A little over 12 years ago, I started a modest effort at blogging, one that these days feels even more modest than when I began, with a brief, zig zaggy interlude of greater public prominence (as a Hillary supporter) than I ever expected. From there, it was mostly a slouch through the Obama years to... well, apparently, what's been happening is beyond words.
A loss for words: there are fewer, more apt phrases for the current state of affairs in politics (at least, ones that don't devolve quickly into foul words and cruel epithets... on both sides!). I'll admit, much of what's happened leaves me, usually, in stunned silence, or sadly mute. Or both. All the time, at every turn, this Presidency is exactly what it appears most to be: a compendium of lies and exaggerations, a chronicle of ineptitude and inexperience all overseen by a dangerous, criminal mix of lifelong self absorption and personal gratification.
More than anything, what most distresses me, in this time, is the exaltation of awfulness. Immoral, indecent behavior by awful people is excused or enshrined; the feeling that someone (or possibly everyone) involved is "getting away with it" is inescapable. And that's even when, occasionally, justice, or at least some small amount of common decency, suddenly appears to prevail.
Sometimes, the indecency just seems sad, or at least sadly comical - the grasping, greedy habits of various cabinet officials; the willingness of conservative politicians and Fox news habitues to surrender the last shreds of their independent thoughts and what remained of their moral character. In retrospect, the quick flameout of Tom Price, or the somewhat longer collapse of Scott Pruitt seem like welcome mercy killings compared to the extended damaging presences of Ben Carson, Betsy DeVos and others. It's easy to conflate the truly dangerous actions wrought by Jeff Sessions with the more cheerfully inept exercises of a Kirstjen Nielsen, but both are set to ruin lives in ways Carson or DeVos can't possibly hope to achieve. It's hard beating Skippy... but it's easier the more you try not to care.
Then there is the White House Inner Circle, a road map of enablers and hangers-on who long ago gave up even a shred of self awareness of the disaster around them. The colorful fabulations of Kellyanne Conway. The surly hateful approach to press relations embodied in Sarah Huckabee Sanders. The inert, impotent attempts at control by John Kelly, unmasking his own troubled prejudices. Those long slow burnouts are as remarkable, in their ways, as the way the Administration so quickly used up and spit out the likes of Hope Hicks, Omarosa, Reince Priebus, Sean Spicer or the abusive Rob Porter. These are the moments we wonder whether Bill Shine or John Bolton and Larry Kudlow are the kind to collapse quickly... or if the moral decay and rotting values will take longer to fully destroy both their present and future.
As for the man himself - and the family that, still, surround him like a protective, but not really, cloak - what's left to say? Perhaps the proverbial - is it anything else - last straw was a President who literally excused the murder of a person, a fellow American, for the sake of a financial and strategic relationship with the cruel despot of a foreign power. No, not Putin or Kim Jong Un. Just the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia.
Perhaps the saving grace - as I do so often try to tease out something hopeful in the darkest of clouds - is that Trump is so much of who he is that he lays bare what America is, or at least can be: little more than the cruel acceptance of savagery and indecency for personal economic and political gain. This presidency is a test for us, for our nation, of just who we all are or want to be. To surrender to this lot - with their lax morals, self dealing, petty cruelties and endless vanities - is to give up on all that we can be. We are entirely capable of being better, more decent, kinder, more concerned for others. Or, we can try to hurt anyone we dislike with cruel words, terrible actions, and a refusal to step in.
So often, in these times, it's true... there are no words. There's no adjective dark enough, no adverb strong enough, to modify the descriptions of things happening on a daily, if not hourly basis. So much random cruelty, casual insensitivity, deliberate greed and grasping by so many of these awful, awful people. But we can't look away, and we can't just say nothing. We may never, entirely, be able to wash off the stench. But it's worse, isn't it, if we don't even try. Isn't it?
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