Our rescue

Over the last almost 60 years I have had the privilege of living and traveling across a good portion of the United States. Between both coasts, mountains, deserts and plains, the deep South and the upper Mid-West, farms, small towns and some of our biggest cities, I’ve seen quite a bit of the nation, along with a fair number of my fellow Americans who live here. During that time, or at least since I’ve been old enough to notice and remember, there is a scene I have seen play out many times over. People who are unhappy about the “way the nation is going,” or even the way it is, become convinced that if only the right Special People are elected and the right laws passed, the problems the “regular people” see will be dealt with. As a result, there will ensue the desired conditions (peace/love/happiness/respect for religion/abandonment of religion/security/low crime/equality/equity/widespread affluence — take your pick of any combination of those and a myriad of others). Regardless of what some might suggest, this belief is not peculiar to people at any particular point along the American political spectrum, or to people of a given political party, or to any other group. It’s that widespread, that pervasive.

It’s also an erroneous belief.

Regardless of where you are, politically/socially/economically (and/or any other distinction you care to make), neither the politicians you might prefer, nor the parties they represent, nor the laws they might pass, are coming to save you. They aren’t coming to save the United States, either. They pretend they are, of course, and the various pundits and media arms that support them will tell you they are, though not always in those words. But, regardless of the words or how subtly that message of salvation is suggested, they lie. They lie, fervently and incessantly, in the hope you and I will believe them enough to spread the lie, even to teach it to our children.

Let me be more clear. If you are a Democrat or lean toward the left end of the traditional American political spectrum, neither Joe Biden, nor Kamala Harris, nor the Democratic Party are going to rescue you or the nation. The same is true of their Democratic contemporaries and successors. Likewise, if you are a Republican or lean toward the left end of that same spectrum, neither Donald Trump (or some other politician(s)) nor the GOP is coming to the rescue. The same is true of his contemporaries and successors. Some other combination of party and politician? Same thing. One or more of all the above may come on the scene, but they ain’t riding to our rescue. Stop pretending they are. Stop lying to yourself. Stop spreading the lie.