Tim Barrus, New York Times
In the past, it was the crazy people who lived in armed fortresses at the tops of mountains in Idaho. They wanted revolution. We could patronize. “That’s nice but you’re a lunatic.”
Survival is not a status quo Americans want to question. Blindness is easier. But how will we survive what we’ve always known would eventually arrive at democracy’s doorstep. It was inevitable. We elected a grotesque catastrophe. Elections have consequences. Often a grave chain reaction whose gravitas affects the entire planet. Not simply Americans, but humanity. We chew fingernails.
Exactly what and where is the tipping point. We know why. We know how. But we do not know either the straw or the camel’s back. We disagree as to whether the straw is a straw or a can of worms we can do nothing about.
Our institutions, and the rules that allow them to perform the tasks they were designed to achieve, are not unlike the implements we employ to force our will upon the people even if we are those people. Law. To urge revolution is the taking care of the business of last resort. We us our guns and prisons to necessitate a crack down on incitement.
The Idaho bewildered find comfort in a dictatorship of distraction from the main event. Keep your eye on the ping pong ball. We have come apart. Clinging to the notion that when it’s gone from the White House, Humpty Dumpty can be reconstructed. We are thrown off balance. The task of reconstruction has always historically been a cure worse than the disease.
