Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedThey care not what mischief they procure, so that they may enrich themselves for the present; they will so long blow the coals of contention, till all the world be consumed by fire. – Robert Burton

The easiest way to cope with dire information is to deny it. Moribunds sometimes do this: “I’m not sick!” Many Americans are doing this today: “This isn’t happening!” “Human kind,” noted T.S. Eliot, “cannot bear very much reality.”

It is not just those aghast at events that deny them. Their principal perpetrator may be doing this too. Each day, lies more preposterous, monuments more vainglorious, pilferage more grotesque. A triumphal arch – to yourself? Steal billions of taxpayer dollars – for yourself? A quick half a billion profit on insider trading – then decree your shenanigans uninspectable? Murder soldiers without consent – and without a plan? The list’s too long to recall. Remember Epstein, Venezuela, Greenland, Cuba, Ukraine?

Maybe if he were riding high in public esteem, such culpable criminality might be understandable if not pardonable. If you can get away with it, why not? But the Nameless One is operating without the approval of his subjects. Almost two to one, we’re against him, and his numbers melt daily, as more diehards decide they’re not going to die that hard. Nor are any of these developments trending in a promising direction. Oil’s going to get more expensive, our Iranian adversaries more intransigent, more seamy revelations will seep, more of his imperiled or impaled partisans will “courageously” call it quits. Willfully, he seems to be driving into the most spectacular debacle in history. And enjoying himself, gloating, swaggering. Not only no shame, regret, course correction, he’s the best ever and everything he does is at least perfect, if not better. Move aside, Jesus.

What in blazes is going on?

One of several things must be true. 1) He too is denying his dire facts. 2) He has a plan to assume total power, so he’s untouchable. 3) He is misinformed about what’s going on. Or 4) he’s Major T.J. “King” Kong at the close of Dr. Strangelove, riding a nuke like a bronco to eternal perdition, whooping things up.

Any of these interpretations is plausible. None bodes well.

How might we in our astonished impotence respond to this moment?

Denial is one course. It ain’t happening and wake me when it’s over. This path has the advantages of ease and availability. Eat, drink and be merry. We all got to go sometime.

If this works for you, have at it. In a catastrophe, one learns not to sneer at the consolations of others. If you pray or sleep or sing before the guillotine, what difference, as long as the time passes?

I’d like to avert my eyes, only I can’t – because my grandkids’ eyes are on me – and my own out of the mirror. I must live with myself when (if) this crisis passes, assuming I survive.

That means we must deny denial. Yes, we really are where we are, teetering on the crumbly verge of extinction – and no, we cannot relocate to New Zealand or make merry or (in my case) bury my attention in a sweet old book. We must do what we can, however meager, and do it together, so, as in Lilliput, many mites might amount to a mighty check.

America may not survive this assault. That chance increasingly invades my imagination. The impossible may be possible, a people’s failure as inconceivable as it is unforgivable.

Life however will continue, maybe even my life, and I must conduct myself so I do not cringe to recall.

And love.

Better together.