Lucidity

  When my son was a baby, maybe 2 years old, I distinctly remember an episode on a playground where he and a number of other similarly aged children were playing in a sandbox.  They were all friendly, or at least indifferent towards each other and readily shared the toys that were randomly cast about in the sand.  Except for one child.  He would scream bloody murder anytime another child put a finger on a toy he was even mildly interested in. Regardless of the toy, he'd throw a fit if another kid so much as looked at it. I always paid special attention to situations like this.  Some children would get upset.  Some children would quizzically observe.  And yes, a select few children would act with aggression.   I watched the episode through to its logical conclusion.  A parent on their phone, not paying attention to the present, looking  up in horror as her child smacks another kid in the face with a sand shovel, picks up the toy that wasn...

I had tempered hope for the 2020 election.  I hoped that it would be a sound rejection of the hatred and transparently authoritarian bent of the previous four years.  This election would prove that we are primarily a nation of good people and that 2016 was not a harbinger, but a blip.  A moment in time that we, as a majority, were caught napping.  It would never happen again.  The real silent majority would rise up and put things properly in their place.  I had no allusions that this would be a quick and painless process but we would at least be headed in the right direction.  Unfortunately, these comforting thoughts do not reflect reality.   Donald Trump is not a man. He is not a business person.  He is not a president.  He is a litmus test.  The 2020 Presidential Election was not an election of an American president, it was a raw, uncomfortable stare into who we are as a nation.  If you are any combination of fearful, r...