FIVE AM

Five in the morning and I have been up all night, taking little catnaps as I watched the returns come in. I heard a demented man pronounce himself a winner and then accuse one and all of cheating and called for counting of ballots to stop. Why was that? Was he afraid that HIS rigging of the results would be uncovered? Could that be it? And so I watched all night as I saw American democracy unravel.

How could it be that the real democracy has been so neglected here. Once again, there is a side which has the majority of votes, the popular vote, yet due to an arcane system, those majorities are to go unheard, unheeded. Democracy, we learned in school, from the very first class president election and all the way up, meant, we were told, the voice of the majority, giving all a voice, an equal voice. But nope, we were told and taught wrong and a huge hole in the system continues to negate the true democracy and voice of the people.

What has now happened, two times in a row, is we allowed a dangerous man, a dangerous philosophy, one totally inimical to that of democracy, to rise to the top, instead of falling to the bottom where scum goes. If once again we are to live under the destructive reign and yes, reign, of Trump et al, there will not be another election in four years and not even sure if there will be an America, a United States of America, in existence, certainly not as we know it now.

Already there are roving gangs. Already there are huge demonstrations of anti Semitism, with attacks and vandalism growing. Already there is great hostility among the population and how the two largest groups will ever be reconciled is beyond me. How will we even survive as a nation when we are dying from the virus, when we cannot even begin to trust the vaccine - if it even exists - that Trump and his quacks push. You want to be first? Go ahead. I will wait till my doctor says it is okay. And for that matter, how can we even trust anything anymore as the rollback of all regulations of protection of the citizenry of this country, of its environment will continue apace, and even faster.

 

So maybe we will not have to worry long, for the earth will heat up more, the air will be increasingly harder to inhale, food shortages and downright mass starvation will begin, water will be a precious and rare commodity, and the rules of civilization will simply wither away. Jumped the shark? Maybe, hope so, hope there is some decency left in that twisted group, but I doubt it, very doubtful, for certainly nothing so far has given me any hope of that. A bad case of life imitating art, of science fantasy of apocalyptic movies becoming science reality of life.

How did we come to this? I believe we allowed selfishness to gain too much power. We all wanted more - more money, more housing space of giant mansions, more 'stuff', more room for that stuff, a bigger car, a better vacation, and who we ran over in that search for 'more', well, never mind. That was their problem, right?

And yet the American dream persisted. Still the Golden Mountain, the Goldeneh Medinah, the place where dreams could come true, where children could be educated, fed, live better lives. But that dream began to perish under the onslaught of selfishness, of hatred, of ancient ills and evils, as we destroyed the nature of the globe, prayed to the Lord by whatever name, even as we destroyed His lifegiving Nature's bounty.

I cringe at the hatred of descendants of immigrants towards other potential immigrants, to people who come here not to rape and murder but to build lives. But people choose to reject the historical facts of the prejudice against their entries, of the acts by Congress and Presidents to keep "them" out. Truman, in his time, did the right thing at that point, but the hatred for the Irish, the Italian, the Russian Jews, the Mexicans , the Chinese and all Asians, all historical fact. These feelings continued to thrive and hide beneath the surface until in today's Trumpian world it is allowed out, even admired and espoused.

So now, at 5:37  in the morning, I will try to catch some sleep, gather strength to face a  changed world, a frightening world, unless with all in person votes and  mail ins are counted, there are enough to counter the oh so close totals of the remaining states. The totals that inevitably destroy the voice of the majority via the antiquated Electoral College system. But do I have confidence in that? Hell, no. At this point I have confidence in nothing. Sad.