I am not a poet. But as I think of the upcoming presidential election a couple of lines from Bruce Springsteens’s song, Jungleland, stick with me: “The poets down here don’t write nothing at all. They just stand back and let it all be.”
And so here we are yet again at another, “most important election of our lifetime.”
We have been told, every four years, that every presidential election since 2004 has been “the most important of our lifetime.” That’s a whole lot of ramping up in importance in just 20 years. This election is now so important, it’s scary.
Certainly, the last eight years have been building towards November 5 and the stark binary choice it offers. The man who was labeled decades ago by Spy Magazine as a “short-fingered vulgarian” has vowed retribution on his enemies if he gets re-elected. And that’s just one part of the package that comes with voting that way. There’s a lot there now, including the disgusting stain of January 6, 2021.
What has become known as MAGA is now the choice – either/or. Yes or No. This is the Y in the road.
MAGA – Yes or No? CAPE COD WAVE ILLUSTRATION
There’s been quite a buildup to get here, and this time around, MAGA has written down their amazingly mean plan – Project 2025. The plan is to change this country into a vastly different America. Even if you support it, you know it fundamentally changes the country.
So please, don’t let it happen. And yes, it’s easy for me to say this in reliably blue Massachusetts.
And it looks so simple, I’m guessing, from each perspective. The answer of who to vote for (and more importantly, who not to vote for) is obvious to supporters of each candidate.
But the sad truth is that what is obvious to each group is different. Often, in these weird post-truth times, the obvious to one group is a polar opposite obvious to the other group.
But this year is way different than normal election season spinning. It seems one candidate can’t stop lying. And close to half of America is willing to accept as fact every crazy lie he puts forth.
The alarm is real. The long American tradition of two arguments about how to deal with one set of facts is dead.
There are now two different realities in America. And that’s, unfortunately, an actual fact. The American story has broken in half.
I know my perspective, but I do my best not to live in a bubble.
I spend much more time than most people who have anything like my perspective would think is healthy listening to and watching right wing news outlets. I may have watched more of FOX news than I have of the other two major cable news stations combined. On Cape Cod, when I am not listening to sports radio, I sometimes listen to WXTK. I try to understand.
But the MAGA crowd and their dear leader make it so hard to understand. For instance, this is a small local-focused magazine. I have been doing journalism a long time and I have a lot of friends in the field, all over the world. The MAGA talking point that journalists are the enemy is really disturbing, and also textbook behavior of a wannabe dictator.
The First Amendment – CAPE COD WAVE PHOTO
Am I the enemy? Are my friends?
The burgeoning enemies list, it seems, is long. There is even the blanket argument that has surfaced that anyone opposed to the MAGA agenda is the enemy. By the way, that’s a lot of Cape Codders.
But it’s the separate sets of facts that sets this election apart. Again, there are two realities. That reality, like the choice we are faced with, is clear. And while it’s up to everyone to vote, the upcoming results feel out of our control. This is the fork in the road and we are about to take it, with the universe’s help.
I guess my point is that I am appealing to the poetry of the universe that has watched approvingly for decades as the kind of person we were all taught never to become has risen to great wealth and power to the point that his narcissism now imperils us all. That can’t be how the poem ends. Can it?
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Cape Cod Wave Magazine covers the character & culture of Cape Cod. Please see our Longform stories.
