I am simply disgusted by what's happening in America.
The reason is that the country, or large segments of it, seems to be acquiescing to a particular form of evil, one that is pernicious and even playful, one in which the means of chipping away at our values and morals grow even stronger, graduating from tack hammer to standard hammer to sledgehammer.
America, it seems to me, is drifting toward catastrophe. Donald Trump is leading us there. And all the while, our politicians plot about political outcomes and leverage. Republican politicians are afraid to upset him; Democratic politicians are afraid to impeach him.
One thing that should never be underestimated is a politician's clawing instinct toward self-preservation. These disciples of flexibility have learned well that the trees that remain standing are those that bend best in the storm.
Trump is to them a storm. But, to many of us, he is desolation, or the possibility thereof.
But, because nothing changes, because he is never truly held accountable, too many Americans are settling into a functional numbness. That is where the edge of death is marked. That is where the rot begins. That is where a society loses itself.
Take for instance the latest sexual accusation against Trump: Advice columnist E. Jean Carroll alleges that Trump sexually assaulted her in 1995 or 1996 in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room. Carroll doesn't call it rape, but rape is what she describes.
Carroll writes that Trump "pushed her against the wall, pushed his mouth against her lips, then pulled down her tights, unzipped his pants and forced his 'fingers around my private area, thrusts his penis halfway - or completely, I'm not certain - inside me,'" as The New York Times reported it.
Go back and read that last paragraph. Read it slowly. Place yourself - or your mother, or your wife, sister, daughter, cousin, girlfriend or friend - in that dressing room.
And remember that the alleged perpetrator is now the president. And, remember that Carroll is by no means alone; a chorus of other women have also accused Trump of sexual misconduct.
Yet, her account landed like one more body on the pile in a mass grave: reduced by the multitude of other accusations rather than amplified by them.
There was media coverage of Carroll's accusation and social media discussion of it, but it never truly sufficiently sunk in and gathered the gravity it deserved.
Then Dean Baquet, executive editor of The Times, even said this newspaper "underplayed" the article it published on the accusation.
And Trump, in his swelling depravity, responded to the allegations by telling The Hill: "I'll say it with great respect: Number one, she's not my type. Number two, it never happened. It never happened, OK?"
Well, sir, which type for you is rape-worthy?
To you, America, I ask: What is the breaking point? Is there a breaking point? Does nothing now matter that used to matter? Do we simply allow this accusation to pass like all the others?
There are other crises, other emergencies, other traumas. Trump is waging war on immigrants, waging war on the environment, and has hinted at waging war on Iran.
How to weigh one woman's tale of victimization - or that of multiple women - by Trump against a world being driven into chaos by Trump?
I say that this allegation, if true, is the most egregious offense. Not the most deadly or having the most consequences for future generations, but absolutely the most revelatory about character, privilege and abuse of power.
This would be an act of the most intimate violence performed by the man who is now president himself, flesh to flesh, not with the numbing distance of a signature on an executive order or an offense screamed out at one of his rage rallies.
This president acts as if he is above the law, or is the law. He lies and he cheats and he bullies. He is hateful and rude and racist.
America owes it to itself to deeply ponder it, and possibly hear sworn testimony about whether it's true.
Or, conversely, America can simply sleepwalk its way to the polls in 2020 hoping the world is still intact when it opens its eyes.
The New York Times