Dark Days

So, are we even surprised?  Another episode in the continuing saga of the “New America” unfolds in all its gory reality.  A chapter unwinding, whose theme is anti-semitism with a ‘forward’ by someone with an urge to decimate all the targets of our President by mailing them bombs; who uses every chance he gets to encourage these kinds of actions and responses from his minions.

We have the dubious honor of witnessing the most horrific massacre of Jews in the United States’ history, and while we are shocked, it is muted by the sheer familiarity of it all.  Is there no escape from this maze that seems without exit?

Our elected representatives are held hostage by the gun lobby, so they are impotent to curb any use, or even the ability to keep weapons out of the hands of mentally unstable people.  Our president suggests that the carnage in Pittsburgh could have been mitigated by armed ushers in the congregation.  (Maybe the local gun shows will start offering tallises with holsters!). 

Our president, who we hoped would lead the nation in compassion and empathy chooses instead to double and triple down on his insults directed at ‘others’ like immigrants and refugees.  Our president, who misses the opportunity offered by these moments of horror to offer solace to a nation, instead aims his vitriol at the media and the ‘Democrats’, or at the victims of these mass shootings and then makes jokes about his hair.

These kinds of occurrences are all too familiar since the rise to power of Mr. Trump and his supplicants.  He equates the evils of Nazi-ism, white nationalism and white supremacism with patriotism and love of country, culture and history.

Over the past two years we have slowly yet inexorably descended into the pit of tribalism and autocracy at the hands of Mr. Trump.  We have watched our system of checks and balances, the rule of law and oversight of the Executive Branch decay day by day at the hands of the Republican party, until at this point, Trump’s ‘base’ believes his incendiary tropes that up is down, or that lies are the truth, or that science and fact are false.

When these despicably horrible events occur, when innocent people die because of the unhinging of behaviors that are encouraged by the crowds of chanting advocates screaming ‘lock her up’, we all die a little bit.

But we can act.  Have we finally had enough shocks to our conscience?  Can we now see why this election cycle may be the last exit before the toll?  Does it now make sense, as if it didn’t really dawn on all of us before, that we must try to change the direction of momentum on November 6^th?  If we don’t succeed at this moment to put some reins on this gangrenous juggernaut of ‘nationalism’, we are destined for darker days ahead.