I am trying to post in roughly the order that things were written, but entropy and forgetfulness may mix things up a little. The following was written at 2:30 AM on November 23rd, 2020. Like many people, I hadn’t been sleeping well since the election, and wake-ups in the middle of the night were the norm, not the exception. But for a change, it was inspiration, not panic, that woke me that night.
As anyone who has personally had cancer or watched a loved one deal with the disease can tell you, the most frightening thing about the disease is how sneaky it is. A lump or mole that you ignored for too long, some symptom that by itself wasn’t worrying, and suddenly you were dealing with a cancer that, if left untreated, will eventually kill you.
A malignant tumor is totally self-involved, and serves no purpose other than it’s own continued existence. The tumor kills nearby healthy tissue while stealing nutrients to continue it’s own unrestrained growth.
Cancer spreads because it disguises itself as “self”. Our immune systems are programmed to not attack “self”, and so our best defenses are often useless against the disease.
My premise isn’t particularly metaphorical. Trump has already destroyed the GOP, using it’s own worst impulses against itself. Principled conservatives have left the party in droves, and he has fired or muted any political appointee who respects facts over lies and rumors. What is left of the GOP and Trump administration has become a creepy amalgam of all of the worst things about America, our “self”. Our laws and customs, our immune system, have been unable to stop this malignancy. The current efforts by Trump to deligitimize the results of an election that was undertaken under difficult conditions by thousands of honest and diligent election workers, postal workers and millions of voters is obscene, and is made more so by the silence, or worse, the active collaboration of GOP members who almost certainly know better. Those cowards should remember that Hitler came to power by legitimate means, and only a costly world war, with millions of dead, finally ended his regime. It can’t happen here, of course. Right?