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Twilight of the United States of America as a Democratic Republic [1]

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Date: 2024-12-09  

Twilight of the United States of America as a Democratic Republic

I lived for 35 years near the gulf coast of Mississippi and experienced several hurricanes devastating the coast. I recall the anticipation and activities that did before the storms landfall. I recall using my buddy’s truck to help my great aunt move items from her home, a short distance from the shore. She was an avid collector of old stuff and I thought that I could make several trips to my grandparents’ house to store the thing on higher ground. It didn’t work out that way. I made one trip with a partially full pickup truck. After hurricane Camille passed, her home was nothing but broken sticks of wood. We frequently see images of people covering windows with plywood to protect their property. Much of that plywood becomes flotsam in the storm surge.

I told my mother to pack her Buick with anything she wanted to keep and tell me where she would be before Katrina arrived. The only remains of her home were the 14”X14” pilings that supported her dome home 14 feet above ground.

The ascendancy of Donald Trump to the U.S. Presidency, trailing threats of retribution and revenge like Marley's chains has caused me to think about those times just before the hurricanes hit the coast. Intellectually, I realize the potential for personal and societal loss.

It has been recommended that once a year, you make a video of all the rooms and things in your home so that you have a record of what was in case there is a catastrophe.

I feel the same about the version two of the Trump administration.

This December of 2024, we should take snapshots of ordinary things. Things taken for granted: grocery store prices, news sources, people who are brave enough to point out facts that may be inconvenient to the new regime. All sorts of small things that we currently take for granted.

“Don't it always seem to go

That you don't know what you've got

Till it's gone

They paved paradise

And put up a parking lot”, Big Yellow Taxi, Joni Mitchell, November 29, 1969

I believe that we need to do this inventory so that we remember what it is that we are fighting for. As Benjamin Franklin is supposed to have remarked about the outcome of the constitutional convention, “you have a republic, if you can keep it”.

It is now our turn to strive to keep it.

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