Is This Really Where We Are?

At some point, we were handed a lie.  And we knew we were handed a lie.  Then the lie became lies.  And then the lies just grew and grew.  And we knew it.  We talked about it.  We protested.  We called for action.  But at some point, the liars gained legitimacy and de-legitimized truth or speaking against liars.  Words that had power began to be thrown around like dodge-balls.  Words like treason, nuclear, shutdown, and power.  And the more these words were thrown around, the more words like honor, tradition, integrity, and honesty became victims of the overabundance of lies. 

Until it began to feel as if nothing really matters anymore, and there is no one coming to our rescue.  Except, perhaps, ourselves.  If we would.  

But don't look for that any time soon.  We have already adapted to the fiasco that is the presidential administration of the last year.  We have already begun to realize that government can shut down in a variety of ways, most of which don't effect the salary or insurance policies of those in power.  We have already begun to realize that those who cling in virulent support of everything the president says are not going to hear anything else.  And why not?  De-legitimization of truth.  Hyper-partisanship.  Hyper-sensitivity.  

In the midst of this undoing of democracy, we hear words that should spark us into outrage.  It is not treasonous to not clap for something the president says.  It is not treason to have a difference of opinion.  

Likewise, shouldn't it trouble us all that in Illinois, there is a man running for Congress who is an admitted Neo-Nazi and Holocaust denier?  He makes no attempt to hide his views, which is at least a sign of some kind of integrity, but his views are deplorable.  But he is running unopposed for the Republican nomination to a Congressional seat.  And one might point to gerrymandering that has led to Democrats being in control of drawing the lines that have kept them in power and have kept the Republicans out.  Because of that, Republicans don't usually put candidates up to run in some districts - it has been drawn so well by the Dems that the Republicans know they can't win.  Yet when no one runs, anyone can run.  And here comes the Neo-Nazi.  He probably doesn't stand a chance, but what kind of society are we that someone like this has even got a chance?

The kind we live in currently, apparently.

Then, of course, we hear that the Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee plan to build a wall (not the one we usually hear about), an actual, physical wall, to separate Republicans and Democrats and their staff members in the committee's secure spaces.

Bipartisanship is going, going....  

And why wouldn't it, when the race for the President was so vicious, partisan, and full of the worst of the worst running for the highest office in the land?  As George Carlin once said, "Garbage in, garbage out."  And we have a lot of garbage piling up.  

So what does the Commander in Chief wish to do to address this decline in etiquette, manners, and decency?  Will he silence his Twitter account?  Will he spend less time on the golf course?

No.  He wants a parade.  

He wants a big, military parade.  The kind we saw during the Cold War from footage in Russia.  The kind we see in footage from North Korea, Iraq during the Saddam years, and China.  The President wants a military parade to show off our power.  Like autocratic countries do.  

Apparently he got the idea after seeing a parade in France and wanted to do a bigger one.  That will settle everything.

If anything, should this parade actually happen, it will settle that we have decided that there are fractures in the foundations and we have at least two emerging countries.  The one that wants to go back to the Cold War (and maybe even switch sides this time) and the one that wants to reclaim the momentum of an America that sees better possibilities and knows how to be outraged at lies. 

Of course, we may end up seeing an America that has become so shell-shocked from the battering of the last year that we just can't find the energy to do much more than carry on.