By Denny Gulino
WASHINGTON (MaceNews) – Some say Donald Trump has turned himself into a cultural anachronism. Some say his single-minded push to reopen schools is grotesque as the virus resurges.
All the lies, or self deceptions or delusions – China is paying the tariffs; the virus spikes are because of all the testing; it was the best economy ever seen – are extravagant in their repetition – and just sad once they don’t matter any more.
And some say Donald Trump was the answer to many prayers, unafraid despite the odds against him, breaking through the nanny-state’s political correctness to tell it like it was, or like it seemed it should have been.
The markets look ahead, maddening in their optimism about what will be two years or more from now, while in this “now” businesses and jobs crumble and bodies pile up because so many won’t wear masks. And the markets, by and large, aren’t seeing Donald Trump in their medium term future.
With his commutation for Roger Stone and less and less synchronization with reality, maybe even Donald Trump isn’t seeing the White House in his future.
What disruptions and desperate moves remain to be played out until next January remain to be experienced by a country wracked with pain, and seemingly on the precipice of even more pain.
So striking was an offhand comment by a wealth fund manager on CNBC a week ago, lost in the flow of talking heads. There is no danger of pay inflation, he said, because the workers are too busy fighting each other to clamor for higher wages.We’re fighting each other now.What a legacy.
What matters now is beginning to be something other than Donald Trump. Historians will doubtless find some things he did that were well worth doing. Most important, his was an era that had many lessons for Americans, The short history of America, much of which never reaches the textbooks, doesn’t include so much of the wrenching history of older orders. To some extent, Donald Trump has inoculated the nation against worst outcomes.
Now the future, and time to overinvest in someone else. America’s weak enfranchisement will not allow so many of the issues to be addressed directly. Utopian schemes, say of issue referendums on the Internet every two weeks, will not be guiding public policy.
The next president, not the electorate, will be deciding on the economy, abortion, international relations, international allies, international enemies, education, immigration, China the demon/China the competitor, racial discrimination, income inequality, health care, universal Internet access, rural development, infrastructure renewal, climate change, environmental protection, judicial activism, pension sustainability, violent crime, white collar crime, race-blind law enforcement, community enhancement, guns, the growth of the national debt, orientation to the future, orientation to the past, selfishness, altruism and on and on.
Or, along with Congress, the next president will be not deciding, not addressing the drift, not being enlightened about the future.
There may be some fleeting thought this time given to which candidate: has the best judgment, the most compassion, the most patience, the least patience, the clearest view of right and wrong. Who is the most reflective, the most impulse driven, the most centered, the most science oriented, has the most respect for evidence, is the most far sighted, the most stubborn. Yet no tests will be administered, no pledges taken seriously.
All distilled into a vote either for this old man’s pattern of behavior or that old man’s.
Now we know, really know, what a crapshoot an election can be.
So that big word, METEMPSYCHOSIS, the soul leaving the body to come back and inhabit another body. The soul of America moves to a higher plane or a lower plane.
If we can’t wear enough masks, if we can’t envision and build our common future of only the next few months, how is it decided what manner of being we’ll be next time?
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Contact this reporter: denny@macenews.com
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