Will the government make it past November? We know that if Trump is reelected, constitutional government as we’ve revered it for over 240 years has the good chance of becoming mute. Trump has no compunction over bending the rule of law to his narcissistic will and preoccupation with his navel. What do you want me to say: 123,520 deaths from coronavirus and rising rapidly. Everything seems like old news now: 2,425,855 cases and Trump jams supporters into the hall. But we’re way past believing anything responsible is going to escape the White House.
George and Mary Farquar, my stand-ins for all unfortunate surrogates navigating the current terrain of coronavirus avoidance yet again look on in horror as lack-of-any-brain-activity crowds Trump rallies shoulder to shoulder without masks in cavalier disregard for the self-fabricated tragedy. And those go along with governors who refuse to lock down their states with huge spikes in coronavirus cases.
By now there isn’t anything the Farquars haven’t seen repeated ad nauseum. They are victims of more than just the virus, they are victims of/in the larger realm of abject stupidity.
The Farquars went along in 2016 with the idea that Hillary was peering down at them while Trump wanted a popular movement, thumbing his nose at the bureaucrats who stood in the way of his wrecking ball idea of democracy. It was an easy sell. Change the paradigm and the ignored can feel elevated. But now the virus has been stalking their neighborhood and going out to the local store is fraught with uncertainties. Situations that seemed impervious are under attack and a local man was recently carted off to the E.R. No word on his condition.
In Washington, the rats have decided that there’s more food to be had by raiding the sensibilities of the gullible. If we can gnaw our way through the Justice Department, that will effectively neuter the side effects of facts made too visible in undesired quarters. Bill Barr wants to continue his misinformation act for the president and handing out pink slips to all the prosecutors doing their actual jobs is always the next logical, necessary step to expunge the checks and balances that have protected us for generations. Well done.
The polls are causing dyspepsia and Stephen Miller is clearly scratching what hair is left on his head to distract and distort his racist memes. Coronavirus cases among Blacks reveal the huge gap in income and health care. The rest of the cabinet has turned to more important things like exposing tens of thousands of people to the coronavirus and adopting a hands off policy. Let the states do whatever they want, don’t interrupt my campaign strategy, my appearances, my glory. Eight or more people within the close administration test positive. It’s coming to get him.
I don’t wish it on anybody but along comes Black Lives Matter to remind us of the much older miscarriages of justice and gargantuan load of work yet to be done. The real scourge has been with us over 400 years and counting.
Why should racial justice be constrained? We treated it like a virus for all those years with the immunity that accompanied white privilege. African Americans know precisely how they want to be represented on the street, and white brothers are being schooled on what are appropriate displays of support; understand that equality is a function of how Blackness will not be schooled by white America, or that white America has any presumption of what it means to be Black.
At the recent demonstrations in Greenfield a couple of weekends ago, I asked myself what words would I speak in honoring the assembled and quickly understood I was mainly a spectator on a learning curve that cut through all the phases of my own life and my relationships with the Black community. Even with late-’60s era onward progressive ideals, I felt my neophyte status and the great gulf, the chasms that have existed in my evolution.
I’ve stopped pretending to know and started listening again. We have been bombarded by the Trump administration’s lies and cruelty, its racism, its ignorance of all that is most human and compassionate. We’re working against colossal forces that want life on the planet to be about material privilege not racial justice, spiritual evolution. We must never forsake the latter. In that is richness, salvation.
Alan Harris, previously of Noble Feast Catering, lives with wife Jane in Shelburne Falls and writes on issues of conscience, has written a satiric novel he hopes to get published, and is active in local arts and music with the PVSO chorus. Interests include photography, meditation, and hiking, swimming.