For me, personal tragedy seems to prefigure the pending national tragedy
My wife (and best friend) died three weeks ago of an incurable disease. In the days that have followed, my grief has taken three distinct forms:
Doubts: Did we do enough to try to extend her life? Did the doctors let us down? Did we ourselves make mistakes that hastened her death? What if her life could have been extended another year or two… might a cure have come along?
Sympathy: She was so brave. We enjoyed each other’s company to the very end. She deserved better than that end. I see her courageous smile and it rips my heart out.
Self-Pity: What will I do without her, after enjoying 60 years of friendship and 54 years of marriage… my entire adult life to date?
It’s been three weeks since her passing… and it’s one week until what may be the most important national elections since 1860, or at least since 1932. And, yes, my judgment is clouded by my grief. So be it. I am compelled to see my personal tragedy as a prelude to the impending national tragedy in microcosm:
Doubts: We American’s did so much right during my 77 years. We ended segregation and created a genuinely diverse society. Civil rights have been extended to a panoply of protected classes… not only to African Americans, but also to disabled folks and across the sexual rainbow. To me, the most compelling proof that these rights are now in our culture’s DNA is the diversity reflected in our commercial advertising. Corporations, driven by the profit motive, have infused their ads with diversity. They wouldn’t do it, if it didn’t pay.
We Americans won the Cold War. The “Evil Empire” spun apart and the Berlin Wall was sledgehammered down. We built the world’s largest and most robust economy, and the most extensive middle class. From film to TV to music, we excelled in the arts and spread our art across the globe. Our scientists and economists won the most Nobel Prizes. The dollar became the bulwark of the international financial structure. Our universities became world beaters and the envy of all the world.
And then…
And then… something slipped.
Did it start on November 22, 1963? Was it the lies that fueled the Vietnam War or the venality that we remember by the name “Watergate”? Did we start down the slippery slope as early as that?
The answer hardly matters now. Perhaps it was the cynical farce of impeaching a president over a blow job. Or the misappropriation of the 9/11 tragedy as an excuse for invading Iraq. Most likely all these tragic events played their role in our decline. It has been a gradual decline into a cesspool of cynicism, self-doubt and self-loathing. On the way down, more and more of us yearned more and more for the days before the back of Jack Kennedy’s head was blown off. More and more of us began to yearn for America’s “Golden Age.”
When we reached the bottom, we were met by a man who embodied and embraced all the worst attributes of our national character. He stands knee-deep in the cesspool, He is the dispeller of our collective doubts. Facts fall before him like so many saplings in front of a bulldozer. Forget your doubts about climate change, he says; it’s a myth. Forget your doubts about immigration; immigrants are garbage and I’ll clean it up. Forget your doubts about liberal views, such as the reproductive rights of women; I’ll sweep away that garbage too. I will drain this cesspool and make America great again. Don’t doubt that for a moment. All I ask in return is absolute power.
Sympathy: We were such a brave people. We weathered a Great Depression and triumphed in a worldwide war. If post-WWII America didn’t quite witness a “Golden Age,” well, it came damned close. I feel no animosity, only sympathy, for the young women and men of today’s America, who are the first post-WWII generation not confident of a better life than their parents. I feel no animosity, only sympathy, for the young men who see in diversity a threat to their own financial security and sense of self-worth. My generation —- the Baby Boomers —- and our parents —- the Greatest Generation—- saw only challenges to be tackled and triumphed over, America’s younger generations see seemingly intractable challenges. They lack respect for their leaders and the system these leaders have created and espouse. They see betrayal in the system’s immigration policy… in its foreign policy… in its DEI policy… in its institutions themselves, ranging from labor unions all the way up to the federal bureaucracy. They say, “Give me that old time religion,” and they arm themselves against the day.
Self-Pity: What will I do without Lady Liberty, after enjoying 77 years of her companionship and her protection… my entire life? I pity myself and all my fellow Americans… those who share my premonition of what lies ahead, and those who will make it happen, only regretting their mistake when it’s too late. The man I have dubbed “Donito Trumpolini” stands waiting in the cesspool. His forces are arrayed. Harris will win the popular vote. He and his minions are determined to win, one way or the other, the Electoral College vote this time around. Trumpolini is to Putin as Mussolini was to Hitler. Swimming in the cesspool, among his minions, is a Muskrat. He too yearns for power and glory beyond mere millions and billions of dollars.
I have pointed to November 22, 1963, as the possible starting point for our long slide down the slope to the cesspool. I hope I am dead wrong about November 5, 2024, being the day we sink into it.
