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The Rotten N’ Corrupt (RNC)s’ televised assault to Make America Grate, culminated last night with a wincing thud: The cognitive dissonance was deafening. The affair, in the eyes of its unmasked participants, amounted to no less than a glorious success, while constituting, to those for whom the term ‘alternative facts’ rings as false as a lead bell, a fetid and malodorous one and an offense to the sensibilities unequalled in living memory.

The entire affair brought to hitherto unparalleled heights the notion of ‘preaching to the choir,’ while aptly illustrating the administration’s penchant for conducting and encouraging super-spreader events to demonstrate the efficacy of ignoring scientific advice concerning the Coronavirus.

The irony was gripping: the horrible state of affairs each speaker guaranteed would result with a Democratic electoral victory in November was a description of conditions as they stand today under their fearless leader’s watch. One shudders to think how they would acquit themselves given four more years to further carry out their erasure of everything they despise.

How will those who remain true to this monstrous lie of a president account for what will surely follow if his forces hold sway come November? Most likely, they won’t even notice . . . until his depredations affect them personally.

This is the state of affairs in which we currently find ourselves—living in a land where sense of community and notions of social responsibility have been subordinated for far too long by purely personal interests. This is most noticeably demonstrated in our time by the actions of the current president and his administration, where it’s clear to see. What’s less obvious, but equally injurious, is the little acts of impunity many of us commit in our daily lives, ranging from—back when dining out was popular—short-tipping, to the avoidance of paying taxes whenever possible.  When we act with impunity, the kind of injurious leadership offered by the current administration is a natural consequence.

And, when that happens, we have no one but ourselves to blame.

We in America need much, much more than a change of leadership—we need a fundamental re-set of what it means to be a citizen, a neighbor, a friend and a fellow traveler on the road we collectively traverse. On this road, the idea that we travel alone is a false notion borne of a false narrative into which we have been culturally indoctrinated.

We need to become aware that our every action has effects, collectively, on the lives of everyone else. No one travels this road alone; we are all of a piece with our fellow travelers, participants whose collective efforts combine to affect, in ways seen and unseen, the courses of our lives and the events that shape them. Ultimately, our individual choices join together to craft not only our personal stories but the stories of everyone and, thereby, our history as a people.

We need to cultivate this awareness of our connectedness and incorporate it into our daily decision-making. Only then will we become worthy of government that values people over money, compassion over indifference, equality over discrimination, inclusion over exclusion and care for the environment over wanton exploitation.  

The choice, as they say, is ours. But that choice doesn’t end on November third. Rather, it’s a choice we must continually and consciously make with our every act.

Tim Konrad

2020.08.28