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By almost any measure, the year that begins this very day is already burdened with hopes and fears -- hopes that make some people fearful, fears that make others hopeful. I cannot think of a time when the stakes were so monumentally high in a presidential election, save perhaps those of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 and Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932.*
To be sure, the United States is but one nation among many and perhaps not quite as dominant in world affairs as it was in the decades after 1945, yet its economic strength and military muscle are well-toned. In short, America and its president can make the difference. The question is: What kind of difference how and where?
Among other things the planet needs so critically right now is an American voice more sure and certain than that of Barack Obama. The conflagration that is sweeping over and beyond the territories now controlled by radical Muslims bent on martyrdom must be contained and extinguished. ISIS followers need to be put in a situation that will require them to rethink their fundamentalist take on Qu'ran and adopt a theology that does not call for destroying the world in order to save it.
Of course, that project is already underway with no help whatsoever from ISIS. Destroying life on Earth by the carbon-producing nations is being accomplished in a more incremental manner as the mean temperature of Earth edges up toward climatic inferno a tenth of a degree at a time. This means that generally the news media ignore it because it causes no public panic of the kind certain presidential candidates recently have incited about ISIS conspirators lurking in every copse and cranny.
All hail, though, Barack Obama and John Kerry for aiding and abetting the good work of the recent Paris conference. The real work now begins, or not. And that's why the next president of the United States must bring unrelenting pressure upon Congress to enact environmental protection laws that will be in concert with those of other cooperating nations.
As I saw that last sentence march across the screen, I began to chuckle as, in my imagination, an angel of Yahweh vested in celestial splendor appeared on the floor of Congress and pronounced dire prophecies absent immediate action. The heavenly messenger doubtless would be met with mild reaction, the solons and representatives having already seen the new Star Wars movie.
The congressional disinclination to bring the era of oil and coal to an end in this country is maddening enough, but the election of a president similarly disinclined would mark the beginning of the end. Four years or maybe even eight years, and it would be too late for the United States to make that crucial difference.
What is our hope?
Our hope is nowhere but in ourselves and not in our stars, as Cassius said to Brutus about their common fault.** The two of them are depicted as believing that Julius Caesar would not serve Rome's future well, but their state as "underlings" limited what they could do about it. Et tu, Brute?
Certainly there are responsible people who are convinced beyond a doubt that Donald Trump would not serve America and the world well, but, like Cassius and Brutus, share the fault of being "underlings -- that is, ill-equipped politically to best this era's would-be Caesar.
More disturbing, though, is the news that many potential voters, loath to admit their preference for one or another of them in public, nevertheless apparently believe that Trump or Ted Cruz or Ben Carson would be the answer to saving America. Saving it from what?
As this essay was being composed, Trump had arrived in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where more than 8,000 people had waited hours in a downpour for him to arrive and were not embarrassed to laud him in unison hosannas when he did.
These were not kooks but solid middle-class people who are convinced that declaring out-and-out war with ISIS is the thing to do, that immigration of Muslims must be stopped at all cost and that talk of climate change is a nuisance. I could find no mention of the racial composition of the Grand Rapids crowd, but I'm thinking it was mostly white and mostly angry.
If the winner of the November 8 presidential election were to be transported to victory on the vehicles of xenophobia, ignorance and rage, the nation and the world would be in serious trouble in so many different ways.
In such a catastrophe, you would have to kiss climate change concerns goodbye. You would have as the leader of your nation a demagogue who went to any length to get elected, and, if history is any indication, would govern as if he were a Caesar. In due course, he could attempt to arrogate power to himself beyond that permitted in the Constitution for means and ends that would violate one thing or another in the Bill of Rights. Given the present climate, success in such usurpation would be neither improbable nor impossible.
Some number of the good people who put their electoral faith in him could begin to doubt their judgment. Over time they might come to see him as a twisted combination of Richard Nixon, Vladimir Putin and other thinly veiled and not so thinly veiled despots we have known in recent history.
This is not a prophecy. It is a nightmare the writer wished did not so frequently disturb his sleep.
No thinking person could see 2016 as anything but a fateful year. The hope that it might be remembered for better things, as has been said, is in us and nowhere else -- much less in our stars. We could end up in a bad place, come November. But we must resist now and, if need be, subvert later. We would owe it to our children and grandchildren and their generations around the world to have done so.
* Roosevelt's election in 1932 brought the New Deal that saved the nation from the worst depredations of the Great Depression. Lincoln saved the Union and began the process that broke the back of indentured servitude, which would lead eventually to the beginning of the end of Jim Crow.
** Julius Caesar. Act I. Scene ii. Lines 140-41
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