Now All Politics is National— and Personal

At best, the “blue wave” was the avoidance of an American catastrophe

Current Events = Very New History

There was never be a better opportunity to claim a measure of bona fide heroism of the kind that subsequent generations tire of hearing about — and without much effort.

Our heretofore relatively milquetoast times have provided few opportunities for easy execution of epoch-altering acts along the lines of casting Nazism (aka “nationalism”) back into the abyss. Voters today did something like what the Greatest Generation once did, with much less difficulty.

In retrospect, most would agree, “W.” was nothing compared to this.

Admittedly, this sounds a lot like the hyperbole we’re so used to hearing anymore. Meanwhile, some die-hard “fiscal conservatives”, we are told, continue to weigh their 401(k)s against the abhorrent rhetoric of a far-too-empowered hatemonger— as if they belong on the same scale.

We’ve seen and heard so many vile things, in a torrent so unprecedented in this country, the unprecedented has become commonplace; even hyperbole hardly seems itself anymore.

Granted, the President, who many blame for the current national climate, isn’t on the ballot. But he did say this yesterday:

“Even though I’m not on the ballot, in a certain way I am on the ballot. The press is very much considering it a referendum on me and us as a movement.”

— President Trump (Monday, 11/5/18)

Trump has thus summarily upended Former Speaker Tip O’Neill’s adage, all politics is local, making this midterm election into a veritable referendum on the President. So, you heard the man — it’s not about your Congressman, Senator, or Garbage Collector — it’s about him. (Fitting, since for Trump, everything is.)

Make that Her-storic?

My aunt, a generally kind person from more rural parts, who in recent years has somehow become an almost-literally-rabid Trumpophile, remarked that “nobody even gave Mussolini as hard as a time as people are giving Trump.”

Exactly. But they darn well should have. As the real Real Americans, we who believe in the basic idea of the United States of America should be giving these people a very hard time.

By “these people”, I mean a man who is deeply against American things like equality, diversity and immigration, and all those he asked us to consider his clones. In failing to protest, and because many see him as the Great Winner above all, most Republicans may as well be Trump mini-me’s.

Having lived through 2000, 2004, and 2016, I’m leery of jinxing things by, say, listening to MSNBC’s election-morning ebullience — already over-the-top at 5am over a few positive polls — or giddy Democrats all but declaring “victory” already by discussing who will head which committee in the new Congress.

The fact is, this won’t be a great victory, even if Democrats somehow have every imaginable thing go their way today. Even the unseating of the universally-despised (but somehow, in conservative Texas — frontrunner) Ted Cruz should not be cause for too much giddiness. If all goes optimally for Democrats, this will be only the temporary avoidance of a near-complete catastrophe for America.

Think about this: without a Democratic Congress, we would be leaving a man who deeply loathes our founding principles in a position of unchecked (and he hopes, ever-expanding) power. The kind he was in for nearly two years.

We’ve seen where leaving the current Leader of the Free World in a position of unchecked power leads — over (Sayoc, the Trump fan, and his bombs) and over (the Pittsburgh tragedy) and over (the Trump fans behind the killings of black people in Kentucky and yoga practitioners in Florida) — in just a matter of weeks.

Democrats, who have seemed, with two notable exceptions, cursed so far in this century — something like the Boston Red Sox were from 1918 to 2004 — need a Blue Wave today engulf this Red Tide.

Remember President Gore? Right. No one does. The specter of what I’ve called Democratic pussy slipping (versus the male-centric metaphor “tripping over their dicks”), will, it appears. not become a far more insidious Curse of the Bambino. After all — some of us are praying. And in my case, that means atheist liberals are praying. For good weather in the Southeast, for example. And that no one buys the line: “I could have had a better tone.”

May today be the day that we remember the lines of Emma Lazarus — the ones about “tired, huddled masses yearning to breathe free”, and about the poor and the homeless.

May Democrats, like the Biblical Lazarus, rise again and stop this “unqualified, low IQ” President.

But after this, we cannot continue to rely on miracles; we cannot let a period like 2016–2018 happen in America, ever again.