An Existential Crisis

I read a story a few days back in either the WAPO or the NYT about breathing a sigh of relief now that Trump was gone. The story terrified me. Trump and the MAGA crowd are by no means gone. While Biden got a record number of votes, so did Trump.

Many if not most Trump supporters are lower-than-average income and educational achievement that most Americans. And they have shown themselves to be vitriolic and often prone to violence. They are still clinging to the foolish notion, by the millions, that the election was stolen and Trump is the true POTUS. Does this sound like a rational group of people to you? I doubt it.

They are not going away. They are members of a cult who have drunk the poison kool-aid and died psycho-spiritually. They are mean-spirited, vitriolic and will go to any lengths in service to their cult leader. Does this remind you of any of the leaders during WWII? It should and it should and for good reason. They, two, vilified free speech and a free press (fake news). And they made outrageous claims about racial superiority. This should sound very familiar.

Trump will not likely run for office again. He cannot bear the idea of being a loser again, which is why he still will not concede that he lost. And his cultists like Graham and McConnell are behaving exactly like one would expect — following their leader blindly.

We are facing a very real existential crisis, a true threat to our way of life as a republican democracy. But we are not helpless. We can become more active in our political lifes. We can speak out. We can write essays like this one. We can write letters to editors of our papers. We can talk to our friends and families.

What we cannot do is remain silent. Silence is tacit complicity.