We assume our beloved democracy will be resilient. They felt the same way in Europe. At first, the middle class thought Hitler and Mussolini were clowns, ephemeral, even pathetic. This was a theme in the Ken Burns U.S. and the Holocaust series on PBS. It was also a theme in the 1972 Garden of the Finzi-Continia film on Amazon Prime.
But after a while, not very long, we find they are not clowns at all. By then it’s too late and we’ve been ambushed by your own wishful optimism that they would go away. We humor ourselves with hopeful points of light - but hope is not enough, end not soon enough. If Trump gets investigated or loses a motion or says something stupid, that’s not enough.
His acolytes are deadly serious, working hard around the country to advance his conspiracy every day, investing tons of time and millions in money. It’s a deadly sport. For many of us it’s been a kind of spectator sport, and that’s particularly dangerous. To stop it, we all need to be involved.
The acolytes see the inflection point coming soon. They know how high the stakes are. They have a plan. They conspire without conscience. They don’t tell us or law enforcement about their plans, just like those who plotted to overthrow the government in the 1930s
Trump and his acolytes have already destroyed some of their own, and some say they’ve destroyed the GOP itself. Watching as the inflection point approaches, we lull ourselves while they conspire, we so thoughtful, so reasonable, so moderate, we the Marquess of Queensbury.
But one day soon, maybe on or just after Election Day in November, the curtain will come swiftly down on us, and we’ll get the sting, a la Paul Newman and Jackie Gleason, and our lives and country will never be the same again.
A quote to leave you with:
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall;
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again.
Yes, Humpty is an anthropomorphic egg, as in chicken and egg, the tragic casualty of the nursery rhyme by Lewis Carroll, who as you will recall was the author of Alice in Wonderland.
And indeed, Wonderland is where we are right now, wondering. And one could also say that we in our naivety are fully reminiscent of the proverbial Alice.
The price of liberty is, of course, eternal vigilance.
ThinkTech
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