I Sense a New Normal Coming in Four Days

Yesterday, the entire day and night, for the first time in almost four years, I felt downright peaceful.

 

I didn’t give Trump a second thought.

 

It was heaven on earth!

 

How nice it will be when every day will be like that again…

 

It won’t happen until at least January 20, 2021. In fact, it may get more dicey and more worrisome between when the election is called (for Biden, I pray!) and Terrible Tyrant Trump realizes he’s no longer the center of attention that he has always striven to be.

 

The kind of attention he’s destined to get when he’s out of office is likely to be attention he doesn’t want, in the form of endless lawsuits and (ideally) prison time.

 

But enough about Trump, already. I’m sooooo ready to put him in my rearview mirror as a cautionary tale that we have to remember ONLY to avoid anything like him in the future. (Terrible role models are instructive, too!)

 

He has a lot of cult followers.  They’ll rant and rave for a few weeks but they’ll eventually settle down and stop spouting their racist, bigoted nonsense as publicly, because it will fall out of fashion and will no longer by encouraged by the Chief Executive of our nation. (Just that statement ALONE makes my spirit feel lighter and happier!)

 

No more bully in the bully pulpit. Hallelujah!

 

Am I counting my chickens before they hatch?

Of course I am!

I am naming it and claiming it from the rooftops.

 

Because this nation and the world simply can’t take any more of this. It’s destroying us, dividing us, damaging us and delaying too many programs that are needed right now to keep us keepin’ on as a civilization and as a viable planet.

 

I am ready to embrace compassion, mercy, grace and goodwill again so we can take care of each other instead of eyeing each other with suspicion. Those who don’t want to play with us can go their separate ways, but they won’t be impacting our spirits the way they have been.

 

I sincerely hope they’ll reflect and assess what had to change inside them to allow them to embrace and rationalize every one of Trump’s terrible impulses to do harm to fellow citizens. Amoral savagery and revenge  are Trump’s calling cards, and he’s (I swear!) an anomaly. Most people who support him (blindly) are NOT terrible people.  They’re often frightened people (because of the misinformation and disinformation that their chosen sources of information issue without cease), but the vast majority, I still dare to believe, aren’t as terrible, as sociopathic, as Trump and his enablers.

 

I’d love it if every one of his followers would mute their audio and just watch the body language of Trump and the far right pundits who extol imagined virtues he sadly lacks while bashing the likes of decent men and women who are doing what they can to help everyone, including them.

 

The body language of Trump supporters is loud and clear. They’re bullies, tyrants and toddlers. You can imagine them at age two, red-faced with anger, kicking and screaming on the floor, throwing tantrums. They’re still doing it: rattling sabers, trying to fend off an imagined horde of devils (other citizens who are simply seeking equal rights and equity, not extraordinary rights).

 

They’ve divided us up into “them” and “us”, vilified marginalized folks, and worked hard to keep their privileged perches while denying the same lofty privileges to others.

 

That’s a losing strategy.

 

Being afraid causes others to “catch” fear virally, and to spread it. Hating can go viral.

 

(That’s how lynch mobs get off the ground. One or two guys start spouting off their petty or bigoted grievances, and pretty soon their blood lust jumps into other men’s minds and before you know it, somebody else is dead. The next day, most of the participants will regret what they did and claim it was alcohol or mass hysteria that caused them to behave the way they did.)

 

But love, and empathy, compassion, and justice can go viral,  too. We just have to decide to change course and make it so.

 

We don’t have to listen to the nay-sayers. We can listen to the yay-sayers instead, link arms, and move in a single direction UNITED in “liberty and justice for all.”

 

Or … we can just go on talking the talk while ignoring that our lips and hearts are supposed to get our feet heading in the direction of our fine words.

 

I’m tired of the disconnect between talking and talk and walking the walk.

 

It’s time to venture out in the same direction as our highest ideals.

 

I think it’s about to happen again, so today I’m basking in the possibilities.

 

I hope you are, too!