2018, Perhaps The Most Important Election EVER

Signs of a developing trend leading to the crucial midterm election on November 6 have been in abundance in early special elections. Americans almost always seem to reprimand the party holding the White House in elections held at the halfway mark of a president's term. (DAMN! It just dawned on me, that must be why they call them the "midterm elections." See, just give me a few decades and I can figure it out.) It doesn't always seem to mean that Americans dislike the president in office at the time, but all presidents step on some toes, and those with smarting toes are highly motivated to limp to the polls to vote, often leading their own party to turn out in large enough numbers to give anything from a nudge to an outright smack upside the head to the occupant at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, better known as the White House. There have been numerous special elections since Donald Trump took office in January 2017, and while these elections have produced a number of Democratic wins, including some stunning wins, even the Democratic losses have shown a major narrowing of the margins of Republican victories, compared to recent historical Republican margins in those regions. 

Thoughtful change often wins in the end, but it can take time and the question is, can American institutions and American ideals hold on long enough to win against a man who longs to destroy American democracy so that he can become the undisputed Führer of the United States? Republicans in Congress have knowingly rolled over for this strident, divisive and highly insecure president. Have we forgotten the longstanding question about Hitler and Germans? How could an educated and cultured people follow such a self centered and maniacal man like Hitler, a man with obvious emotional problems? We need not ask that question any longer, for the answer is right before our eyes in the United States of America, where a bigoted, resentful and spiteful old bastard with a bad hairdo has risen to lead this country (hey, Hitler had a bad hairdo too). The GOP has long cultivated the uneasiness of some white Americans about the attempts of black Americans, as well as other American minorities, like Latinos, women (who are actually a majority) and gays, to gain equality and fairness in our society. The thing is, in my lifetime, I have heard many divisive statements by American politicians, including, but not limited to, George Wallace* in the 1960s and 1970s, and David Duke** in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, but I've never heard a president of the United States use so much divisive rhetoric to further his own cause and to satisfy his own ego, as one Donald Trump, the unity of the country be damned!      

This upcoming election is likely to be a fight to the death. Are Democrats, independents and anti Trump Republicans ready? Trump and the complicit and enabling Republicans will do anything and everything to minimize their losses and hold onto their control of Congress. The Koch brothers, the Mercers and all of the other "take me back to a previous century" people will spend unprecedented amounts to further Republican control of government. They will say it is to further the Republican Party, but that party is now the party of Donald Trump, which they will NOT tell you. Will the election prove to be the beginning of Trump's political demise, or will he and Republicans emerge stronger than ever, and likely be able to suppress the rights of Americans to protest and to stop the media from reporting critical news articles about them? Vladimir Putin of Russia and Xi Jinping of China are Trump heroes, and they are dictators. We don't need to dig up Einstein to connect the dots for us to understand where Trump stands on democracy. This is all in front us, not hidden somewhere in the shadows of the news. Don't be in denial. Don't stick your head in the sand. We can't take our eyes off of them for one second. The young people of this country have stirred and have been springing into action. They can help to lead us through the potentially destructive nightmare of Trumpian fascism.

For the last couple of centuries, people around the world have looked to the United States as a beacon of hope. Some people have been inspired by the U.S. to pursue freedoms within their own respective countries, while others have left their homelands bound for American shores. We're seeing the light of that beacon flickering like a kerosene lamp running low on fuel. The question is, will WE choose to refill the lamp and keep this beacon of hope shining, or will we let the lamp go dry and extinguish its light, letting the path of hope go dark? We now have a man in office who praises dictators and judges people not as individuals, but by their ethnic, racial or religious backgrounds. That's what Führers do.


* George Wallace was the governor of Alabama in the 1960s, a time when desegregation of schools and public facilities was ongoing. For more on the issue of desegregation and racial politics, here are  two links: http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2017/09/the-former-confederacy-modern-american_8.html 

http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2017/09/the-former-confederacy-modern-american_15.html 

** David Duke is a long time member, and a former leader, of the "Ku Klux Klan," often known by its initials, "KKK," a racist and overall hate filled group dating to the post Civil War era in the American South. Duke was born in Oklahoma, but he has spent much of his life in Louisiana. As most Southerners of earlier times, Duke was a Democrat, and he sought office as such, but as Louisiana and the South, in general, moved more to the Republican Party, Duke changed to that party in the late 1980s. Duke became known for his anti Black American and anti Jewish views. 

WORD HISTORY:
Beacon-This word for "a light positioned on some high place to serve as a guide or warning, often for ships, but not exclusively so," goes back to Indo European "bhah," which had the notion, "to shine, to be bright, to appear as bright." This provided the later basis for West Germanic "bauknan" (English is West Germanic), meaning, "signal light." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "beacen/becn," meaning, "sign, signal." This then became "beken," before the modern version. The other Germanic languages have: German "Bake" (pronounced as if, "bahkeh") meaning, "traffic sign, railway signal," originally used in reference to "a fire set on a geographically high point or in a tower to provide sea navigation);" Low German Saxon "Baak" (sign or signal for ships), West Frisian "beaken" ("buoy"), Dutch "baken" ("beacon"). "Apparently," long ago, Old Norse, from the North Germanic branch of the Germanic languages, borrowed the word from Frisian as, "bákn," which meant, "signal, signal fire."^ This was passed down to the modern North Germanic languages as: Icelandic "bákn," which now means, "large stone column;" that is, "a column showing direction."

^ Centuries ago, the Frisian word was "baken/beken," and meant "signal or signal fire." Later, Frisian split into dialects, giving West Frisian the altered spelling and the narrowed meaning to the modern "buoy." Researching North Frisian is very hard, but it "seems" to have "beken," but I can't confirm that from multiple sources. North Frisian is spoken in the German region of North Frisia, which also includes a number of North Sea islands, called the North Frisian Islands (someone stayed awake late to come up with that name). Remember too, while North Frisian is the spoken regional language, standard German is taught to everyone in school.