to return to sanity and not worry about a President about whom his advisers doubt his ability to function in any crisis. Woe upon us, woe upon us.
     And the rot dribbles - no, rampages down the ranks as we find ourselves killing our young, supposedly mourning the victims even as we refuse to ban assault weapons, continue to take the bribes of the NRA and allow rot from within to proliferate as in example the Florida teacher who ran a white nationalist podcast and boasted, mind you, of teaching her virulent hate in her classroom.
     So now we have a choice. Do we wake up, smell the boiling coffee, the charring of the urn obvious in the odor that permeates the air or do we take notice and courage from the young who now march in the streets, who now speak to and back at the politicians who cry crocodile tears at our young victims. Do we now put our heads back in the sand or do we wake up, go and vote in huge and unprecedented numbers and vote out the dangerous, the timid, the cowardly? Do we now do all we must to insure that registration for voting is not blocked, that hateful actions are not taken to stymie potential voters? We must wake up and soon. The nightmare has become a daymare and will only get worse.
      Damn it. Told you so. Damn it!!!