The Electoral Kool-Aid Acid Test

Don’t panic—vote.

Well, dear friends, the election is now just a day away, and it can’t come soon enough. As some wag quipped online, it’s like the whole country is waiting for a biopsy to come back. The problem — as I am quipping, here — is that about a third of the country is rooting for cancer.

Can you believe we’re here again, looking out at a presidential election in which the openly fascist Donald Trump stands a decent chance of spending the next four years (or more) in the White House? After January 6, 2021, one would think he would have been cast out into the political wilderness, excommunicated for violating the most sacrosanct principle of participatory democracy, becoming the first US president ever to balk at the peaceful transfer of power, and to mount a violent coup to overturn the results of a free and fair election. (There are plenty of other reasons why Trump should be a pariah, but that alone ought to do it.)

You’d think that, wouldn’t you?

But nooooooooo…..

Instead, thanks to the cowardice and venality of the GOP, and to Trump’s own chutzpah and skill as a grifter, and the apparent proto-fascism of tens of millions of our countrymen, we are perched on the cusp of something even more dangerous. It is truly astonishing.