I’m sure most of you agree that this nation faces a stark choice now that can’t be postponed any longer.
The next two years are certainly the most fateful and important years since the nineteen-forties for our country and the world. I was a teenager in the nineteen-sixties and the central division of that tumultuous time is going to be settled. Not resolved, but settled. The ultimate direction of our future will no longer be in doubt. The election of 2016 guaranteed this showdown.
In the next two years Donald Trump (and those parts of the Republican party that remain faithful to him) will either establish a Putin-type strongman oligarchy/kleptocracy in place of our republic, or he and they will go down in flaming ruin.
I can see no other plausible outcome.
If the scandals that plague this president and his administration, coupled with its venality and incompetence don’t bring him down it can only be because the checks and balances that make us a democratic republic will have failed. It will be the end of democracy in America except as window dressing for rule by one man and one party.
If he does go down he will take his allies with him; and the Republican party and the conservative evangelical churches and white supremacy will surely crater with him. They will all continue to exist and make noise but their power will be broken for the foreseeable future.
I believe the odds of Trump winning are small and diminishing by the day but the outcome is not certain. There will be violence before it ends both political and real. Many will suffer and some will almost certainly die. This is going to be a time that will try our souls, in Paine’s immortal words.
Let us stay strong and never waver. The tide of history is with us. They are fighting desperately to keep the dam from bursting. Desperate people are dangerous and unpredictable.
Their weakness is that Donald J. Trump is their leader.
Now is not the time for fear and doubt.
Our future for many generations depends on it.