Time is the most valuable thing we have. Once gone it is irretrievable. Living fully includes gaining experience, learning, creating, enjoyment and suffering. Time lost is empty life. Four years of Donald Trump caused immeasurable losses, but time wasn’t lost; we gained knowledge and consciously acquired concrete experience. I am grateful for the proven fellowship, preserved spirit, and community of life that allowed citizens to succeed in saving democracy from authoritarian rule last November.
The masquerade of evil played havoc with ethical conduct, like the deadly rioting at our Capitol January 6. Appearing disguised as false patriotism, the misguided violent mob goaded by Donald Trump bewildered people raised in the traditional concept of a democratic republic. Assailants incited by Trump were too unreasonable to accept failure. Extremely naïve, lacking realism, senselessly thinking they could bend back Trump’s deceitful assertions, their narrowmindedness used conflict to deny national stability and goodwill. Disappointed and unreasonable, white supremacists, including a few misguided minorities, see themselves condemned to ineffectiveness; resigned to evil, they will collapse before American justice.
The thoughtless violence showed how their pathetic immoral fanaticism, guided by single-minded principles, make them revert to evil. But good citizens will stand and fight in situations calling for decisive justice regardless of contradictory senselessness. Evil evinced by the likes of Ted Cruz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Lauren Boebert is demoralizing and entangled in deceit, but cannot stand the light of truth.
Americans fight against heavy odds with their conscience. Aware that freedom and self-rule require sacrifice and hard work, they confront malice and demand justice. This evil comes at good citizens in seductive disguises, but their conscience recognizes the clarity of truth. Avoiding despair, they support civic principles different from the deluded beliefs of fanatics. Knowledge of Constitutional duty and justice are the solution. American democracy critically depends on moral and dutiful elected leaders to stave off bigoted rule. Conscientious people feel freedom to support representatives with unspoiled reputation, ready to sacrifice principle for fruitful compromise, or the clear wisdom of a middle course far from radicalism. Freedom-loving people voted out an authoritarian administration.
Some citizens avoid public altercation, finding sanctuary in private virtuousness, shutting their mouths and eyes to injustice; self-deception keeps them pure from being contaminated by responsible action; they remain silently complicit with bigotry. They compromise their peace of mind to dejection or become hypocrites, like the Biblical Pharisees and the Republican Congressmen who oppose justice and Trump’s impeachment.
Citizens look upwards in free trust, not in submissiveness, but as a call to civic duty. They will not allow their hard work and self-sacrifice to be exploited for the evil ends of corrupt politicians. They see need for free and responsible action against unscrupulousness and the nation-tormenting attitude opposing positive public action. Civil courage grows from the belief in responsibility of a free people, as they realize that Trump’s evil deeds through shady means were immoral and illegal. To ignore the unethical significance of Trump’s success is a short-circuit created by irresponsible dogmatists; success achieved by evil means is severely problematic. This cannot be resolved by presumptuous arm-chair criticism; refusal to face facts is giving up the struggle and surrendering to malfeasance. We must accept our share of responsibility for molding history, whether we are victors or losers. Fanatics’ talk of going down fighting like heroes is not heroic at all, but merely a refusal to face truth and admit Donald Trump’s malevolence.
We can protest against reckless fanaticism; it can be thwarted by force. It makes the public uneasy, but neither protests nor force affect fanatics; reasoning is useless; their personal prejudices void common sense – deluded zealots criticize truth, ignore facts and are self-satisfied; they can form dangerous mobs, as it takes little to make them aggressive. Truth deniers must be dealt with cautiously; it is useless trying to convince them with reason. Their blind prejudice is a moral rather than an intellectual failing. Some people are mentally sharp but foolish, others are not foolish but mentally slow. Blind fanaticism is not congenital, but one acquired when people fool themselves or allow others to make fools of them. Insensate zealotry is common in unsociable individuals or groups prone to unsociability.
Obstinate senselessness may be a sociological rather than a psychological state. To acquire power, Donald Trump and his sycophants used the Internet aided by the Russians and the gullibility of several million American voters. Perception of power overwhelms the credulous, impressing them and depriving them of independent judgment; they surrender ability to think for themselves. The misguided become stubborn, but they are not independent thinkers. We should avoid confrontation with the persons themselves, but deal with the slogans, catchwords, and xenophobic propaganda that have taken a hold of them. They seem blinded, their very nature being misused and exploited. They become passive instruments capable of evil deeds who don’t see their transgressions as evil. This is the danger of depraved exploitation of a deluded public that does irreparable damage to human beings.
Rationally compassionate Americans realize that, until mental liberation takes place, all attempts to convince bigots must be abandoned. Attempting to find out what they really think is useless for people who think and act responsibly. What matters is whether those in power abuse citizen’s gullibility instead of appreciating wisdom and mental independence. If we value our Constitutionally established democratic republic, we must not give in to proponents of authoritarian rule. The man who despises another will never make anything of him. The only positive relationship with others – especially our misguided fellow citizens – is one of love, which means the will to hold them in fellowship. They are, after all, our American brothers and sisters.
This is the most sensible commentary yet, especially to those who have been so misled by their silent elected Senator and Representatives at the state level and blatant bigots at the national level. Do they not know who WE are … as in 95% “Hispanic,” and mostly descendants of “immigrants.” We should be caring for the poor people fleeing countries funded by our countries hunger for drugs and “gun running” money. We know those guns go to the cartels. Why aren’t we, people of the border, not demanding that drugs be legalized, supervised and taxed so as to put the spotlight straight on the criminals killing for what belongs to the Earth and therefor all humanity .. whether each person approves or finds said drugs useful. Obviously they have medical value and are even abused in that arena….consider OxyContin, for example.
This is just one criminal activity in our “neighborhood.” What about our water table, being poisoned by fracking. Don’t tell me that there isn’t enough scientific savvy to use something other than “dangerous to humans” chemicals to “drill baby drill.” How dumb are we, anyway?