Today I Am Again Ashamed to Be An America

Other than the morning after the 2016 presidential election, I do not think I have ever felt so depressed politically and saddened by the abject moral bankruptcy of far too many Americans.  Friends and neighbors who pretend to be decent moral people continue to demonstrate that they are anything but as they support an occupant of the White House who is the living embodiment of moral bankruptcy and now, the appointment of an unfit individual to the Supreme Court.  A court whose rulings will now lack any legitimacy in the eyes of what I hope is a majority of Americans.  We got to this point, of course, thanks to those too lazy to bother to vote in 2016 and now, the country may be at the point of no return.  The midterm elections are the last chance to stop the descent into authoritarianism and the normalization of the reprehensible.  If those who stayed home in 2016 do so again, it's over,  Did truly decent Germans feel such despair when they saw Hitler cement his lock on power?  

I am not the only one despondent.  At a Hindu client's birthday party last evening (perhaps one of the most responsible and hard working communities in the country), there was lamenting about the state of affairs.  The young black male cab driver who brought me home worried what would happen under a white Christofascist controlled Court and vowed to vote and get out as many others to do so as possible. Educated white women - many of who now view "Christians" with contempt and rightfully so - who see bad omens ahead.  What unites us all is a fear that our rights (and possibly our safety) will be curtailed so that an angry minority can feel good about themselves.  We are also disturbed by the sham investigation conducted by the FBI at Der Trumpenführer's apparent direction.  As a letter to the editor in the Los Angeles Times notes, the "investigation" seemed to have one goal: clear Kavanaugh and ignore any witnesses that might corroborate his misdeeds.  This is what one would expect in Putin's Russia or the Soviet Union of old - or Hitler's Germany.  Here are article excerpts:

We are, at last, a Third World nation. As the FBI’s work on Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh shows, we pick and choose how justice will be served; we investigate selectively; we make decisions based on what will help the plutocrats and oligarchs; we’re blind to injustice.

Congress passes laws that harm the public while asserting that the “little guy” will benefit. Lawmakers cherry-pick facts and pretend that they’re telling the truth and then blame the opposition for omissions.

We are Turkey, we are Egypt, and the White House and the congressional majority find that acceptable.

We are a country in desperate need of a 21st century Joseph Welch — someone who will face off against abusive officials and ask them, in front of the nation, “Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”  In the 1950s, the country applauded. Now, the answer to Welch would be, “No, but that’s OK.”

How do we reverse the descent of America into something foul and ugly?  At this late point, voting for Democrats on November 6, 2018, is our last chance.  If Democrats can win control of the House of Representatives, perhaps the much needed investigations into Trump and Kavanaugh will belatedly take place.  A piece in the New York Times shows what could happen:

House Democrats will open an investigation into accusations of sexual misconduct and perjury against Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh if they win control of the House in November, Representative Jerrold Nadler, the New York Democrat in line to be the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said on Friday.

Speaking on the eve of Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation vote this weekend, Mr. Nadler said that there was evidence that Senate Republicans and the F.B.I. had overseen a “whitewash” investigation of the allegations and that the legitimacy of the Supreme Court was at stake. He sidestepped the issue of impeachment.

“It is not something we are eager to do,” Mr. Nadler said in an interview. “But the Senate having failed to do its proper constitutionally mandated job of advise and consent, we are going to have to do something to provide a check and balance, to protect the rule of law and to protect the legitimacy of one of our most important institutions.”

He said that if Democrats took power, he would expect the committee to immediately subpoena records from the White House and the F.B.I., which conducted an abbreviated supplemental background investigation into two of the misconduct claims. That document request would include communications between officials at both entities.

The committee would also seek to interview Judge Kavanaugh’s accusers and the dozens of potential witnesses they identified in recent days, most of whom were not contacted by the F.B.I. He said he would also call the F.B.I. director, Christopher A. Wray, to testify.

I pray that voters will get out and vote and set the stage for this to happen.  This is the most important election of my lifetime.  If Democrats fail to retake control the House, it's over for America.  Then the only question is whether one stays or chooses to leave.