Grieving for a Lost Dream, or Lost Innocence?

This May Help You Through. Borrowing a Cup of Hope #4

Grieving is what I feel now. Others may feel it too, but for many they are grieving a loss of innocence. Historians are not feeling a loss of innocence; they are feeling a sense of recurring dread that we are doing things more dangerously now than ever before. But it’s not new. Trump isn’t just a bull in a china shop, he paints himself as a wrecking ball knocking down buildings. He’s weak in the sense that he can’t get things through Congress, so he sends out Royal Decrees. But I don’t think he can get away with all of it.

Fourteen states (including Minnesota) filed a lawsuit against Elon Musk’s efforts to dismantle the administrative state. From the NY Times, Feb. 13th 2025:

“The 14 states argued that Mr. Trump had violated the appointments clause of the Constitution by granting sweeping powers to Mr. Musk, who has ‘transformed a minor position that was formerly responsible for managing government websites into a designated agent of chaos without limitation,’ according to the complaint.” We will see if the courts have any effect at all on Trump’s momentum. President Andrew Jackson famously ignored the Supreme Court when ordered to protect the Cherokees of Georgia from encroaching Anglo settlers; from Wiki (Worcester v. Georgia): “President Andrew Jackson reportedly responded: ‘John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!’” Jackson may not have said this out loud, but he might as well have; he did ignore the rights of the Cherokee nation, leading to the genocidal Trail of Tears. And we are about to see what the Courts let Trump get away with.

Justice Roberts has allowed the Executive Branch to become more and more Royal with his executive immunity rulings. The question is, will Roberts allow the Judiciary to evaporate completely? Trump is “flooding the zone”, bashing away at how the government operates, both to keep people in the media from focusing, but also pursuing the destruction of legal processes like an arsonist setting brush fires in LA. It’s going to be hard to keep up with all the damaging ways he is breaking the law, and burning down the house.

The book “Hitler's Willing Executioners” is a 1996 book by Daniel Goldhagen. It documents how normal people decided to go with the flow, because they could not imagine the Nazis doing exactly what they said they would do.

Now we have the Republicans obediently working the checklist from Project 2025. Trump is breaking the law hourly, and his willing lackeys nod and smile. And if you thought that Senators and judges are going to restrain him, it may surprise you when they utterly fail.

For example, I have long given up on Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine). She has successfully sold herself as a “Moderate Republican.” I don’t know what Moderate means in theory, but in practice it means “expressing doubts” and then doing exactly what Trump wants. She has now rubber-stamped the entire clown-car lineup of cabinet nominees that Der Trumpfer nominated. Matt Gaetz, the most egregious nominee, was felled early as a sacrificial goat so that Republican Senators could say “See? We don’t take Just Anyone.” But that’s window dressing. Outrage over them all camouflaged the work to get Tulsi Gabbard through. She’s Putin’s Pal, now in charge of All Intelligence. From The Independent: “Let me put on the Americans, let’s show what Tulsi, our friend, is saying,” presenter Vladimir Soloviev, a pro-Putin journalist often labeled a propagandist, says in Russian before airing a portion of the Fox interview.” That’s almost 2 yeas ago (31 March 2022) and Republicans are A-Okay with that.

Collins famously believed Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh when he swore in her office he would not overturn Roe v Wade. She’s allowing herself to be snookered again.

The checks and balances are not checking and are now unbalanced. It’s hard to swallow how bad things are. And part of our sadness and anxiety is the death of our imagined vision of this nation. I heard it again and against in November: “I guess this isn’t the country I thought it was.”

That depends on how much history you have read. If you know about Reconstruction, you know about systematic legal discrimination, and the stolen election of Harrison v. Tilden. You know how Progressive Democratic President Woodrow Wilson re-segregated the Federal Government. You learn that Eisenhower sent the CIA to overthrow the elected socialist government of Iran to install the Shah because the socialists nationalized the oil business owned by BP and the British government. Most people can only read so much of this stuff before they turn their eyes away, sighing “How can this be?” Most Americans would rather not know.

I recommend Grieving, to get to the bottom of our anguish, and then begin a more realistic, resilient recovery. I resolve to come back with clear eyes and a somber but determined head. We are a violent, racist country, by and large, with some powerful moments where we can reverse course. “We’ve got some difficult days ahead,” said Dr. King.

Here’s a valuable, healing poem used in a Jewish service of grieving, called the Yahrzeit. It marks the first anniversary of the death of a loved one, and it guides us on how to move on through our grief. Go Deep, and then Come Back.

The Thing Is

by Ellen Bass

to love life, to love it even

when you have no stomach for it

and everything you’ve held dear

crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,

your throat filled with the silt of it.

When grief sits with you, its tropical heat

thickening the air, heavy as water

more fit for gills than lungs;

when grief weights you (down) like your own flesh

only more of it, an obesity of grief,

you think, How can a body withstand this?

Then you hold life like a face

between your palms, a plain face,

no charming smile, no violet eyes,

and you say, yes, I will take you

I will love you, again.

#30#