They can have it

I woke up early this morning, for no apparent reason. And the first sensation was dread. It was like when someone close has died, or some worry about your health has emerged, or some major disaster has occurred, like Covid or 9/11. You open your eyes, and it takes a second to put your finger on what feels so wrong. But in a brief instant you remember.

As I lay there, I thought, am I going to do this again for another four years, or maybe the rest of my life?

And I've decided, no. I've been watching the Orange Caligula Horror Show for nine years. That's enough. To the extent possible, I'm not going to watch the rest of it.

I canceled the New York Times on Wednesday, and I'm turning away from social media, because it's you-know-who, nonstop, as it will be for years to come. After a few months of The Horrible Things He's Going To Do, we'll graduate to endless months of The Horrible Things He's Doing. He will die or become disabled within a year or two, and then it will be all sorts of drama over the cockroach he has as his vice president. 

I refuse to wake up every morning to it. Whatever they do to the country, to the world, so be it. There's nothing I can do about it. I have the God-given right to pursue happiness, and that's what I am going to do. 

I am resigned to the fact that the majority of people in the country I live in are selfish and ignorant. Many are consumed by hate. Spending my life worrying about it, being outraged by it, just makes it worse.

It will be hard letting go. As a small boy I was taught to follow national politics closely. In fifth grade the wonderful nun who taught us had us all trained so that we could name not only all of the members of Kennedy's cabinet, but Washington's as well. In high school, we lived and died by the news from Vietnam. In college, Watergate consumed us. In law school, the sad saga of Jimmy Carter played out. Then it was our time to start careers – Reagan, the greed, the cocaine. Which led to Bush Senior, who was a much more evil SOB than I realized at the time, a war monger and a murderer whose ultimate joke on the libs was Clarence F. Thomas. Followed by the greaseball Clintons, who made grifting into an art form. Bush Junior, the smirking chimp and another murderer. Then Obama Time, which made me think we had finally turned a corner. Boy, was that a stupid thought. Which brings us back to Orange Caligula.

I paid a lot of attention through all of that, but now it's passing in front of my eyes like they say happens with scenes from your life when you're dying. My caring about what happens to America is on hospice. 

I don't have to watch closely. I know what's going to happen. It's going to be terrible. 

If there's a house on fire on the next block, I don't run over there to look at it. I stay home and let the firefighters take care of it. I make sure I know if it gets too close, but otherwise, nothing is gained by my gawking.

We have taught our children as best we could. We have tried to make their world better than ours. We have failed, but we tried. Eventually they will have to deal with the fire. It was bigger than us.

The American experiment is over. A majority in this country just voted, freely, knowingly, and willingly, for a dictatorship run by a lunatic beholden to Vladimir Putin. Pootie is a wickedly smart monster, and he has conquered us without firing a shot. It happened during my lifetime, when I was an old man. It's profoundly sad.

And so I grieve. But I don't visit cemeteries, and that's what following the national news is going to be like for the foreseeable future. It's time to move on.