It can take a while to wake up.

For a decade now, I’ve been inveighing against the Nameless One’s trashing of our American system: justice, truth, social services, right to vote, free trade, education, regulation, level playing field, government “of the people, by the people, for the people.” I likened their destruction to an adolescent tantrum: break everything, then invite a strong guy to clean things up.

That was part of their plan, for sure: the dictator’s playbook: fascism one-o-one.

But behind the mayhem, there was a vision, not just chaos, a Promised Land these punks were aiming for. I failed to see it because I couldn’t believe any sane person would want to go there. Who’d choose to live in hell if you could afford better digs!

I thank the Nameless One’s billionaire Secretary Treasury for jolting me awake. The so-called “Trump accounts,” introduced in the elegantly styled “One, Big, Beautiful Bill,” might, he mused, prove a “back door for privatizing Social Security.”

BONG!!! The frying pan on my pate – the nickel dropping. These guys did not shun the horror of a two-class, have-and-have-not, master-slave, master-race political order – they pined for it. They wanted to emasculate the many in favor of the few, to revert to the good old days of chieftains, warlords, overseers, absolute tyrants.

What happens when you privatize? The rich get richer, the poor poorer, and service cedes to profit. The first question becomes not “What ought we to do because it’s right?” but “What can we afford?” To hell with equity when you can have EFFICIENCY!! Turns out, slavery – or apartheid – weren’t so bad after all – for the landlords at least.

You think I’m overstating? Hysterical? What American, you roll your eyes, could want that! Have five centuries of progress – in knowledge, inclusion, justice, thought – returned us to troglodytic barbarism as an ideal? Why would the slaves of the future vote for their return to bondage? It makes no sense!

I thought this too. Who would want to live in such a world?

For the entitled few, tyrannies can be pleasant, if you don’t mind the howls in the night. More luxury, pampering, less need to prove oneself, if one is superior per se. No need to compete with filthy immigrants (who might shame us with their work ethic). No disruptive unauthorized truths. No need to spoil workers with more than the modicum they require. No need to think as long as you comply.

The prospect of tyranny appalls me, not because I’m nice, but because I’m easily bored, and boredom slides to depression, then worse. Strife, ideas, competition, discovery are my reasons to live. Acquiescence is worse than senescence because you’re wide-eyed. Slavery enslaves all, not just the slaves.

Do the Nameless One’s adherents share his vision? Not all. There are nice folks in those ranks, who just haven’t thought things through. They like “how things are going.” Tell them they’re opting for their enslavement and impoverishment, and they chuckle, “Crazy Carll.” The first two pigs in the famous fable were likewise certain their houses could withstand the Big Bad Wolf.

What to do, friends ask. That’s easy: everything we can. Panic as if you’re about to be devoured, then channel that terror into action. Yes, I slept – foreseeing the destruction of America as theoretically possible but practically improbable. Shame on me. But we can only repair tomorrow.

Apologies for my desperate tone: who asks Cassandra over for breakfast? But unless we swing into action – fast – our houses won’t withstand the Big Bad Wolf.

It can take a while to wake up.