A Liberal's Wishes for James Comey

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.