God Forbid

I had dinner with a friend of more than 70 years on Sunday after we watched the Eagles debacle.

Both he and his wife have already voted and both were genuinely amazed and frightened about what is happening in America. 

My friend's wife thinks that the only way Trump can be de-railed or de-throned is if what she calls a “catastrophe” happens. She didn't specify a natural disaster or a Trump-made disaster.

I did that in my mind's eye, flashing to the caravan of people fleeing for their lives that is now making its way through Mexico. Then the scene of the student murders at Kent State came before me.

Trump is  claiming that the human rights caravan is being infiltrated with “Eastern” terrorists who are going to kill all his supporters in their innocent beds. He is getting himself worked up enough and lied up enough to actually send “the military” to the Texas border to stop these fiends from crashing onto our sacred soil.

The way I see it, with our military spread as thin as it is, the military that might end up at the border could well be green National Guard troops; the same kind of raw and confused so-called soldiers who fired into the crowd of peaceful demonstrators at Kent State University in 1970, killing four students. Do you remember that riveting photo of the young women screaming tearfully over the body of a dead student?

This could easily happen at the border. One shot could lead to panicked volleys of automatic weapon fire and horrendous loss of life and mass casualties among the refugees seeking legitimate political asylum. That is my God forbid scenario.

But if it should come to pass, what would be the reaction? Would it be the “catastrophe” my friend's wife mentioned, strong enough to take Trump down, or will it be just another page in the litany of evil and hate that Trump is depending on to keep him in power? Is America now so far gone that we can overlook  government-sponsored mass murder in our Trump-manufactured hysteria. Are there that many people here who back naked evil? Is hate our default position?  

Trump's initial positions regarding Jamal Khashoggi's murder give us a clue. It took the world's loud condemnation of Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman to force Trump to half-heartedly condemn not the murder, but the cover-up. 

Life is cheap in Trump world. To many of his followers, the killing of Khashoggi and – again, God forbid – the murder of any caravan members would be a negligible event. They are, after all, not white. And in Trump's country, you ain't right if you ain't white.

Donald Trump's racism is inherent and deep-seated, as it is in many Americans. The abhorrent stain of slavery will never be washed from the American soul. 

One of the oft-repeated lines being mouthed by politicians and talking heads whenever Trump or one of his allies does or says something truly despicable is, “We're better than that.” 

Are we? We'll find out on November 6.