Irreversible damage

All it takes is the passage of a few days for us to reach a new level of abandoning who we've been

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I guess the place to start is to lay everything on the table.

I am overcome with contempt, disgust, bitterness and fear. Not even the understanding that I will be with my Lord in eternity - of which I am utterly convinced - assuages this.

It was only a few days ago that I got all analytical and framed the current set of circumstances as a major tectonic shift that only occasionally occurs in the life of our country.

It’s that, but it’s more. Donald Trump is taking a sledgehammer to Western civilization. Europe understands that post-America doesn’t care about the continent’s fate. It is encouraging to see Friedrich Mertz, Donald Tusk, Mette Frederiksen, Emmanuel Macron, and Keir Starmer come to the understanding that Europe is now on its own.

I say “encouraging,” but that’s within the context of the grave damage that’s been done. The post-American shakedown of Ukraine for its natural resources, the firings of generals, including the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and their replacements by Trump loyalists, the appointments of utter clowns to head the FBI, leadership of all the federal government’s intelligence agencies, and the Defense Department, the post-American refusal to sign onto a G7 statement placing the blame for the Ukraine war on Russia, the statement that Zelensky “has no cards” and that it’s not important for him to be at meetings about the fate of his country have already rearranged the dynamics in profound and irreversible ways.

Let’s also remember that Israel qualifies as a Western nation, not only in terms of how its government is structured and its relatively free-market economy, but also as a result of its being the cradle of the Judeo-Christian understanding of the nature of God. And that all the Very Stable Genius offers as a solution to the war Israel is fighting against baby murderers is the mass transferral of Gaza’s residents to other places, none of which are willing to take them in. And also to frame a post-war scenario in real estate developer terms.

Then there’s the constant talk of tariffs, which are set to fuel inflation and have already antagonized post-America’s two immediate neighbors, Canada and Mexico.

There is no overarching set of principles guiding any of this. The world is becoming a more dangerous place by the hour because of the Very Stable Genius’s need to be glorified.

I’m sorry there’s not some mitigating beam of sunlight in what I’m offering today. It’s affecting my relationships to people in my personal life, and I am greatly dismayed by this.

But fellow citizens who think a quick glance at news headlines once a day before setting out to tend to their personal lives is sufficiently being informed are going to be in for a rude shock sooner rather than later.

I don’t want that to happen.

That’s why this is so prominent among my thoughts. I’ve used the phrase “squandering our birthright” before, going back to at least the Obama era, and properly so. But the deed is done now. We are no longer a city shining on a hill. We no longer stand for anything but distraction, amusement and the enthusiasm of mobs.

I suppose I’ve said my piece on this. Just consider me terrified.