Is That a Ray of Sunshine?

A lot can happen in a year’s time.  One year ago we imagined Hillary Clinton as our first female President.  Not all of us were thrilled with her, but in hindsight, it is hard not to ask the obvious questions about where our democracy would be relative to where it is today.

There are not many, if any, beyond the rabid base that Trump encourages who would say the country is headed in the right direction.  We have seen an increasing threat to our first amendment freedoms, the dismantling of 50 years of careful societal structuring to give our citizens the cleanest air to breathe, the cleanest water to drink, a constant attack on the 4^th Estate, the normalization of chronic lying and falsehood in our politics, and the disregard by the executive branch of our government for the rule of law.  These are not small annoyances, but instead are frightening disruptions to our American ideals and sense of humanity

We have a leader who is combative at every turn, never apologizes, lies constantly and has no grasp at all on the details of policy, the art of political engagement, the concept of compromise, or even the most rudimentary elements of genuine human empathy.

To survey the American landscape today is to see a republic (for the time being) where less than one third of our populace has somehow grasped the reins of power and has no idea how to use them for the benefit of the most citizens.  Digging deeper we are becoming aware of the long existing nefarious reasons for this condition: obstruction of voting rights, gerrymandering, racism, greed among our legislators, divisiveness at all levels of government and the abuse of power by the rich.

Now there seems to be a not so subtle shift at the edges of the Republican Party to call out the administration for all the egregious things it has done in the last year.  Obviously long overdue.  Will it have any effect?  Probably not, since it is clear that the current crop of Republicans have no ethical compass.  They allow Trump to debase the country because on some level they believe condoning his behavior is okay as long as they get what they want policy-wise.  That is a true deal with the devil, because the end result will be the corruption of our 241-year experiment with democracy.  We can only hope there is a 'break in the clouds'.

The 2018 election will be the next fulcrum point that will indicate whether the other 2/3rds of our countrymen have what it takes to save the republic.  The dark cloud on the horizon for that event is the movement being created by Steve Bannon.  Should he succeed in replacing elements of the current  Republican majority with Trump supplicants like “Judge” Roy Moore, the two party system as we know it will cease to exist.

So, the single ray of sunshine I see now is the dawning awareness of our Republican legislators that their bargain with the Satan of Trumpism is much more dangerous than they realized.  Until those Republicans become concerned with us as citizens rather than opportunities for personal aggrandizement, nothing will change enough to make a real difference until new elections.