Beware the Sleepwalkers....

I sit here in the quiet of the morning, before the rush of tasks overtakes me.  I read my email, play Quiz Planet with my daughter who seems closer to me in London than any other human these days, and then turn to the Washington Post and the New York Times.  In just a few minutes I can scan the headlines and read a few opinion pieces, and suddenly the exhaustion of our national disease overwhelms me.

 

I don't ever remember being as depressed and hopeless feeling about our future.  My discovery that such a large portion of my countrymen are afflicted with insanity is so terribly unsettling.  It's sort of like walking along thinking everything is in balance, and then looking down and seeing that actually I am walking on a 3 inch wide ribbon of concrete that falls away on either side into an infinite abyss.  The sudden fear that a slight misstep will result in the loss of everything I counted on as stable reality is completely terrifying.

 

That is the way I feel every day now as the fulcrum of our existence as a country comes into view just a little over two months from now.  Maybe it is just the harsh presence of these absurd political conventions that have intruded into my reality with clarion calls warning of disaster and chaos if we don't vote 'their' way.  I survived the DNC mostly because I believe that if the Democrats win, we can at least salvage a chance to reconstitute our changing society and intelligently plan a future based on reason and truth.  But the RNC has frightened me.  I can only watch the summaries because if I watched the actual 'speeches' I think I might be driven to ultimate despair.  The people who I see talking there are sleepwalking; drugged into some cultish existence that is not reality based.  Where did these people come from??  Were they always there and I just wasn't aware of their presence?   Here's what the Washington Post says about the RNC convention:

"..a party that thinks it can get away with such an extraordinary juxtaposition at its convention — brashly flaunting a level of open corruption on national television, while recycling a tale of the opposition’s corruption (the Biden/Ukraine story) that is pure invention — is a party that simply does not think our institutions, the media included, are capable of meting out the most basic level of accountability any longer.

 

Trump campaigned in many ways the first time on his own corruption, and since politicians piously claiming to care about democratic norms aren’t delivering and are on the take themselves — voters might as well pick someone who will bend and break rules on their behalf.  That this remains appealing to many voters is grounds for introspection for us all."

 

I click on my link to my Facebook page and see who has read my blogs.  It is the only place I can vent and get reassurance.  There are those precious folks and friends I can count on to indicate agreement and support, but they are few.  And then I think about the body of work that I have put out there over the last year and wonder if people just think I am going mad and only showing anger and fear--I wonder if they are as scared as I am....

 

Then I look at some of the posts I see from people I actually know and my terror is compounded.  There is one of my relatives who thinks Trump is sent from Jesus.  Somehow, in spite of her professed adherence to her Christian values, she is blind to the Anti-Christ-like behavior of Trump and the failure of his policies which actually affect her--and yet her unblinking, irrational idolatry spews forth in her writing.  Then there is another fellow who I have worked with in the past, who is intelligent, caring, empathetic--a wonderful human being.  Yet he puts a list as long as the bible on Facebook with all the wonderful 'things' accomplished by Trump which are all fantasy and the product of lies and propaganda!  He, of course, will say that the facts are 'fake news', but they aren't!  They are facts/truth!!  What happened to his brain?

 

So completely depressing.

 

Well, my friends, (those who are walking the thin concrete line with me), what are we to do if the inflection point we all know is coming breaks not in our favor?  I know the antidote to fear is action, but I just don't have an answer.  I have always prided myself on having a plan--even if it has to be changed and adjusted, it is still a plan.  I don't have one after November 3.  Help me figure this out.  Please tell me what we do.......