"No Great Nation Is Ever Conquered Until It Has Destroyed Itself": Part 2

The quote with which this post is titled refers back to one of my last posts before the 2016 election.  It was, in brief, a warning against our even-then-obvious capacity for self-destruction at the hands of an unchecked Republican Party and its worst supporters.  Sadly, it has aged well.  Better, in fact, than even my worst fears at the time I wrote it.  I didn't have the pandemic on my radar back then.  But, given everything else, why should I be surprised about even that?

Obviously, this will be my last post before the election.  I've spent the last four years doing everything I can to make sure that this time, things will be different.  I voted via a paper ballot I delivered in person to my local board of elections.  I wrote to voters in Texas.  I've donated more money to candidates and get-out-the-vote organizations than I have done previously in my entire life.  And, of course, I've posted here, week after month after year.  And I've spent untold hours--more than I care to admit--on Twitter, and in front of MSNBC, sharing my thoughts and watching like-minded individuals doing all that they can do.

Will it make a difference?

If it's possible for sheer gumption and effort to make a difference, then, in any other election, my answer to that question would be an unqualified "Yes."

But I'm not so sure.

Part of that is the level of chicanery that is possible in a digital age from foreign actors, most notably Vladimir Putin (aka Donald Trump's best friend).  But part of it is the history of the nation itself, and, specifically, the unholy link between bigotry and money.  It was baked into our founding documents, it nearly tore the nation apart in the nineteenth century, it led to a profound turning point in our politics in the twentieth century, and now, it's tearing us apart again.  We have a constitution designed to protect property rights, often at the expense of human rights and, in this moment in America, that fact is being reasserted in our politics with a vengeance.

In fact, it's reasserting itself with a level of violence that can only be described as an inch or two below the level of open civil war.  Four years ago or more, a story like this one would have been a front-page, above-the-fold, banner-headline story.  Now, after four years of epic corruption that rises to the level of national tragedy, it's just another day that ends with the letter y.

At this point, the best thing I can do is pause, suggest you do the same, and ask you to take a time-out from reading this post, and spend several minutes carefully perusing this.  Trump's corruption has been so repeated in frequency, and so widespread in nature, that it's hard to wrap your mind around all of it, so as to be mindful of how urgent it is to remove him from power.  Thankfully, the Times is able to help with this.  For emphasis, I take this opportunity to stress two things:  as a capitalist, Trump is almost a parody of Soviet-style central planners, and, as a sword protector of our most basic rights, Trump sees people as things to be either manipulated or destroyed.

And his followers, inside and outside of the Republican Party, are no better.  If they lose Trump, they will immediately begin the search for a like-minded replacement.  And we have no guarantee that they won't find one.

A party that cares more about your right to own a gun and less about your right to vote is a party to be feared by every decent human being alive, anywhere.  It is a party that cares only about the next fifteen minutes.  It is not a party that cares about the future.

I care very much about the future.  I always have.  Given the fact that none of us live forever, and all of us depend upon the lives of those that came before us, we should all aim to contribute to the future. It's the best way to cherish the contributions of the past.

The past and the future are precious to me in a personal way.  Let me explain why:

This is the obituary of my uncle, who was killed in action in World War II.  Like thousands of other brave young men and women, he did not get to live the life that his sacrifices, and theirs, enabled the rest of us to live.  But that didn't diminish the value of the life he lived, and the death he suffered.  Both of those things, in different ways, are gifts to the rest of us.  They are not to be thrown away.  They are to be honored by doing everything we can in the process of selecting the next leaders of this nation.  And they would have hated to have a president who thought of them as "losers."

And then, there's this:

These are my granddaughters, one of whom was born with  a life-threatening pre-existing condition.  Thankfully, with the help of very brave, devoted parents, and the coverage made possible through the Affordable Care Act, she has made it (pu! pu! pu!) to the age of 8 and third grade.  Hopefully, she will be able to live a life and make her own contributions to the world that is fortunate to have her and her sister.  And the medical professionals who saved her, and who have saved thousands of lives throughout the horrors of this pandemic, are furious at Trump's suggestion that they have done what they've done for money.

We're not here on this earth for personal glory, folks.  We're here for each other.  As I've said before, we're runners in a relay race.  We get the baton of life and opportunity at birth, we run with it for as long as G-d gives us the grace to do so, and, hopefully, we hand it off to the future in as good, if not better, shape than it was when we received it.  L'dor v'dor.  From one generation to the next.  That's the only way a county like this one could come into being.  And it's the only way it can ever be bettered.

There is nothing to be gained by sitting this one out, folks.  Many of us might wish for a better choice of political parties than the one we currently have.  But we don't.  To my fellow progressives, and to everyone, I close here by say that civilization is built one brick at a time, one generation at a time.  And a civilization can destroy itself in many ways, but perhaps the worst one is by doing nothing, especially when it is actively being threatened from with in.  And it is.  The nation of E pluribus unum is now the nation of "GET OFF MY LAWN!"

So, progressives, please heed the advice given here.

And all of you, whether you're progressives or not:  this election may be your last chance to save the best of what we've been, and the best of what we can be.

Don't throw it away.

Donate.  Organize.  Write.  Get others to do all of these things.

And, above all, the day after tomorrow:

VOTE!