by W.D. Ehrhart
I have to confess that I have been struggling mightily for the past few months to resist giving in to utter despair. There’s no future in that. But increasingly I find myself thinking that there’s really no future worth bothering about. I just can’t shake the feeling that things in this country are not going to get any better.
Remember when we thought no president could possibly get any worse, be any more evil, than Richard Milhous Nixon, whom I took to calling King Richard the Milhous?
And then we got empty-headed George W. Bush, who dragged us into not one but two unjustifiable and unwinnable wars while presiding over a government actually directed by Dick “Dick” Cheney and running roughshod over Americans’ constitutional rights of privacy previously protected by the 4th Amendment.
Who and what could possibly be worse?
We now know the answer to that question is the miserable excuse for a human being occupying the Whitewash House for the second time… and the American people put him there. Not just put him there, but returned him there after a disastrous first four years, two impeachments, a failed violent insurrection, multiple felony convictions, and an assortment of other usually career-ending behaviors.
And this time around, he is unrestrained by anyone with brains in their heads and some measure of decency in their hearts. Instead, he’s surrounded by the likes of Pete I-was-actually-a-noncombatant-civil-affairs-officer-but-I-like-to-imagine-I-was-a-warrior Hegseth, Marco [Trump]-has-spent-his-entire-career-sticking-it-to-the-little-guy-but-I’ll-suck-his-political-willy-anyway-because-I-have-no-scruples Rubio, Stephen let’s-deport-anyone-and-everyone-who-isn’t-of-white-northern-European-ethnicity Miller, Mike this-is-what-unified-government-looks-like Johnson, Clarence I-never-saw-a-perk-I-didn’t-like Thomas, and other lickspittle sycophants of their ilk.
The outrages and insults and attacks on anything and everything imaginable have become overwhelming, simply impossible to keep up with: destruction of the White House, a gladiatorial arena on the White House lawn, a botched no-bid reworking of the reflecting pool and criminal charges against a former Olympic rower for supposed vandalism, removal of the historical account of Washington’s slaves in Philadelphia, the murder of civilians in small boats on the high seas, the aggrandizement of himself and his family and friends in violation of the emoluments clause of the Constitution (Constitution? What’s that?), the passports with his fucking face on them, the dollar coin with his fucking face on it, an unprovoked and disastrous war of choice in the Middle East against a country that turns out to be a lot tougher and more willing to defend itself than Venezuela…
… and this doesn’t even begin to cover all that this thoroughly disgusting odiferous lump of flesh and blood and bone has foisted on the United States and the world. In all honesty, I’ve stopped even trying to keep up with it. Back last spring, I realized that I just had to step back and try to give myself a chance to recharge. Aside from glancing at headlines now and then, I have not tried to stay on top of current events.
I read The Week magazine each week—though usually only after it’s been sitting on my coffee table for several days until I can muster the stamina to pick it up—and that gives me an overview of what’s been happening. I might dip into an article in LA Progressive or the New Hampshire Gazette now and then, read the first few paragraphs, but I’ve seldom done much more than that in the past three or four months.
I’ve been trying to focus on people and events and things I can feel good about, stuff that suggests that things might not be as hopeless as I’ve been feeling. Near where I live in suburban Philadelphia, last month my wife and I attended a gathering to celebrate the successful fight to save thirteen acres of forested land our local school board had purchased, planning to destroy 500 large mature trees to put in auxiliary athletic fields for a middle school.
It took a decade or so, but local resistance to the plan finally resulted in most of the property being sold to a conservation organization called Natural Lands, and the rest being acquired by the Wyncote Foundation, which will renovate some existing historic buildings and make proper use of them.
I am trying to take heart from the primary election victories of Rashida Tlaib, Claire Valdez, Darializa Avila Chevalier, Brad Lander, Melat Kiros, Janeese Lewis George, and other progressives. We can only wait and see what November’s elections bring, but we’ve got some candidates on ballots who offer the possibility of real change from the stale centrism and more-of-the-same Democratic bullshit that has been the party’s hallmark since Bill Clinton in 1994. (I don’t mention Republicans here because I’ve never expected anything good from the Republican party, and they’ve never confounded my expectations.)
This morning, my wife and I saw a groundhog in our condo courtyard, probably the same little fella we’d see a few days ago. We see squirrels and chipmunks, occasionally rabbits, a few years ago and again this year foxes, and lots of birds: cardinals, wrens, sparrows, juncos, mourning doves, hummingbirds, even twice a cooper’s hawk perched on the low branch of a tree. All this wildlife right here in heavily populated suburbia.
Last week, I spent several days with a former student of mine who had gone through navy officer candidate school after graduating from college, and had just finished his active duty after five years. When he first joined the navy, knowing my politics and my antiwar attitude, he had been worried that I would disapprove of his decision. I can’t say I was thrilled about it, but it was his decision to make, not mine. And having volunteered for the U.S. Marine Corps in 1966, I was in no position to be too critical.
But here is the part to take heart from. He apparently found that his experience did not live up to what he had hoped for, and last week he told me that his view of our country and the world we live in is now much closer to mine than it had been before he joined the navy. And he is still young, and bright and capable, and I expect he will do good things in and for this world.
So these are what I’ve been trying to dwell on this summer. I truly hope that the Orange Cheeto and his Merry Minions have not succeeded in finally causing me to give up, shut up, crawl into a corner, curl up into a fetal ball, and start crying for my mommy. I hope I will soon be ready to come out fighting again.
But for now, I am looking for positive developments—however small some of them may be—that I can feel good about, hopeful about, even joyful about. Somedays that just doesn’t work. But somedays it does. Maybe today will be one of those days when it does.
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W.D. Ehrhart is a retired Master Teacher of History & English, and author of a Vietnam War memoir trilogy published by McFarland.