sonora2sonoma

Spent some time yesterday at the beach at low tide, poking around tidepools. While so engaged, I came upon a colony of mussels, clinging expectantly, bottom up, to the underside of an exposed ledge. I thought to myself, how dismal it must be to spend your entire life, nose downward (assuming mussels have noses), in the shadows, crammed shell to shell, alternately immersed in water, then left high, dry and parched, abandoned to a schedule that repeats mercilessly for the entirety of your existence—to live as a creature of the sea furloughed daily, without explanation, to an alien world, an inhospitable domain, with no assurance (presumably) you will ever see a return to normalcy. Imagine being forced to rely on this endless cycle for your very survival, for your daily sustenance, totally dependent on whatever washes your way borne on the confusion, detritus and foam of capricious circumstance.  

While musing thus, the thought struck me how eerily similar, in a way, the life of these upended bivalves compares to our American experience under trump, with all its backwash, confusion, Covid claustrophobia and uncertainty!

Oh, how I long for the day when trump will be nothing more than a foul aftertaste that lingers in the mouth following an arduous and gaping tooth extraction, difficult to endure but with a certified end-date—a nightmarish memory receding in the fog of forgetfulness, the light of its darkness diminishing with each day’s sunrise until, finally, all that’s left is a faint recognition that there once was this awful person named trump who, like Hitler, made life a living hell for those forced to endure his malignant tenure.

But as much as I wish I could erase this man from not only my memory but the collective memory as well, no matter how sweetly the sound of the word ‘trumplessness’ rings to the ear, he must be remembered, like Hitler must be remembered, as a reminder, and an object lesson for future generations, of the fragility of democracy and of what can happen when the public drops its guard, becomes lazy, and fails to pay attention to the actions of its leaders. We must foster and preserve the recognition that the word ‘democracy’ should not be regarded as a noun only, but also as a verb, and not merely any verb, but an action verb, a power verb; a verb demanding participation in order for it to achieve its truest potential. For democracy to survive, flourish and endure into the future, it requires participation, it demands its due. Much as an insistent lover expects recognition and attention be repaid, so does democracy; it is a reciprocal relationship that only works if those involved sincerely invest themselves in the process.

By contrast, one theory of what brought about the fall of the Roman Empire lays its blame to apathy on the part of its citizens. It doesn’t take much reflection to recognize similar undercurrents in the swirling trends, the admixture of elements that created the conditions that made it possible for someone like trump to ascend to the presidency. If and when we are able to detach this barnacle of blasphemy from our ship of state, the toxic and corrosive elements—the mostly delusional ideas and beliefs that gained traction with his followers and empowered his hypnotic effect over them—will glaringly remain. Any attempts to restore reason to our politics will succeed only if they include those still under the spell of this self-serving charlatan: Such efforts must be truly democratic and they must address the concerns of everyone. Navigating these waters will be one of the most difficult challenges facing the country going forward.     

As Elvis Costello optimistically declared, “there’s a wishful pencil mark in the diary of next year!” Hopefully, by then the spell cast by the twin curses of Covid and trumpism will be broken at last and the coming year will signal a return to sanity and the beginning of a much-needed house cleaning to rid the premises of the foul after-effects of our current devolution into misery and despair.

(For clarification, apologies are herewith offered for the insertion of the word ‘tadpoles,’ as well as the image of one, at the beginning of this article. Its inclusion served no other purpose than to embellish, via alliteration, the title of the piece. Forbearance is humbly solicited for any confusion that may have arisen as a result.)

Tim Konrad

October 19, 2020