What Can I Do?

                                                                                   

This was written before the presumed assassination attempt on the GOP candidate. Of course, I deplore such an act, but my feelings about the candidate have not changed. And the GOP 's attempt to blame it on Biden's 'inflammatory' rhetoric (or worse) is laughable. Don't let this distract you from finding out about Project 2025. (Note: many of the page numbers cited in various memes re P2025 have been changed so that fact checkers may call foul when they're cited.)

The recent ruling from the Supreme Court, coming on top of Biden’s weak performance at the debate and the ensuing pearl-clutching amongst Dem politicos, not to mention the growth of authoritarianism all over the world, and brutal wars in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan, and, oh yes, the downward spiral of our planet’s environment has left me . . . what?

I think I’m by nature optimistic but at the same time, fairly cynical. A difficult combination to be sure.

When faced with an unpleasantness, my first thought is to ask what, if anything, I can do about it. If it’s dog poop on the rug, I can deal with it. If it’s the existential breakdown of life as we know it, my options are more limited.

At my age and with my limited mobility, marching and protesting is right out. No one wants to be the elderly woman overcome by heat in the crowd. And in the seriously MAGA rural environment in which I live, going door to door in an attempt to change minds seems like an exercise in futility which would only endanger the live-and-let-live policy we’ve adopted with our neighbors for the past fifty years.

I can write letters or make calls to my congress persons, send some small amounts of money to progressive political organizations. (The cynical part of me doubts any of this does any good.) Of course, I can and will vote at every chance (no matter what the cynical one whispers.)

So, what does one do in these perilous times, when our country seems to be lurching into a quasi-dictatorship, when money buys SCOTUS justices, when the Republican candidate promises tax breaks and deregulation in exchange for dollars, when the whole of the Republican party seems eager to embrace a man I wouldn’t have in my house?

At 81, I suspect I won’t live to see the worst of these trends mature. But I worry about those who will. Though I’d be okay with catastrophic flooding in Mar-a-Lago. Oh, wait, DeSantis is taking care of that by keeping climate change out of the textbooks.

As for our 81 year old president—he has accomplished more and still makes more sense than the red-hatted loon, raving about sharks and batteries and exploding trees. And should Biden prove incapable, Kamala Harris is an excellent backup. Query: Has the GOP forgotten that as Reagan sank into Altheimer's, Nancy Reagan's astrologer may have been running things?

As a matter of fact, the Democrats could nominate the proverbial yellow dog, or a wad of belly button lint and I’d vote for it rather than the anointed one of Project 2025.

So I retreat into the precept of an unknown Zen master:

Brew the tea correctly. See that the house is warm in winter and cool in summer.

Breathe. . .