7.14.24

FIRST THOUGHTS ABOUT AN UGLY, AMERICAN DAY

AS SOMEONE who loathes and fears Donald Trump, I’m relieved that he survived a would-be assassin’s attempt to end his life.
     Now, he can be confronted the right way, kept from the White House by voters, not a gunman. Now, he can be tried for his many sins by juries, not vigilantes.
     Those of us who are of Trump’s and Joe Biden’s generation have witnessed successful assassinations, and we know their awful result.
     John F. Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King were snatched from our lives and our history before the promise of their life’s work was fully realized.
     And the nation, and the world at large, remain the worse for their violent early exits.

I AM WRITING THIS EARLY in the morning the day after what was an ugly day, the ugliest so far in the 2024 election campaign.
     So, I haven’t read the latest news, especially about what’s known about the purported assassin.
     Last I heard, the gunman was killed by the Secret Service, that a person attending Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania was also killed and that two other persons were critically wounded.
     So, I don’t know even the basic facts that already may in public view and surely will be by today’s end.

WHAT WON’T CHANGE, no matter what the onslaught of breaking news tells us in the coming hours and days, are several probabilities.
     One is that Trump, to his followers, will assume even greater god-like stature. The Trump cult will now have a martyr, and a living one at that.
     As awful as the news will be about the plot to kill Donald Trump, whether by one crazy man, a leftist study group, a Wall Street PAC, the Republicans will not be content with the truth.
     Indeed, Trumpsters yesterday already were spinning up their  lies, fantasies and conspiracies to glorify their leader and demonize Biden, Democrats and everyone else trying to block Trump’s march to become a dictator.
     Also, the nation, once again, will miss an opportunity to confront and tame its violent character, and in particular, curb the use of guns whose only purpose is to kill presidents and the rest of us.
     Democrats, sadly, will take the attempt on Trump’s life as one more dispiriting setback in a string of relentless misfortunes – Biden’s terrible debate, unsettling polls, the party’s fracturing constituencies – and lose still more ground and waste more time in the campaign to save democracy.

ON THIS LAST POINT,  I’m hoping to be wrong.
     My own plan, right after breakfast, is to hand-print another batch of postcards to send to folks in states where there are crucial Senate and House races, imagining that at least a few recipients will vote the way my scrawled messages suggest.
     I hope not to let up, not for a second, in my contempt for and fear about Donald Trump and the terror he already has visited upon my country and the people I love.
     I will not stop in worrying about and working against his vile plans going forward to do permanent and historic harm to the country and to the people I love.
     As I said, the last I knew, Trump’s wounds were not serious, and he has survived in good health.
     I am glad of this, because in the coming months, I’ll get to keep on learning, talking and writing about how hideous he is and what, collectively, we can do to stop him.
     Best of all, come November, I'll get to vote against him.