So, Where are We Now?

Something important died last night. Do we have a Lazarus move in us? A friend likes to joke about how maybe we have to burn the village down to save it. Is this the start of the bonfire? I wondered to some folks just yesterday if we were coming apart at the seams. Maybe. I don’t know. I really don’t.

I crawled into bed at 2 and was awake at 5:30 and could not fall back to sleep. I’ve been reading a novel rather than look at a paper.

We’re both physically and emotionally hit by this …. this thing … this impossibility, the thing that could not happen, that could not be allowed to happen.

There will be postmortems but we are looking at a retrograde GOP that now controls all three branches of government. There will be few checks on them. The only block will be the Democrats in the Senate. Get ready for obstructionism coming from the other side. Who ever thought we’d be looking at Chuck Schumer in a role like this?

My wife is Canadian but the folks to the north have their own immigration regulations and it’s unlikely that we (well, “I”) would qualify. Like the US they’re not happy taking in people who put strains on services. I’m concerned about a tightening at the border crossing since we go into Canada almost daily. We’ll see…

The markets fell then stabilized. A legit worry is an economic free-fall if Trump et al. do very weird or dangerous things. I worry about the next couple of years. Many bad things are sure to happen. The Supreme Court will drift into bizarro-land. Obamacare will be repealed — and no one has a clue about what will take its place. We’re liable to have a serious trade war with Asia and the Eurozone. Roe v Wade is dead. Planned Parenthood will be defunded. Unwanted pregnancies will rise and abortions will go underground again.

No one knows about the really crazy things Trump talked about like that idiotic wall or deporting millions of Hispanics and Muslims, pulling out of NATO, nullifying the Iran deal….

But one thing we can be sure of. He will not be able to fulfill those promises to bring back jobs, to rescue the rust belt, coal country or steel manufacturing. His tax plan will increase the deficit and hurt the working and middle classes. And what will those folks, the ones who made up the bulk of his support, do then?

And to put final smack on the day, we just heard that our daughter went into the hospital with appendicitis last night. The surgery was this morning and we got the word that she’s fine and will be home in a day or two. She has a chronic immune deficiency so they’re keeping her into make sure there’s no infection.

I just checked the results for an important local proposition, a small tax levy to finish the funding for a new library here in Point Roberts. It lost. The levy would have cost the average homeowner a lousy $8 a month for one year — and the vast majority of that would come from the part-timers (mostly Canadians) who own roughly 70% of the properties.

Even the weather here matches the mood. It is dark and raining. The sky is gray and gloomy. The hummingbirds usually at the feeder outside my window are hiding somewhere.

I am not a happy camper.

Comments

[John Lesow]

Cheer up. The Trump years were very good years by any standard. The last 3 Biden years are not.
Your problem, Arthur is that you are a complainer. Your " life resume" as I have pointed up before you blocked me from posting, is very thin. You have no experience in business, the military or matters of faith. Your self esteem is derived from adulatory praise from peers in academia that are in many cases just as " thin" in terms of real world accomplishment as you. Its over, Arthur. Quit pouting. And don't remove this post if you have any sense of pride in you "accomplishments."