The Eclipse

Photo courtesy of The Houston Chronicle

The sun is 400 times larger than the moon, but on Monday, across a wide swath of our home planet, the moon will obscure the sunlight long enough to bring nocturnal creatures out and about and put the birds to sleep.  The Ancients thought such heavenly marvels were acts of God.  Everything in this universe is an act of God and therefore, has far reaching consequences.

Here on earth, another fiery body is suffering an ongoing obliteration.  For our blustery, hateful president, the end is near.  You don’t stand on the side of tyranny and oppression in this world and not generate some incredibly bad karma.  Donald Trump is being eclipsed by his own ignorance; he is being relegated to the margins of democracy because he is utterly clueless about what America is and how it came to be through the challenges of history.  With his limited vocabulary, mercurial anger, and immoral character, he has confirmed what most of us knew a long time ago:  this guy is unfit to be president.  He is the worst of America, not the best.

But let’s be clear:  the fight is far from finished.  Bannon et al’s firing shows the disintegrating shit show of the Trump presidency, but until he resigns along with Pence, and we can vote the Republicans out of Congress, especially the spineless Paul Ryan and the anti-American Mitch McConnell, we won’t begin to undo the damage.

Also be clear:  this is not about Republicans and Democrats.  This is not about who voted for whom.  It does not matter if you thought Bernie was the answer, or you hated Hillary because she was, well, Hillary.  We can all own this debacle.  We made a desperate choice because we were sick of the status quo.  We were sick of the same old politicians espousing their same old campaign lines to get elected only to disappoint us over and over again.  Both parties need to look at this time of hell, these 211 days of terror that pushed our democracy to the very edge of oblivion, and realize that government is about service to the people.  It is about representing all Americans and doing what is right not for party but for people.  And not just American people, but the people of the earth.  No country exists in a vacuum; if one country fails to do what is right, we all suffer.  This is globalism, Bannon be damned.  Remember the term “global village.”  It is time to start using it again.

So what happens next?  We face some dark times and difficult days.  Things are out of control and we will need months, even years, to set them right again.  Make no mistake:  we have been damaged and there will be a price to pay, now and in the future.  There are deep divisions in this country and in this world, and quite frankly, as we saw in Charlottesville, the Nazis and white supremacists with their violent hatred are not exactly open to a reasonable or rational argument.  Heather Heyer is both a victim and a symbol for the dangers we face when we stand up to violent extremists.  We have also never been a particularly intellectual country, meaning that appeals to reason may not overcome appeals to emotion.  Victims cling to victimhood, and the myth of white supremacy and the belief that immigrants and people of color are a threat to “white pride” and the future of our country will not die easily.  Who are these racists going to blame for their own failures, inadequacies and ineptitude?

However, Trump has to go:  impeach him, charge him, remove him with the 25^th amendment.  Pence has been right alongside of him, supporting him, standing with him.  He, too, must go.  Clean house.  The sooner, the better, however, if we have to wait until we can do this electorally in 2018 and 2020, we will have to muddle through.  To all those thinking of running for office in the future, put people first, not party.  Do what is right for country and the world.  Stop the intransigence simply because you think it gives you power to obstruct the process and gridlock the government.  We did not elect you to office to go to Washington and be an obstructionist.  Reach across the aisle; find common ground.  Joining hands is a lot less bloody than raising fists.

I am hoping and praying that the more peaceful protest of this weekend is the sun emerging from the shadow of the moon.  I am hoping the nighttime predators are slinking off to crawl back into the hole from which they came.  And finally, I am hoping that America has come to the conclusion that the things that unite us are greater than the things that divide us, that we are a country of immigrants, that we are the great experiment, because everyone here, with the exception of our indigenous people, is from somewhere else.  It is not too late to re-imagine the American dream and reclaim our history and our future by living righteously in the present.