David Remnick’s opening paragraph from “The New Trump Indictment and the Reckoning Ahead,” (August 1, 2023, The New Yorker) asks a chilling question:
“To read the stark criminal indictment, returned by a federal grand jury on Tuesday, charging Donald Trump with conspiring to steal the 2020 Presidential election is to realize more deeply than before that the country is headed for a great reckoning—in the courts and at the ballot box. It suggests a question that cannot be escaped: Will the American electorate show itself capable of overlooking a conspiracy to undermine democratic rule and return the chief conspirator to power?”
But aren’t Republicans saying eerily similar things about Democrats?
Just for a minute, stand in the shoes of someone who genuinely believes that a deep state exists—that Democrats have a secret society that sells children for sex through a pizzeria in Washington, D. C., or that drinks their blood for their daily adrenochrome fix. It might sound ridiculous to you, but let’s just say you believed it, and were as horrified as you should be. Wouldn’t the January 6th insurrection justify a patriotic rage that might even have seemed long overdue?
Wouldn’t this third indictment pretty much brand him as a hero? In fact, he just posted a message to his followers, “I am now going to be arrested for having challenged a … stolen election. It is a great honor because I am being arrested for you.” What an incredible man. He’s rich. He’s come right out and said that he knows our system is corrupt because he himself has used it to his own advantage. And yet, here he is, way high up in that corrupt system, and he is actually going to fight—for you.
So if both sides are saying the exact same things about each other—that there are secret goings on to ensure the unfair advantage of the ‘wrong’ side—and if both sides fervently believe their own stories, then where do we go from here?
Do we go to war? With each other?
The fact that, despite the astounding number of indictments against him, Trump is still the undisputed frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination, makes me question not only our country—but the psychological fitness of our citizenry. Throw in the AI situation, the ease with which fake videos can be made (on either side, mind you)—and it’s almost impossible to believe anything anymore.
But in some crucial points, we have Trump dead to rights. We have facts. Truth. Proof. Still, all that evidence is being met with unshakable disbelief, or at least utter disregard, by a staggering number of Republicans.
WHAT WILL IT TAKE?
The Dalai Lama predicted that the next world war would not be over religion. It would be over ideology. I fear we’re on the cusp of it.
I will definitely vote, and encourage my friends and family to vote, but I don’t think this will solve the problem. This mess is not going away any time soon, and like I said in my title, I don’t think we’re getting out of it in one piece.
But there is one thing I can do.
I can watch for where I get all rigid and dogmatic about my “beliefs,” and try to soften into more humanity. I watch my thoughts, when I catch myself looking down on whoever — I can remember that they, too, are carrying heavy baggage from who knows where. They don’t know how to put it down any more that I do my own baggage. They want what they want, and they, like me, are exhausted by life’s unending barrage of stress.
Let’s do the hard work of keeping our hearts open every day. We’re going to have to tackle this situation from every angle possible. This is one angle I offer to you for whatever it’s worth.
Blessings to everyone, to all of us who desperately believe what we believe. None of it is the Big T Truth. There is a vast, universal expanse of Don’t Know out there. It’s infinite. Let’s see if we can relax into that. The wordless emptiness that encompasses all we have in common with each other.
May everything sacred take up residence in our hearts, and begin welcoming the whole world in.
Are you softening or succumbing, Dr King did not soften! His voice did not soften, the believers of racsist ideology did cause him to soften for there evil, the blind eye of the government of the USA did not cause him to soften, nor did the justifications for the murder and slaughter of the black race in the U.S. cause him to soften. But his heart never hardened. He stayed strong in the face of evil, strong because he was a man of love and a lover of peace with a righteous cause but never a hardened heart. Reread those words that i have read with Dr. King in mind and ask yourself what do those words mean? When facing a force that lacks humanity one must never lose their heart but embrace it because that is the difference between the cruel and evil and the one of love. Then it is time to be strong of purpose and face the challenge of hatred and violence that comes with greed and desire for power and control. That time is now and now is the time for all good people to stand up and be counted.