Any casual visitor to our Capitol will immediately notice that the “Shining City on the Hill” has observably sustained a substantial coat of unattractive tarnish. An attempt to recall its traditional luster, is at present, equal to the challenge posed by the attempt to discern the prior robust young man in the face of an old, wizened derelict. Any examination of the present administration would approximate the irresistible glance at the sudden appearance of roadkill.
With the imperial, powerful, reins of the American Presidency deposited into the hands of the egocentric and ignorant Donald Trump and his unprecedented coterie of officially appointed family members and cabinet composed of self-interested sycophants, the same would resemble comic opera, if it were not so existentially dangerous.
Not even a latter day Nostradamus could have predicted the profound depth, and unprecedented speed of onset, of the present day post-Armageddon disaster. As we, fearfully predicted last November, the election of Mr.Trump would effectively result in a contemporary regression to the “Dark Ages.”
Our longstanding general reluctance to comment on the political scene seems to be outweighed by a felt responsibility, akin to the personal delivery of a eulogy upon the untimely death of a friend.
The experienced impact of the disaster, like a strike of lightening, was immediately felt, but its etiology lay in a dangerous accumulating metastasis for a considerable period of time. Similar to the Pompeiian eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, all America became besmirched with the volcanic ash.
Nostradamus aside, the current disaster was predictable, but probably inevitable. It was occasioned by a progressive coarsening of society and its populist disparagement of the intellectual pursuit of wisdom and human progress in favor of the mediocre, shallow pursuit of superficial diversion.
When intellectual endeavor, dedicated to enlightenment and the enhancement of society, in science, health and the arts, is devalued, and mundane superficiality, pizzazz, or the ability to throw or catch a ball, or toss it through a hoop is most prized, is it at all surprising that a showy, egotistical and ignorant game show host was elected to the Presidency of the United States? The present Administration, not unexpectedly, has wasted no time in cutting funding for the nation’s arts and educational programs.
As long as the very populous flat earth, low information citizenry remain ignorant and susceptible to manipulation by demagogic snake oil salesmen (with personal cynical and selfish motivation) the tarnish will remain, the polishing cloth of true American quality will remain unused and our lamentations continue.
-p.
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