Hoping for the Best, Fearing the Worst

The retired actress to whom I referred in my earlier post Republican Moderates Stand No Chance Against Trump said something that resonated with me, “I guess we’re all trying to convince ourselves that the next four years aren’t going to be as terrible as we fear.  Maybe, somehow, we’ll get off easy.”

Exactly.  If we extrapolate out over a four-year period from our news feeds that have hit us since Trump won the election in November, all we can see is a morass of presidential lawlessness, attacks on journalists, the mass-pardoning of insurrectionists and other friends of Trump,  institutionalized racism, cuts to Social Security, a federal ban on abortion, people kicked off healthcare and dying of treatable diseases, tax cuts for billionaires, corporate greed making the lives of working Americans miserable, cabinet positions filled by Trump megadonors who are ridiculously unqualified for their positions, the end of our nation’s meager commitment to climate change mitigation, the demolition of our public education systems, etc.

My new acquaintance asked me, “This seems to be a dwindling spiral.  How do you ‘undwindle’ it?” My response: “Great question.  Wish I had even a reasonable answer.”

And yes, it’s possible that not too many of these horrors will come to pass.   We can only hope.