Alan Zendell, September 19, 2023

Ever since Donald Trump decided that his narcissism could only be satisfied if he became the first American dictator, I’ve been confounded by the way major events have evolved. How often in the past have we asked, “How could this possibly have happened?” How could we have spent the decade of the 1920’s hollowing out the bases of our economy until everything crashed and burned? How, in the 1930’s, could Europe and the United States have sat back and watched Fascism devour most of Europe and Asia? How could we have allowed Russia to beat us into space while we were letting ourselves be dragged into a decade-long conflict in Vietnam?

I could ask a dozen more questions like those, but my intention is to avoid having us all wake up one day in, say, 2028 and ask how we could have turned our country over to a bunch of nihilistic, right-wing extremists and shredded our Constitution. Our founders’ vision, flawed as it was by eighteenth century norms and values, was of a Republic based on majority rule and freedom to speak and worship (or not) as we choose. It was of a government that prioritized the common good and the pursuit of happiness for all Americans.

If you need a clear example of how wrong things can go, recent polling revealed that while fewer than one in ten Americans believe abortion should be illegal in all circumstances, Tommy Tuberville, a football coach turned U. S. Senator has the power to scuttle our nation’s defense appropriation because he doesn’t like the military’s policy of granting leave to servicewomen who believe they require an abortion; an extremist rabble representing a small fraction of the House of Representatives seems to have the power to shut down the government until its demands on abortion, Ukraine, climate change, and public education are met; and most red state legislatures are attempting to enact bans on abortion and books they don’t like into law while recognizing that they do not represent the views of the majority of their constituents.

The problem is far deeper than a Republican Party at war with itself. Trump and his supporters showed us that the political system we have touted as the best and fairest in the world is seriously flawed and at risk. Our two-party system is incapable of defending itself and doing the people’s business when it loses its moral compass and openly supports a culture of lies. And it’s appalling that our media normalize the behavior of people who are willing to destroy our government for the sake of their own power and greed by referring to them as Conservatives.

These people are the anathema of Conservative leadership. Think about what the word conservative means – acting in a manner to conserve and preserve the things we need and value. Referring to radical extremists who prefer government by a fascist oligarchy that subjugates women and non-white populations while telling everyone who they can love and marry and censoring unpleasant truths from public education as Conservatives is a perversion of our language. The point was made clear by a tee shirt I saw while my family was touring the Naval Academy: Make Orwell fiction again.

Unfortunately, true Conservatives like Liz Cheney, Paul Ryan, and Jeff Flake were purged from our Congress because their gutless colleagues were more concerned with their own re-election than what was good for our country. And centrists, who for decades were the glue that held the warring factions in Congress together and enabled it to function, have decided to leave for greener pastures. I can’t say I blame them, but if we don’t react to those things as the glaring warning signs they are, the next generation of Americans will reside in a country we wouldn’t recognize.

Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee for President in 2012, said much the same thing in his new biography: Romney: A Reckoning. While roundly criticizing his Party, he revealed that at the times of Trump’s impeachments, not a single Republican Senator believed Trump to be innocent, yet he was the only one who voted to convict because the others were terrified of Trump’s base. That’s the same base that spawned the insurrection at the Capitol and who still threaten civil war if Trump fails to win a second term as President.

If you still wonder how once thriving economies and civilizations suddenly collapse, we’re watching the process unfold today. I don’t know a lot about ostriches, but I’d bet that burying its head in the sand never saved the life of a single creature that chose to hide rather than defend itself. If we try to hide from the danger of Donald Trump, we’ll be as pathetic as those ridiculous birds.