Whatever happens, today – November 3, 2026 – will be the most historically consequential of my seventy-five years: more consequential even than November 22, 1963 or Nine-Eleven, 2001: as memorable and bone-chilling as 10/28/312, 10/14/1066, 10/25/1415, 7/14/1789, 12/7/1941(the battles of Milvian Bridge, Hastings, Agincourt, the Storming of the Bastille, and Pearl Harbor, respectively). Said our secular saint, Lincoln, commemorating another turning point, “The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.” (He was wrong about recalling that day’s words: few more durable since the dawn of speech.)

                  Today, earth’s greatest and, until recently, least superable, power, will decide whether to cast off the evil that sickens us, or accept our subjection to the forces of tyranny and greed, to the world’s incalculable detriment. A slight victory at the polls will not suffice to reverse the tide of darkness, for the criminals are prepared to steal what they cannot legally secure. The evil must be crushed; the snake scotched; and the long, laborious, painful work of acknowledgement and reclamation commence. America will not be out of the woods: no more was our American union out of the woods on July 5, 1863: much fighting and many deaths remained: but the tide had turned.

                  Is my apocalyptic rhetoric frantic, even lunatic? Cassandra and Jeremiah suffered similar rebukes. If I’m wrong – and today proves “no big deal,” another “wave election” – hallelujah, the egg won’t take long to mop off my face. If the battle goes awry and evil prevails, free expression will be a cooked goose, and no candid words will matter a whit. Thereafter will be one truth – that of our overseers – which we repeat or perish.

                  It could be the remnant of the free world – Europe, a few other nations here and there – will rally to resist the revocation of self-rule; but against the might of the tyrants – China, Russia, America, North Korea, Turkey, perhaps India, plus the global plutocrats – who would dare? Guns, money, and greed will have gained the day. Darkness will descend on the human experiment. A few thugs will enact and enforce their idea of right. Farewell freedom, beauty, truth, justice, grace, if not forever, for a good long while.

                  Today is the climactic moment, what used to be called the climacteric, after which, whatever happens, all is changed. The fever breaks or the patient dies. Just now, with my fat words, I’m feeling optimistic – fat words can do that – but soon enough, after orotundity, reality breaks in. We need ideals as we need stars in the sky – to steer by – but from that distant glitter we derive little firepower.

                  How America sickened will enthrall historians for millennia, if history is allowed. So today do we debate the fall of Rome, Napoleon, Hitler. Economists will point to economics, generals to arsenals, politicians to politics, preachers to religion, biologists to biology, blind men with the elephant, each right and each wrong. As a soul-watcher, I credit the crud in our American soul, but with materialists that’s a tough sell. Soul – what soul? Show me where in the body – of a person or state – the soul resides!

                  As I type, I pray. I compose these words weeks in advance; closer to the hour, I may be too spooked to speak. I pray to a God I’m not sure I believe in. Yes, He visited me once – unmistakably – but often nowadays when I knock, He is not at home. 

                  At the end Marie Antoinette must have prayed to hear the tumbril’s wheels clopping along the cobbles, coming to fetch her. The suspense was killing.