James Comey. What is there to say about the man that hasn’t
already been said. I hated him with a white-hot passion after his
attention-seeking, self-promoting criticism of Hillary helped Trump become
president. I don’t claim that he alone is responsible for her loss, but like in
civil trials when percentages of fault are assigned to various parties, he
bears, beyond a reasonable doubt, some percentage of the responsibility for
Trump. And while there is no way to quantify that number, even if it is small,
a small percentage of a tragedy the magnitude of the Trump presidency means Comey is
responsible for causing enormous, perhaps fatal, damage to the country that
could have led the world out of the journey to destruction that it has now been
set upon.
Comey should have been fired for what he did to Hillary and
to all of us. But to hear Trump use it, initially at least, as justification
for firing him when he appeared to be getting serious about exposing Trump’s indebtedness
to Russia, was doubly galling.
My wish is that Comey loves his country and his family and
realizes the enormity of the harm he has caused, and at three in the morning he
awakens feeling more than “mildly nauseous” at what he has done, but rather
with the same moaning, sweating, despair that so many of us feel at the
realization that the hope that our children might have the same quality of life
that we had has been swept away.
I remember late on election night saying goodbye to my son
who had recently graduated college and who was heading off to the city to his
start his adult life, and the panicked look on his face as he said, “She’s
going to win isn’t she?” When he was a child, I would have reassured him that
everything was going to be all right.
But that night, there was no comfort I could offer. I wish that Comey is
haunted by the faces of the billions of children whose lives he has helped
destroy. I wish that he has a soul and that it is in torment. It’s not cruelty
in my opinion, just justice.
In 2016 the world teetered on a razor-edged tipping point.
In one direction was a long uphill slog toward slowing the rate of manmade
global warming, reducing income inequality, promoting social justice, and preventing
corporations from making debt slaves of our children. In the other direction
was a downhill slide into the abyss of moral, social, and, ultimately, physical
destruction. Pushing us in this direction were Republicans, and their corporate
and media allies with their virtually unlimited wealth. Trying their best to
overcome the strength of these powerful forces were people of good will, but
limited resources.
Even with such a disadvantage, the battle was, for a time, a
stalemate, and it looked as if the forces of greed, ignorance, and bigotry might
be overcome, but at the most crucial point, Comey added his weight to the side
of the deplorables and the battle was lost. Was he the deciding factor?
Impossible to say. But what decent human being would have chosen that side?
Now we hear self-recrimination from the left that the
Trumpsters should have been listened to, that their concerns should have been
acknowledged, and that they must be brought over to our side before the next
election. As someone who lives in Trump country, I’m here to tell you it’s not
happening. Not unless we do like Trump and Fox News do, and lie to them
continuously, telling them that all their problems are brought on by liberals,
minorities, and immigrants; global warming is a hoax; tax cuts for the rich
benefit the poor; and when elected we will immediately make all their problems
disappear. Of course we can’t do that, and that is the only way to win them
over.
I’m not sure that people living outside Trump country really
understand the extent to which the Trumpsters have become citizens of the
alternate country of the right, a country that abides by a different set of
moral values than we do. Like the Civil War confederates they adore so much,
they regard a Federal government controlled by anyone but themselves as
illegitimate and to overthrow it by any means as the patriotic thing to do.
Just as the confederates tried to enlist England and France as allies,
today’s Trumpsters view accepting Russian assistance to defeat Democrats as a
perfectly acceptable strategy. Liberals, minorities, immigrants, these are the
real threats to America, and any individual or country willing to fight them is
a friend. The majority of Trumpsters
would vote for Putin over a Democrat. Just as has occurred in many elections around
the world, they would vote for someone who would end all elections and replace democracy with dictatorship if convinced the candidate was one of them.
Trumpsters are lost to reason, to rationality. Like cult
members, they will willingly sacrifice themselves and their children if told to
do so by the cult leader. So the next election will be as close as the last
one. We will have to marshal all our forces to defeat them and fight Republican efforts at voter suppression. And still it may not be enough.
Again, the winner will be decided by a margin as thin as a razor’s edge. All we can do is be prepared, tell the truth,
expose Republican lies, encourage minorities and young people turn out, and hope no turncoats like Comey defect to
the other side.
