{"id":386,"date":"2023-12-30T21:17:39","date_gmt":"2023-12-31T02:17:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/growpurpose.com\/skipjack\/?p=386"},"modified":"2023-12-31T13:58:49","modified_gmt":"2023-12-31T18:58:49","slug":"it-doesnt-have-to-happen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/growpurpose.com\/skipjack\/2023\/12\/30\/it-doesnt-have-to-happen\/","title":{"rendered":"It Doesn’t Have to Happen"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just one more time,\u00a0 The Story of Nations:<\/em><\/p>\n

From bondage to spiritual faith,
\nfrom spiritual faith to great courage,
\nfrom great courage to liberty,
\nfrom liberty to abundance,
\nfrom abundance to selfishness,
\nfrom selfishness to complacency,
\nfrom complacency to apathy
\nfrom apathy to dependence,
\nfrom dependence to bondage.<\/em><\/p>\n

Now take a moment to consider that progression, and especially think about where America stands along that cycle.\u00a0 Hint: second word in the penultimate line.<\/p>\n

That line, From apathy to dependence,<\/em> can be restated accurately in today\u2019s world as From nonvoting to Donald Trump<\/em>.\u00a0 If that were to happen, the next step, under a Hitler-trained fascist dictator like Trump, would clearly be bondage.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what happens when good people blindly vote to put a tyrant in charge of their country, like German voters did in 1934 when they elected Trump-mentor Hitler as their president.<\/p>\n

The numbers that reveal our national apathy are undeniable.\u00a0 We Americans, and especially Democrats, are so apathetic we do not vote. Consider the numbers from the last General Election.\u00a0 Only two thirds of registered voters cast ballots in the 2020 General Election even though it was one of the most important elections in American history.<\/p>\n

That means one in three registered voters did not bother to vote that day, and that doesn\u2019t even count the number of eligible people who didn\u2019t even bother to register.\u00a0 That totals an awful lot of Americans who did not vote, and bad politicians, such as Trump, are elected by people who do not vote.<\/p>\n

Those are horrifying numbers, especially in today\u2019s world where you can vote early or by mail or from your hospital bed.\u00a0 Maybe some people have a legitimate reason not to vote, but that number must be somewhere south of one percent.<\/p>\n

Some people who were paying attention years ago warned us that this day was coming.\u00a0 On Dec. 6, 2010 — note the year — the news and opinion website Salon ran an article under the eerily prophetic headline, \u201cHow America Will Collapse (by 2025)\u201d.<\/p>\n

The article said that history should remind us that empires are fragile things, so delicate that \u201cwhen things start to go truly bad, empires regularly unravel with unholy speed: just a year for Portugal, two years for the Soviet Union, eight years for France, 11 years for the\u00a0 Ottomans, 17 years for Great Britian, and in all likelihood 22 years for the United States, counting from the crucial year 2003.\u201d\u00a0 The arithmetic shows that year to be 2025.<\/p>\n

It went on to say that Washington was dreaming if it thinks America will fare any better than the other nations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe American Century, proclaimed so triumphantly at the start of World War II, will be tattered and fading by 2025, its eighth decade, and could be history by 2030.\u201d<\/p>\n

And look at us.\u00a0 It is happening.\u00a0 It is possible — some say it is probable \u2013 that Donald Trump will be our next president.\u00a0 The Atlantic magazine found the prospect likely enough to ask 24 knowledgeable writers what would happen if Trump were elected, and their responses included \u201ca revenge presidency, \u201d \u201che could build autocracy\u201d, \u201ccould plunge the country into a constitutional crises not seen since the Civil War\u201d,\u00a0 \u201cfour more years of unchecked misogyny\u201d,\u00a0 \u201ca MAGA version of U.S. history\u201d, \u201cthe dissolution of a shared reality\u201d, \u201ca judiciary more loyal to Trump than to the Constitution\u201d, \u201cthe consequences of withdrawing from America\u2019s oldest and strongest military alliance\u201d, et cetera.<\/p>\n

So it\u2019s happening and it could continue to happen.\u00a0 We could elect Trump and continue down the path to dependence <\/em>and then to bondage<\/em>.\u00a0 But we don\u2019t have to.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t have to happen.<\/p>\n

If we want to skip dependence<\/em> and bondage<\/em> and go directly from apathy<\/em> to spiritual faith<\/em>, which is the next natural step in the cycle, we can.\u00a0 We can become responsible adults.\u00a0 We still can run this government like it\u2019s supposed to be run, a government\u00a0 by us, of us and for us. Maybe the Trump-dictator thing will shock us into seeing what almost was and still could be, and start us moving with a fresh new step toward the future our Founders intended for us.<\/p>\n

But to have that kind of government depends on everyone participating, everyone voting.\u00a0 And that\u2019s where each of us comes in.\u00a0 Each one of us must do whatever we can, in whatever realm we occupy, to awaken sleeping nonvoters and\u00a0 make them aware\u00a0 that when they do not do their part in upholding our democracy, we slide onto the path we\u2019re on now \u2013 and why that is so dangerous.\u00a0 Suicidal, even.\u00a0 After all, it\u2019s true that only those of us who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it (although they make us repeat it with them because they do not participate).<\/p>\n

So the solution to our national apathy is simple, although certainly not easy.\u00a0 But we can begin by looking at where the fault lies, and I place most blame on the popular news media, the Democratic Party and the Biden administration.<\/p>\n

Begin with the news media.\u00a0 It is still focusing its coverage on the horse race aspects of the presidential race \u2013 Is Haley up? Is DeSantis down? What do today\u2019s polls say what will happen a year from now? —\u00a0 instead of letting tomorrow take care of tomorrow and focusing instead on what plainly is the most important news story of today:\u00a0 the vast and crucial differences between living in a democratic republic or under a dictatorship, between electing Joe Biden or Donald Trump.\u00a0 We can only hope the media will change its focus after Super Tuesday, March 5, when Trump is widely expected to take such a huge lead over all his competitors that he will be virtually unstoppable.<\/p>\n

Gallup polls show most people are not paying attention to any of that right now.<\/p>\n

I also blame the Democratic Party because Black people and young people, two of the party\u2019s most important and most dependable groups, are steadily leaving the party \u2013 worse, often politics altogether — and the party isn\u2019t doing enough to bring them back.\u00a0 Black people complain that the party promises them good things before elections but ignores them afterward.\u00a0 I get that.\u00a0 Young people complain that democracy just isn\u2019t working for them, and that both Biden and Trump are too old and too isolated in their castles to understand their problems.\u00a0 I get that, too. Both groups have legitimate reasons for their complaints.\u00a0 If they are wrong the party leaders must show them, but if they are right the party leaders must do something about it.\u00a0 Or the drain will continue.<\/p>\n

As for the Biden administration, it claims that it has done a lot for Black people and young people, as well as all other Americans, but if so it is doing a terrible job of making them see it.<\/p>\n

The danger is not that all those disenchanted Black people and young people are flocking to Trump.\u00a0 They are not. They may dislike Biden but they despise Trump. Or they may despise Biden but they hate Trump.\u00a0 Either way, the danger is that since they don\u2019t want either, they might not vote at all, which would be a vote for Trump.<\/p>\n

Or they might vote for a third-party candidate who is pre-doomed to lose, which would be the same as not voting, which be a vote for Trump, and there it is again: Bad politicians are elected by people who do not vote.<\/p>\n

So my plea to Black people and young people, and any other people who are thinking of sitting out this election because you don\u2019t like either candidate, please do not. \u00a0Even if you cannot stand the thought of either candidate, realize you will end up a year from now with one of them no\u00a0 matter what you do, so you might as well take the best of two bad choices.\u00a0 So please, hold your nose if you must, grit your teeth, and vote Biden into office, if for no other reason than to keep our government from falling into a dictatorship.\u00a0 Keep it running.\u00a0 Then, as soon as the election is over, get involved.\u00a0 Run for public office.\u00a0 Work within the Democratic party.\u00a0 Work wherever you feel comfortable.\u00a0 But do something.\u00a0 Make the changes you want.<\/p>\n

It’s your future, and you have a chance to start returning this country to a path toward what the Constitution writers wanted it to be, to what the United States flag is supposed to represent.\u00a0 You can become greater than the Greatest Generation, and it is urgent that you do so.\u00a0 But you must pay attention and vote.<\/p>\n

Maybe we can use this dictator scare to wake us up.\u00a0 Something must.<\/p>\n

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