Earlier today, I was in the middle of one of my tasks for the day when I received a text from Mom and a picture was attached. She routinely sends random pictures, memes, etc. so it wasn’t unusual until I opened the message. What I saw infuriated me and reminded me that the world we live in is similar to the one I experienced as a child.
A thousand words:
I can remember a time not that long ago when the Klu Klux Klan showed up in our town to have a loud demonstration on the steps of our courthouse. To be clear, it has been decades, but I can remember it like it was yesterday. I was a child and we were driving through town for errands and there was a group of white-hooded thugs flying their Nazi flags, Nazi saluting the passing cars, and flipping off anyone and everyone who appeared to be not white. At the time, the total non-white population in our town was probably less than 5, so the middle finger was rarely used.
But I have this image seared into my memory because it was a moment when part of my innocence died. These purveyors of hatred murdered it, and I didn’t know at the time how I could live in a world that allowed this kind of thing to exist. I was a child, and hateful messages were being yelled at full volume for all to hear through a megaphone. In the MIDDLE of our town.
I consider that moment as much of a blow to that innocence as the moment I learned about death. I have experienced so much life since then to help soften the blow of bigotry. I have been lucky to lead a happy life, all things considered.
But it is now 2024. I am in my 40s and the wound I sustained as a child reopened with this image. I was reminded that no matter how many things change, some terrible things remain true. Hatred is alive and well and it has a public sympathy I have never seen before in my life.
The white, Christian Nationalists will soon have a strong man in office and the floodgates of hatred will fly open on January 20, 2025. I suspect it will be the beginning of a truly dark time in the story of the United States of America.
Nothing feels outside of the realm of possibility in this version of the world. It feels like it is only a matter of time before hate groups are freely lobbying in the once-hallowed halls of Congress. They will have no one left to stop them, and a leader who encourages the worst instincts in them.
On January 6 of 2021, we had a preview of what this might look like if it were a drunk and disorderly force of ill-informed rednecks and out-loud pieces of shit. The next time it will be men dressed in suits who are cordially invited.
We aren’t better than this and it is a reckoning we will all have to have. I have had mine and I will counsel others when they have theirs. There is no coming back from who we have become as a nation. There is only a chance to rebuild once it all inevitably collapses.