Flooring it in the direction of our inexorable grim juncture

If you see some way to avoid it, I'd be game to hear out your scenario

This is why I didn’t devote any keystrokes to the DeSantis-Haley debate or any of the I-know-it’s-a-long-shot-but-here’s-a-non-Trump-candidate’s-possible-path-to-the-GOP-nomination punditry of the last couple months. I can’t imagine there’s a post-American out there who’s fool enough that he or she was surprised at how Iowa went.

The current makeup of the party that once proclaimed itself the adult in the room in contrast to the purveyors of militant identity politics, climate alarmism and wealth redistribution across the aisle has abnegated that mantle quite unabashedly:

Entrance polls from the caucuses illustrate the problem. Per CBS News, the most important factor for caucus-goers was that a candidate “shares my values” at 40 percent. That was followed closely by 34 percent who wanted someone who “fights for people like me.” Only 12 percent said the “right temperament” while 11 percent wanted someone who “can beat Joe Biden.”

. . . Going further, 64 percent of caucus-goers say that Trump is “fit to be president even if convicted of a crime” and 65 percent don’t believe that Biden won a legitimate victory in 2020. These data points are illustrative of the bubble of confirmation bias that has enveloped Republicans in the Trump years.

Further entrance poll data shows that Iowa evangelical Christians went for the Very Stable Genius by 55 percent, with DeSantis getting 24 percent and Haley 12.

Does wonders - not - for my notions of further immersing myself in institutional-level Christianity.

I also have less patience than ever with the our-foundational-institutions-are-strong-enough-to-prevent-either-November-outcome-from-resulting-in-the-end-of-the-American-experiment take one occasionally encounters these days.

Really?

Should the tally favor Squirrel Hair, we can look forward to an abrupt freeze in relations with NATO, a protectionist trade policy that will immediately render ineffective the tax cuts he’ll dangle in front of conservatives to make them think he’s one of theirs, and the pardoning of the insurrectionists who were, Trumpist denials notwithstanding, trying to subvert the nation’s Constitutional order on January 6.

For starters.

Should the November result go the other way - well, it will be more of what we’re getting now.

The erosion of administration support for Israel will gather momentum:

of course, progressive antisemites are a minority within the Democratic Party. Nor do they represent American public opinion, which remains strongly supportive of Israel. But they’re highly visible. They make news. They make noise. And a significant number of them are young Americans, the toxic products of progressive education— you should pardon the oxymoron. They know nothing about the history or the current realities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, their heads are stuffed full of postmodern blather, they’re intolerant, dogmatic, self-righteous prigs. And Joe Biden needs their votes in 2024.

This explains the incoherence and fabulism that has come to characterize the Biden Administration’s policy—if that’s the word for it—in the course of the current Mideast crisis. The President and his foreign policy team are now engaged in an effort to align Israel’s war strategy with Joe Biden’s reelection strategy. The progressives scream that Israel is committing war crimes and demand a cease-fire; the administration fumes on background that Israel is not winding down the war quickly enough. The Israeli government very sensibly balks at committing to a peace plan before the war is concluded; the administration complains on background that Netanyahu is pandering to the “ultranationalist ministers” in his government while giving Joe Biden the finger.

“We supported you,” runs the self-serving message from Washington to Jerusalem. “Now you have to do what we say.”

The administration will show its willingness to undercut its purported fealty to “oppressed” demographics in the name of ascribing higher priority to ridding post-America of normal-people energy forms:

. . . the president’s decisions are plunging many of the country’s Native Americans deeper into poverty and making them more dependent on the federal government. Energy development on tribal lands not only helps decrease America’s dependence on foreign sources of energy but also provides vital income to tribes by creating jobs and making them less dependent on federal handouts. But under this administration, many tribes are being denied these win-win benefits.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland recently canceled existing oil and gas leases in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska and set aside more than 13 million acres that were previously available for energy exploration. She did so without proper consultation with local Native communities and after Congress passed a law authorizing the leases.

The repercussions are jarring. Oil and gas production on tribal lands dropped substantially over the past two years. The Interior Department is also cutting back on future production by cutting drilling permits on tribal lands by 60%. This is devastating for our nation’s tribes.

In testimony before Congress, Nagruk Harcharek, president of the Voice of the Arctic Inupiat, shared his community’s frustration, stating, “When Washington takes action in the Arctic, our people are an afterthought.” He added that Interior’s action “was done without consulting our people.”

The Navajo Nation is experiencing similar economic impacts of the administration’s misguided policies. This summer, Haaland finalized the withdrawal of oil and natural gas leasing surrounding the Chaco Culture National Historical Park in New Mexico. This action alone prevents 5,600 members of the Navajo Nation from developing the oil and natural gas they rightfully and legally own, depriving them of nearly $200 million over 20 years.

In this impoverished area, oil and natural gas royalties can help put food on the table. Many Navajos live in small trailers, some without running water and electricity. The median income is $20,000 a year, and for many, oil and natural gas royalties can bring in an additional $28,000 a year.

It’s little wonder the Navajo Nation Council said Haaland’s decision would cause Navajos to be “pushed into greater poverty.”

The reaction from the Navajo president to the administration’s decision was swift and sharp. “The Secretary’s action undermines our sovereignty and self-determination,” President Buu Nygren said. “Despite my concerns and denunciation, the Department of Interior has move[d] forward, which is highly disappointing. Secretary Haaland’s decision impacts Navajo[s] … but also disregards the tribe’s choice to lease lands for economic development.”

In Oklahoma, the Osage Nation faces the threat of heavier restrictions and higher costs to developing their oil and natural gas resources. The Biden administration sought to place many of the same controls on Osage lands that it has placed on other federal lands, as if they are the same.

Osage Minerals Council Chairman Everett Waller told media this year that permitting slowdowns by the Interior Department harmed his tribal community. “Their checks are going down, but their monthly bills are getting to where they can’t pay them,” Waller said. “It’s a livelihood that they need.”

Tribal production of coal is also under threat, including in Montana, where the Biden administration is delaying much-needed permits and threatening the operations of coal mines throughout the state, including those owned by tribal entities. Coal supports tribal entities such as those on the Crow Reservation. In fact, during Biden’s first two years in office, royalties for tribal coal production were cut in half compared to the previous two administrations. Biden’s support for a ban on coal leasing on federal land and attacks on coal-generated power will further perpetuate the cycle of dependency and poverty for the tribes he promised to empower with sovereignty and self-determination.

Again, that’s for starters. There’s Biden’s physical fragility, and all that that implies.

So while each of us still has sufficient agency to decide how we’re going to respond to what looms before us - I’ve concluded that the only moral choice is to stay home for the May primary and the November general election - the parameters are, shall we say, imposing.

It’s said that the ultimate philosophical question is, why not kill yourself?

As a person of Christian faith, however windswept, my answer is that I am called to be a witness to God’s glory for as long as He has a reason for me to be in this realm. Whether or not it’s going to be comfortable, of even safe, for me to remain here is quite secondary to that.

But that call to witness compels me, it seems to me, to point out to my fellow human beings peril that there is a chance, however infinitesimal, of avoiding.