NOVEMBER 17, 2020 – On my walk yesterday evening I encountered a neighbor. In the cold air we stopped—about 20 feet from each other—to chat. The conversation started out with a light-hearted exchange of pleasantries but soon turned dark, as nightfall consumed the dusk and our conversation switched to . . . politics.
We grappled inconclusively with the phenomenon of “the 73 million” who, by all appearances, are still on board with the destructive nonsense that threatens our country. The “73 million” aren’t going away or yielding their embrace of an alternative universe. The danger rendered by their worldview is not theoretical. It’s real—here and now.
The buffoonish sociopath in the White House? Eventually he’ll be removed, but toxic waste is not about to be removed from the information diets of those 73 million. “Free speech” unfettered by the fairness doctrine allows GoebbelsNews, its new competition, NewsMax, and other rightwing-nut “infotainment” to poison over 47% of the electorate—the 73 million whose dark addiction endangers the entire nation.
Upon returning to our house, I flipped on the TV and turned to the CBS Evening News. Of all the disturbing images, the one that struck hardest was the aerial shot of vehicles lined up at a food station of the North Texas Food Bank, which serves 13 Texas counties—where one in six people is “food insecure.” Multiple queues of cars, vans, and pickups stretched as far as the camera could see. On the ground, over 25,000 people in 6,000 vehicles were served free Thanksgiving meals. Lest any Republican claim without evidence that the recipients formed a leftwing “PAC” of socialist free-loaders, consider the big picture behind one beneficiary’s story: “I haven’t been working since December. I can’t find a job, they cut off my unemployment—it’s a big deal. It’s a real big deal.”
This on the same day that the DJIA flirted with 30,000. Many people feasted on the “30,000 points” that pad portfolios and ignored the 25,000 souls whose wallets and stomachs are empty. North Texas is not the only part of the country where people struggle for their daily bread—or increasingly, for their daily breath. There’s a deep divide in America, and it’s not just political. It’s as basic as oxygen and a dinner plate.
By itself, the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris doesn’t turn the light in “enlightened” back on. Until January 20, the irrefutable election of Biden/Harris won’t restore rational power to democracy’s dwelling. In the meantime, much wreckage can ensue—frozen plumbing, hypothermia, starvation, fatal falls down dark stairwells. Oh yeah . . . and an in-house pandemic.
When enlightened power is restored and the full extent of destruction is illuminated, the 73 million will still deny the age-old refrain of reality, “I told you so!” They will continue to drink their Kook-Aid and snort their cocaine. They will never see the light. They will only castigate the people responsible for directing light into the freezing darkness produced by purveyors of distortions, falsehoods, and false doctrines.
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© 2020 by Eric Nilsson
