An American Obscenity

What you’re reading is basically worthless. These 117 Civic Duty columns are 64,350 wasted words. They don’t do a thing. They don’t change a single mind. They make me feel a little better when I write them and maybe bring an occasional “Right on!” from readers.

So what? Donald Trump reigns supreme and children are being taken from their parents’ arms. In America. And it goes on. And on. All of it, not just the obscenity of sundered families, but the vile stream of racism, misogyny, corruption, greed, lies, and toxic evil that spews endlessly from the Oval Office.

If Donald Trump can listen to the sobs of terrified children and not immediately rescind his brutal edict, he has indelibly proved himself to be a monster for now and through all posterity. A monster. Nothing less. Forever. I wept at the small voices and panicked sobs. How could he not?

And if this country stands for this sacrilege, there is truly no hope. Any parent who agrees with Trump’s separation of families should not have children. 

And all of my purple prose matters for nothing. The stream of kidnapping and child abuse increases daily. It is an American sin. A mortal sin.

Anthony Bourdain’s voice is missed. He reminded us that preaching to the choir and hand-wringing are useless without constant and determined action.

I have a friend in the Austin area who is involved in voter registration among high school graduates and Mexican Americans. What he does in a single hour is worth more than all my puerile prose. He is actually doing something. He is a Quaker and he sees it as his moral duty.

He and his associates are truly boots on the ground. My friend is a grandfather and an astute political realist who sees that if we pin our hopes on Robert Mueller or the Southern District of Manhattan we are doing just that – hoping.

Hope will not return kidnapped and abused children. Hope will not drain the bottomless swamp Donald Trump has created. Hope will not return America to its standing among nations.

Our hope is finally in the ballot. It was the twisted ballot that created this monster. It is the ballot that will destroy him.

Not words. Yet I write.