I Never Thought …

For the first eight years of my life, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was president. He was a towering figure to me; he made the presidency sacred.

Now, in these crazed and slanted times, I find myself writing my 258^th “column” totally against the President of the United States of America.

 

I never thought anything like that could ever happen – to me and to this country. I never thought I would be deeply afraid of the President of the United States of America. 

 

I never thought I would be deeply afraid of what might happen to this country in the aftermath of a presidential election, given Donald Trump's encouragement of political, social, and racial violence. This is not paranoia; paranoia is imagined fear. This fear is not imagined, if the travesty that was the so-called “debate” is any indication, with the President of the United States telling the Proud Boy hoodlums to “stand by” and refusing to condemn white nationalists.

 

I never thought that more than 200,000 Americans would die while the President of the United States lies and lies about the pandemic that is killing them and actively promotes behavior that will only worsen this mindless killer. I never thought the President of the United States would be, in fact, a mass murderer.

 

I never thought that the United States of America could fall in less than four years from a respected world power to a laughable sham, tottering on the precipice of anarchy and chaos.

 

I never thought I would go an entire summer without setting foot on the Wildwood  Boardwalk, a charged and almost magical place to me, so much so that many years ago, my two partners and I made a documentary about the Boardwalk that was shown – and is still shown occasionally – on PBS Channel 12 in Philly. 

 

In 2016, I was walking on the Boardwalk when a covey of teenage punks came blasting past on their bikes and one shouted right in my face, ”Vote for Trump, mister!”

 

“Kiss my fucking ass!” I shouted after them, which brought howls of delight.

 

This summer, I stayed off the Boardwalk almost as a matter of principle after seeing online from Boardwalk cameras hordes of maskless walkers, runners, bikers, and skateboarders. I never thought the beloved Boardwalk would be a literal, unspoken, unacknowledged battleground between decent, caring Americans, and those whose selfishness and ignorance has been given a seal of approval that will kill some of them by a president who knows or cares nothing about the chief executive's first duty, which is to protect America's citizens. 

 

I never thought that there would be such truly perilous times during my life: the grand, sweeping, mad shadow of a terrible and murderous pandemic hovering over a nation made ill-prepared to meet it because of the terrible and crippling sickness of the man who himself is ill-prepared to deal with anything but his own starved ego.

 

I never thought of anything like this. I do now. We all do. But we must endure beyond this. That endurance begins by voting.