The last straw by Roger Delmar

On this day when hospitals around the country are maxing out ICU capacity, Dr. Fauci tells us that he hasn’t briefed the president in two months, nearly 3.2 million coronavirus cases have been recorded in the U.S. and almost 133,000 people have died, I join Roger in his feeling that this is no longer a country I recognize. I also share his hopes. It would be too intolerable not to.

Trump commutes Roger Stone’s sentence—CBS News

‘You get made fun of’: Trump campaign office shuns masks, social distancing—Politico

After court loss, Trump’s N.Y. tax case back to judge who called immunity claim ‘repugnant’—NBC News

July 10, 2020

The last straw
by Roger Delmar, Port Townsend, Washington

Three and a half years into the Presidency of Donald J. Trump, I am numbed. Going in, I was quite sure his years would be terrible, but in my worst nightmare, I never dreamed he could do this much damage to our institutions and our national psyche. His inept handling of the Covid-19 pandemic is the last straw. This has become a country I don’t recognize and am no longer proud to call my own. Rather than greatness, Donald Trump has brought ridicule, pity, and shame to our nation.

I find a measure of solace and can make some sense of this mess by recognizing that Donald Trump didn’t create the cultural and social rifts that have emerged. His bellicose ravings and deplorable decisions have brought into the open the festering underbelly of our history. The rift between those who want a racist rule of rich, white, misogynistic oligarchs and those who truly believe in a government of, by, and for the people has erupted like a volcanic Mount Saint Helens display. It is now out in the open for all to see.

As a nation, we have never faced our genocidal trampling of the Native American nations who lived here before we came; nor have we really accepted and come clean about our long history of white domination and racial suppression. Let’s look at the pandemic as an opening given to us by the natural processes of creation. The abject failure of Donald Trump and his cronies to deal with this horrendous Covid crisis has made him very vulnerable in the coming election. We have the chance to boot him and his enablers out of D.C. and radically change who we are.

I hope we have the courage and stamina to see this through, right the wrongs of our past, and begin to write a new history.