I’m listening to a Laura Marling song, which I find really moving and beautiful. It’s maybe half an hour after I’ve absorbed the news that the House voted to impeach, and I’m thankful for the Dems determination, perseverance, focus, and willingness to take political risks to try to save our democracy.
But seeing no Republicans (except I think one ex-Repub) vote yes, and hearing that they seem to be locking arms around a narrative of lies, and hearing that Trump’s approval ratings have even ticked up recently, and knowing that he and his fellow GOPers are going to full-court press their Fox News conspiracy theory BS and present it as “the real truth” and continue to whip up the frenzy of hate and lies — well, it’s what frightens me even more than Trump himself. It’s my fellow Americans who are all in for 45, for the kind of willful pretending that he hasn’t lied over and over again, conned people left and right, and spewed racist and sexist and just plain nasty divisive speech over and over and over again.
This is a good day for hope, for whatever of America’s best ideals might survive this administration, if any do. But the daily gaslighting; the day-to-day wagon-circling; the hateful, aggressive, reactionary Trump-culture is exhausting. The contempt with which Republican leaders talk about the “Democrat party,” the refusal to play by any rules of decency and shared society, the constant dirty tricks, smears, and open embrace of cruelty towards so many different people on the margins. I’m so terrified of my fellow Americans – somewhere between 35 and 45 percent of them.
I know they won’t let up, and I know they’ll vote next year, and I know that because of the quirks of our electoral system, they don’t even need to win the election to win the election. We’re gonna have to win by a lot to just barely win. And it may be too late.
So I’m coping as best I can, bracing for the fury of the Cult of 45, and I’m doing it by listening to songs that remind me that in this world there still is
beauty
vulnerability
gentleness
generosity
sorrow
tenderness
hope
…even in the midst of the Cult of 45 in its full strength, in its fury aimed at so many of us, their fellow Americans who can’t live this way without choking to death on the death of democracy.
Help me, Higher Power.
Help us. Help us all.
The Accidental Rabbi 