Have You No Shame,Sir?

We will look back on this era, years from now, as a dark and twisted time where paranoia and suspicion ruled the land. The robots and the immigrants were coming, our nostalgia for all things dear was robbed from us, our values were twisted by liberals and Hollywood. Women were running for President. And gays too!! The world was warming up, both climate and politics. Wars were breaking out everywhere and events moved with ever increasing speed. Future shock was here.

Maybe the man is nothing but a Sign of the Times. Or worse, a Harbinger of Things to Come. He was a sputtering, fuming, bellicose ball of ignorant fury. Perfect for the era. Dictators usually are. They feed on the inchoate anger of those who feel forgotten, those who were disenfranchised by the changes that they will never understand, those who hate strangers and people who are not like themselves, those who fear the future will be a downward slide. They want a strong man, even if he’s cruel, even if he twists the truth, even if he shoots someone on 5th Avenue. They want someone who will express what they are feeling and can’t express themselves.

Bigotry, misogyny, racism, religious intolerance. Bullying and shaming. Oh to put the boot to the throat of their enemy! The mob unleashed. The capitol sacked. The dirty bastards getting their just desserts. These are the worst of times, these are the best of times.
The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Trump is no Hitler and the world will not be engulfed in a total conflagration. The evangelicals will be disappointed. Armageddon may not be at hand just yet. Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world. I suspect we will survive this national aberration. After all, we survived McCarthy, the KKK, the oil wars. But … what doesn’t kill us doesn’t make us stronger, I don’t care what the aphorism says. We’ll survive Trump, but we’ll be a lesser nation for it, and that isn’t fake news.

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