I’m looking at the news, and I’m having one of those Roadhouse Blues kind of days. If you’re not familiar with the Doors song, the last line before the final chorus says it all.
“The future is uncertain and the end is always near.”
Jim Morrison wrote that line in 1969. In 2018, it seems to resonate more than it ever has in the history of the United States. I have always figured Trump was going to unravel the Federal Government. What I didn’t figure on was how willing the Republican Party would be to aid him in his dismantling of the United States. This is now a high-speed ride where none of us knows what he or she is going to wake up to every day. I can’t imagine that living in the darkest days of the Cuban Missile Crisis could have been worse. The time is coming. And it may be here sooner than you think. Would you be shocked to wake up tomorrow to learn that California had decided to go its own way? I wouldn’t. Why would anyone see staying as a good option? Trump is dismantling our diplomatic apparatus, he’s angering our allies with his breathtakingly stupid trade policies, and he’s firing the few people who have a scintilla of sense and replacing them with cable “news” gasbags. These actions, coupled with the larger and larger shadow of the Robert Mueller investigation into Trump’s Russian connections, do not bode well for our future as a nation.
But you bode well for it. Everything may well count on you. Any day now, you may have to act to save what you can save, and lay the foundation for a better world for you, and for those you love. I suspect it’s going to all boil down to you. You will be tested like never before. The hard times you’ve already seen are probably going to pale in the face of the times you have yet to see. Are you ready? What can you do to get ready? There is really only one answer. And the answer is simplistic and complicated, difficult and easy.
You must really love your neighbors as if they were your family. They must love you the same way. We must love each other. We must be resolved to be there for each other. We must all stand together as one. Religion has to be set aside. Ethnicity can’t matter. Who you love in your private lives must be irrelevant. When the time comes to act, our only hope is to act with one mind, one heart, and one goal. At his very best, Trump commands the absolute loyalty of perhaps 1 in 5 of us. He cannot prevail. He will not, prevail, in fact. The only open question now is whether he destroys the US on his way down, or the Republic survives intact. And whether you want to think about it or not, you are the ones who hold the answer to that question in your hands.
Get ready. Get together. Love each other, dammit. Everything depends on it.
Erick E.
Erick E. is the pen name of a nondescript middle-aged man somewhere in the Rust Belt. His hobbies include planting flowers, taking long walks with his collection of German Shepherd dogs, and ridiculing delusional right-wing cultists on social media platforms.
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The average suspension for violations (real and imagined) of Facebook Community Standards is 30 days. As someone who has racked up well over a year of cumulative suspensions, Erick E. is well-versed in suspension, though the goalposts of “Community Standards” seem to move frequently enough to catch him unaware, over and over again. This is a book of 30 essays, representing one of his many social media timeouts. There is no continuing pattern to these essays. This is whatever EE was thinking on any given day.
A postscript from SKS…
Erick is one of the first people I followed on Twitter, and after four years I can state unequivocally it was one of the best decisions I ever made. Friend, mentor and inspiration to many, he is blessed with a superb analytical mind and the talent to articulate his thoughts.
As a privileged beneficiary of his friendship and wisdom, I’ll conclude by saying thanks for being you, Erick. Please don’t ever change.
