Hurray.
History will remember April 20, 2024 as the day America saved itself from itself. Congress by wide margins voted to oppose tyranny, support democracy, and oppose the will of Trump. A Speaker of the House outfaced the terrorists in his party to do the right thing; meanwhile our boastful, vicious former President and candidate for reelection sat pouting, glowering, growling, impotent in a criminal courtroom, looking like hell, while his surrogates pled poverty in another courtroom across town. Had the balloon been pricked, the evil genius’ spell broken? Too soon to say – overconfidence now would be more culpable than ever – but the combined legions of tyranny and plutocracy feel – finally! – in retreat. Battles and casualties await – more bitter violence and nefarious tricks – but the pendulum of selfish irresponsibility seems to have grazed its amplitude and begun its reversion to its center, where it belongs. Sanity heaves a sigh. Raise a glass, then back to the fray, to clobber the serpent till it wriggles no more.
My optimism may be mistaken, but so? How glorious to hope again! So might a patient with a wasting illness rejoice in the chance of reprieve. So did my heart skip and legs scamper when informed I was clean of cancer. Clean forever? Who could say? But clean for now, which is the only time we have. And that was fifteen years ago. So far, so good.
America is far from cured, but we stand a chance. The diseases of grievance, grudges, ignorance, selfishness, indifference, myopia that corroded our core continue to gnaw. MAGA mania cannot be wished away. Low-lives and fat-cats will continue to stand for office while good people flee public service. Self-government, never simple, may prove impossible in the long run, democracy an experiment that failed. Time will tell. But it seems, after April 20, we have time. Putin will be drubbed into surrender (which he'll proclaim triumph). America will get busy empowering its citizens, assuring their vote, making their votes count (in Presidential elections, especially), taxing the super-rich, caring for the needy, educating all. Justice, fairness, decency, truth, and civility may again become ideals. We’ve a lot to do – but miraculously – maybe – we stand a chance of doing, wresting our strange self-governance machine into a sane direction.
The experience of the last dozen years has dimmed my hope for humanity’s survival. The dinosaurs were apparently done in by an asteroid; humans seem likely to perish of our own unrestraint. As Robert Frost eloquently foretold:
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
Nothing lasts forever, no person, state, planet, star can dodge its eventual doom. I half look forward to the ease of dust.
I cannot see farther than the lives of those I love, to when our grandchildren may be grandparents; as of April 20, 2024, such a future – in freedom – seems plausible as it hadn’t before. For the chance, I weep with joy.
Since he popped into prominence, I’ve decried Mike Johnson and what he stands for. I loathe his politics. But whatever his motive, on April 20, he did the right thing – for our nation and the world – it can’t have been easy – and for that I honor him. Whether conscience drove him or calculation or some combination, what difference, he got there. An SOS sounded – Save our State! – and he showed up. Hurray.