JULY 22, 2O21 – What’s worse: a. The violent, January 6 attack on the Capitol; or b. Republicans’ continued support of a disordered former president, who called the unruly mob, “a loving crowd”? I say “b.” A country in which people who wield substantial political power will say and do anything to stay in the good graces of a mad man bereft of grace is not a healthy country.
For years we’ve been in an unhealthy state, and with each news cycle our conditions deteriorate further. The most immediate crisis of our unhealthy nation is . . . well, our health. Thanks largely to Republican (anti-)leadership, vaccinations have stalled. A return to normalcy—and avoidance of unnecessary deaths, serious illness, and upending stress on our healthcare resources—now elude us. The very people who railed against government-imposed lockdowns and mask requirements over a deadly disease now ignore, deny, or denigrate the magic bullet that would end the crisis.
Today’s Republicans have neither principles nor policies. They’re zombie power mongers fueled by anti-reality—falsehoods, intentionally devised and disseminated misinformation, including a raft of conspiracy theories detached from evidence.
If the clouds of dishonest smoke were confined to an opium den safely isolated from the rest of civilization, Republicans would be nothing more than a framed cartoon in an addict’s hovel. But such benignity is not the case. The power addiction of people like Kevin McCarthy and ilk is a threat to public safety. The source of that dark power is a base high on distortions.
The distortions, in turn, are grown for big money. Why would Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham or Sean Hannity switch to nutritious crops—or be removed from their poppy fields—when their theatrical smugness, arrogance, indignation, and fabrications are rewarded with sacks bursting with loot?
We live in a three-ring, self-perpetuating opium circus. An ill-informed, misguided base in the first ring is supplied with pipes and powder purveyed by barkers and hucksters in the second ring; the drugged-up spectators then cheer on the clowns hellbent on owning the third ring. Yet the rest of us live under the same circus tent. When the lies and denials bring down the tent, all of us will suffer in the crushing panic.
What are we to do? How are we to hold the clowns to account? How do we silence the barkers and hucksters? How do we counter the opium absorbed by millions of minds?
Meanwhile, the world burns and floods, and a micro-organism—oblivious to the color of politics—morphs and mutates through our thin defenses.
Civilization has faced many mortal threats since the start of recorded time. In scale and complexity, however, current threats are unprecedented. Paradoxically, our very success—in numbers and technological prowess—may soon push us past our limits. Amidst the extremes of the three-ring opium circus, it’s no extreme to pull the alarm. Those who hear and see . . . and think . . . must still the moment of danger and seize the day before the reckoning.
There’s no alternative—for any of us.
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© 2021 by Eric Nilsson
