Falling Back, 54. A Division Too Great.

The votes are still being counted in states such as Arizona, Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada, and Alaska. As of this afternoon, Joe Biden has pulled out ahead in Georgia and Pennsylvania. Since so many people voted by mail, there are mountains of ballots yet to be opened and counted. And who knows how many still lie in postal distribution centers without having been sent to their destinations. 

Most of the mail in ballots were cast by Democrats, so as they are opened, the numbers are changing in favor of Biden. That is making Trump furious. Last night he apparently held a news conference that was so full of lies from the very beginning, that major television networks simply stopped broadcasting it, and started correcting the lies falling out of his mouth like blow flies. The man is unhinged, but unhinged are also the people behind him that keep prodding him onward in his pathetic attempt to destroy the democratic principle of voting. 

In other countries, people are seeing Trump for the raving lunatic he is. The problem is that, his followers, those who would have been at home in Hitler's Germany, are spurred on by his insistance that voter fraud has been committed. The problem is that what may well happen is what happened when Henry II complained, "Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?" Though, instead of the death of one Thomas Beckett, many might die or be injured. Already, there seems to have been some type of plot to storm a convention center in Pennsylvania where votes are still being counted. 

Even if Trump is finally forced from the White House without any further ado, his followers will remain, and they will continue to make life difficult for the rest, insisting that their hero was maligned and conspired against. As long as Trump has a voice, he will continue to make trouble in a sharply divided country. Even if he eventually faces any criminal or civil charges, his base will simply see him as a martyr. The Devil has been unleashed in the United States, and now it will be very difficult to consign him back to hell.

What is left of the America I grew up in? What of that country that prided itself on citizens that worked together and helped each other? I was taught that it was the best country in the world, that it was the birthplace of modern democracy, where anyone could work and become anything they wanted. Historical role models, like Abrahan Lincoln, who grew up on the frontier in a log cabin, barely went to school, yet ended up one of the wisest and most literate presidents, were set before us. What role models shall be set before children in the future? Donald "Grab 'em by the Pussy" Trump? Stephen "Throw 'em in Cages" Miller? The saddest part is that there are parents that will do just that. Which shouldn't surprise us, because some parents used to laud Joseph McCarthy once upon a time, because he was so "firm" with the "communists" that he saw everywhere, even in the soup. 

Things have gotten so divided in the States, that to go back to where they were twenty or thirty years ago, even with the imperfections that persisted then, will take more than fifty years. Even if fighting does not break out, even if physically little or nothing is destroyed, the spirit of the country has been vanquished. It will never be fixed within my lifetime. Perhaps one day my daughter will be able to go there and find herself at home. But that day is so far into the future, it might as well be a wish in the wind.

I cry for the country that helped make me what I am now. I cry for the good people I know there that don't deserve to live in a failed democracy. Spain is far from perfect, but right now, it's light years away from the United States, and with each tweet from the fat fingers of the blob of a man that destroys whatever he touches, the distance grows. It's heartbreaking.

Life continues.