sonora2sonoma

Whether one approves of the current occupant of the White House or is utterly repulsed by him and everything that issues forth from his oval orifice, the time to stand and be counted is nigh upon us.

The choices are starkly different, though it might not seem so if you listen to the latest Republican talking points on their sudden embrace of the protection of pre-existing conditions despite the fact of their multiple simultaneous efforts to undo the provision in the country’s courts. While physicists have now noted that sub-atomic particles can, under certain conditions, exist in two separate spaces simultaneously, I’m aware of no such correlate in the social sciences and, frankly, I seriously doubt conservative think tanks run that deep anyway. If they did, one would hope that little chestnuts like the deliberate destabilization of the social contract might raise a few eyebrows.

What continues to astound me is how the Republicans seem to have altogether lost any sense of decency, dignity or probity in their failure to find some line of demarcation–some level beyond which they are unwilling to descend–in their support of the viral nonsense emanating from this careening caravan of calamity. I’m beginning to suspect maybe they never had a Rubicon to begin with and what we’re seeing now is the revelation of their true nature. If so, that is not only unspeakably sad but also extremely scary! Regardless of their motives, the damage these people are doing to the country, to the planet and to the future prospects of the young people who will be left with the mess they’re creating for them is simply awful!

What is at stake here is more than the integrity of certain public officials, more than the integrity of the nation as a whole, even. What is really at stake is the integrity of our entire enterprise—the integrity (to borrow from the dictionary) of soundness, of solidity—the integrity of being unimpaired or sound in construction. The misogynist, race-baiting xenophobic rhetoric coming from the divider-in-chief is antithetical to this integrity and gives it a foul taint that will endure for decades.

One can only pray that enough of us are sufficiently awakened at this point to deliver a sound repudiation of this insanity at the ballot box come next Tuesday.

November 5, 2018