Today I am trying to have no thoughts. The American people are at a crossroad and they’re choosing which way this country will proceed. All the doomscrolling and fretting in the world will not affect that.
So I’m focusing on beautiful things.
Iacta alea est.
©2024 Bas Bleu
NGL, my anxiety level is looking at Mercury in the rearview mirror and I’m terrified of what happens to the world if the Kleptocrat wins the election tomorrow. It is not hyperbole to state that putting an insane autocrat, backed up by authoritarian White Christian Nationalists at the head of the most powerful nation on earth—the strongest economy, the most effective military—spells disaster not only for the United States, but for everyone else. (As Sancho Panza says, “Whether the rock hits the pitcher or the pitcher hits the rock, it’s going to be bad for the pitcher.”)
Even if he loses, the prospect of all the crap we’ll have
to plough through for months just wears me out. I am so tired of his shit.
But today is Gratitude Monday, so I’m focusing on what’s
good.
We’ve had a good run—248 years of democracy. Even with the
blip from 1861 to 1865, that’s not nothing.
I note that we were founded on violence—colonization,
rebellion, expansion across the continent, human chattel slavery, racism,
systematic exploitation of labor—and yet we became a beacon to the world of
representative government, rule of law, and social and economic possibilities.
That’s not nothing.
We made education available for free (if you don’t count
taxes) to everyone and built some of the best universities in the world, where
astonishing advances in science were made. Our technologies have pioneered everything
from space exploration to crop yields, such that other nations devote whole
divisions to attempting to steal them. That’s not nothing.
We do stumble on a lot of the social and economic fronts. I
recognize that as a White, middle class woman I’ve mostly sat in the catbird seat.
But only in my own lifetime has the policy of “separate but equal” been
declared null, have women been given the right to open bank accounts without a
male relative approving and has a Black man been elected to the presidency. We
have a long way to go—especially with the legislative and judicial pushback of
the past eight years—but that’s still not nothing.
It shows we are conscious of our actions, and we can
improve. (Or go the other direction.)
The innate violence and societal worship of guns to the
contrary notwithstanding, we’ve mostly celebrated our holidays joyfully, with
homemade parades, homemade floats, barbecues and fireworks. And until 2021, we
enjoyed peaceful transfer of power from president to president. And that’s not
nothing.
So I’m grateful for how well we’ve done so far and the
willingness of most to keep moving forward. I’m grateful that I can cast my
vote as I chose, up and down the ballot—my mother was born before the
Nineteenth Amendment gave women that right. I’m grateful for everyone who’s
made this shining city upon a hill possible for nearly 250 years.
And I hope for another 250.
©2024 Bas Bleu
