We have a candidate running for our highest office who has bragged about sexually assaulting women, promises to jail his political opponent should he win and acts out like a spoiled child when he doesn't get his way. Before they learn to read and write, children go to kindergarten to learn not to act like Donald Trump.
I despair because a Presidential nominee has contempt for the things that make our country different and good. Peaceful transfer of power. The rule of law, not men. The maintenance of international obligations and agreements.
The only person running for President who could have both Houses of Congress controlled by their own political party is Donald Trump. The commander in chief of the U.S. Military would be Donald Trump. Can you imagine him using American forces as a means of acting in rage? Can you imagine being a soldier charged with carrying out such orders?
But this despair gives way to something more basic. Someone dear to me had to deliver a mundane request to someone this morning at work. The voicemail in reply threatened that he'd "do like Donald Trump and hang them."
The internet and the multiplication/factionalization of "news" sources has allowed people to validate distorted views of reality. See the refusal of some parents to vaccinate their children for a not-so-political example. This has allowed flickers of individual delusions and rages to join bonfires. But we are now at a critical point. The ascendance of an uncivilized man in a Presidential contest has validated uncivilized behavior.
And I feel the tug of ascendant barbarism. I want to fight to defend what remains of our civilization. Many will vote for a horrible, uncivilized man because he represents their political tribe. The tribe increasingly cries for blood in its rage. I feel like I'd rather give them my blood than live to see them conquer this country. But my political beliefs are not based on allegiance to a party but to an enlightenment era notion of bettering ourselves through reason and discourse. I will resist being transformed by encroaching uncivilization, by the barbarians - the terrorists - emerging among us.
For this is the nature of the threat our country faces. No power will defeat us militarily on the field of battle. Neither China nor ISIS will march into Washington D.C. having vanquished our military forces. If America is conquered, it will be conquered from within. Saving this country requires understanding it as more than a flag, a song and a place to live. It requires understanding it as a sanctuary for our best way of being - for men and women of reason, who value learning and curiosity and the diversity of beliefs and creeds, to work together to maintain a place where these values can thrive. But it also requires caring enough about such a place to defend it.
The best thing we can do to defend our country now is recognize the risk it faces and vote accordingly.
