Top kvetching and start fetching new voter registration forms.

 

It is not hard to decode Trumpian hyperbole and dissimilation.  Every number he cites is either untrue or massively inflated, and few of the alleged facts he offers are even remotely factual.  Since they have no hope of making him sound sane and reasonable his acolytes have created the term Trump Derangement Syndrome to delegitimize those of us who ardently oppose him, his arrogance and his odious delusions. 

 

Our alarmism, however is not misplaced.  Were Trump to return to the White House he would demand that wealth, power and privilege be even better protected than they are now.  The unconscienable distribution of wealth, income and power would never be seriously challenged.  He will reassure White people over and over again that any problems they face were caused by the majority of Americans who are less wealthy, less powerful and less white than they are.

 

It is, however, good advice to stop taking the bait that the news media swallows hook, line and sinker.  Among the pillars of democracy Trump has already weakened is our sense of agency, that we can understand our difficulties, organize a way of addressing them and then take action to correct what needed to be repaired.

 

We need to recover a sense of agency. For many generations Americans have examined American society, figured out what was broken and taken steps to fix it.  This is how we convert anger into action and frustration into achievement.  This belief that we can address our deficiencies is essential to any functioning democracy but especially one whose creed is to form a more perfect union.

 

Americans are an optimistic people. We are generally confident and innovative.  If we can now see this innate and distinctly American attribute is being degraded. It is not by chance.   Since 2016 we have been drowning in an unrelenting gusher of hatred, insults, grievances and false outrage.  And endless stream of lies have poisoned the public sphere.

 

Trump’s fascist undertones and overtones, his unrelenting and stultifying negativity, has seeped into our souls and polluted the body politic.  This election has to be about reproductive rights. It needs to be giving global climate change the effort that a problem of such magnitude requires.  Instead have to argue with the most backward and ignorant among us about the earth being flat and more guns being a prudent policy for diminishing gun violence, among other diversions.

 

These relentless assaults on mutual respect and verifiable truth are making us rigid and despairing .  Our natural hope has horribly mutated into a never ending defensive crouch, where we sit addled and alone in our bunkers for the next rhetorically murderous salvo.  We are not going back, as Kamala says.