While I was initially inclined away from the constant drone of Trump-bashing and doom saying in the mainstream media, and just trying to ignore what was happening and what may happen, a mish-mash of historically-based thoughts and their attending emotions was whirling in my head following the election.
Putting them asisde, I said, “Hey,” if it doesn’t directly affect me, why should I make myself upset? We gave money and put up yard signs. We had hope, even confidence. And we lost, fair and square. So, we just have to live with it. We have plenty of money, and our health, and live in a place that’s fairly liberal and isn’t a crossroads of social stress. Let’s just look out the window, see the sun shining and wait for this to go away.”
Still, the specter of 1930s Europe loomed, and I could never quite lose the feeling that I was like one of those “good Germans” who didn’t join the party, thought Hitler was a buffoon, and just wanted to go on about their business. They pro-actively ignored everything that was happening around them and tried to cling to normalcy, until everything wasn’t normal. As their country lay shattered, they had to begin to rebuild something new from the ashes.
And then there was the thought that this is less like Germany and more like the French revolution. There the people grew tired of the ruling class and overthrew it, replacing it with a gang of radical disruptors who became even more corrupt and brutal than the aristocracy they ousted. That country wasn’t conquered from without, but “rescued” from within by Napolean, leading to 150 years of trying to find itself.
In any case, being passive isn’t my natural state, and all this end-of-year mix of dangerously ill-suited cabinet choices along with the ascendancy of Elon Musk (is he really an Earthling?) as proto-President has got me back on the resistance track.
Maybe the latter scenario is what may happen here. Should things get too chaotic, should the Constitution become too shredded, will a military leader emerge to “rescue” us? And then, as that reality decays, will it, as some predict, take a generation or more to re-construct the institutions of democracy?
Unfortunately, our geographic separation from the rest of the world, no longer affords us the luxury of distance and time to sort out the kinds of serious problems we have brought upon ourselves.. Tectonic shifts in the geopolitical and environmental globescape are happening now. It is a time for strength and stability. Regardless of which historical metaphor might apply, we are instead facing those challenges from a position of absolute national instability and weakness.
Outside my window the sun may be shining. But, man, is it cold out there!
©2024, David B Bucher
SoEast 
We have to keep fighting.
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