SLAM!! WENT THE DOOR

      How appropriate at this time of year to talk - or write - of a situation where there is no room at the inn. We are in the midst of several crises where either there should be no room, certainly so, but there is also a situation where there should be, but is not. Both need to reverse the status quo or we are in deeper trouble than we ever anticipated, existential troubles of proportions the likes of which we have never faced before, a battle of principals, ambition, neglect and death.

With the numbers climbing rapidly - no, way beyond that - we apparently are killing off our own population. The other day I said 400,000 before end of month and wow, but that was lowballing it. I can see the figure of half a million dead, and quite realistically and possibly, even probably, way more than that. The situation is that desperate and there is no room at the inn - the hospitals - that are overflowing with patients. Dire medical conditions  other than the virus are being denied entry or are not even going as people are simply afraid. Medical personnel, from EMTs to orderlies, to maintenance to medical people are exhausted, worn out and the energy well is dry. Or sick themselves.

Then we have the long term COVID, the lingering and debilitating aftereffects and the damage to our economy that all this has caused. The same economy that has ramped up evictions - in the middle of the winter - foreclosures, literally, no room at the inn. Slam!!! goes the door to all that is necessary for life. Slam!!! goes the door on hope.

This is the same door we should have opened wide when COVID hit. We should have welcomed in the truth, the scientists with the knowledge to beat it, the companies that would prepare and produce the vaccines, the plans and infrastructure necessary to distribute these vaccines in a timely and orderly manner. Instead we went SLAM!! to the door. Instead, we went SLAM!!! to the people.

There is another door, one that needed to be slammed long ago, five years ago, but certainly, absolutely, four years ago and more so over the years till now. There sits a caricature of a human being in the Oval Office, a man who has opened every door he could find to disgrace, to danger, to disaster for America. He has subverted any principle of democracy, every ounce of trust in too many about the elections and the value of trust in free and defined elections. He has threatened officials who refuse to go bad along with him, even as the smell, the nauseating reek, of rot emanates from the WH in ever increasing amounts.

Time and again, never ending streams of vitriol poured from his mouth. Time and again we saw one after the other, falling under his sway, afraid of him, and the GOP deteriorated into a political party too closely related to fascism, to overthrow of government, to the end of us. Too often did we see grown men tolerate tantrums and behavior they would not accept from their own toddlers at home, let alone a grown man supposed to be the leader of the free world. Time and again he evidenced strong proof of his growing dementia, his strong mental illnesses, his so total incompetence for the job. Yet, the GOP not only went along, but buried themselves in the same muck, enabling, appeasing the man who would bring down this country and its democracy - and who continues to do so.

This is a door which certainly should have never been opened and once done so, should have been slammed back, with vigor. This country has no room at the inn for the 140 or more Representatives, the 12 or more Senators, the Vice President!!! who would gladly, happily, toss this country on the garbage heap of history for the sake of their ambitions, stinking, reeking ambitions that corrode every door that needed to be kept shut, allowed no entry to them and indeed, they should have been pushed out of that inn. They needed to be and continue to be condemned, along with their master or puppet - not sure at this junction- and charged with treason, for they are indeed traitors, long ago having crossed the entry slab into that dangerous room.

We have opened and closed doors in exactly the wrong combination. Even today we still have people who see the numbers, see the bodies, hear the stories, watch the tears flow, and yet they continue against all reality to cry hoax as they wreak havoc upon us. There is no room at the inn for this, for it is the proverbial shouting of Fire! falsely, in a crowded theater. Surely, we are allowed to protect ourselves, insure our safety, defuse the hacking of other governments into our infrastructure. These people have turned precautions into political deadly footballs, meshing the wrong doors, meshing incompetence at the arrival desk, and here we are.

Come, he says, he urges. "It will be wild," he rants gleefully, as he thinks ahead to his imagined version of blood on our streets and retention of his office. He will not see reality. But he will have to go. That is a definite, but the GOP continues to reap the deadly dangers they have sowed and now some wonder what the heck they have done. Beware, it is often said, of what you wish for. Well, they ignored that warning and here we are with wrong doors incorrectly open or shut. Sir Walter Scott warned us re practicing to deceive  - in the vernacular - it ain't good!

I despair of and for our country. I wonder if there is any true way to stage a comeback. I wonder if or ever the GOP will face the truth of what they have done. I wonder if the people who fell under the witchy spell of Trump and his enablers, his sniveling moral cowards, if they will ever be able to return to sanity, to acknowledge the damage they allowed and even cheered on. I wonder if and when we will ever learn how to open and close doors properly.