This commentary is by Walt Amses, a writer who lives in North Calais.
The snow is still falling but appears to be winding down. It’s a little past 6 a.m. The darkness is lifting as dawn breaks behind a thick layer of gray overcast. A late April nor’easter has left 6 or 8 inches of heavy, wet snow overnight.
The power is out and, save the occasional dull thump of snow falling from the roof or one of the sagging pine trees near the house, it is deadly quiet. Two large ravens are picking through the weekend’s compost. Ever vigilant, they’re 100 feet from the house but they take flight the moment I look their way, even though I’ve not yet reached the window.
Although this kind of weather emphasizes the solitude of living out here — which I mostly love — it also offers a rare, distraction free moment, thoughts spurred on by nothing much beyond myself. Taken out of my normal, electronic wakeup routine, I momentarily resist ceding control but quickly surrender, letting the morning take me where it will.
But while I wonder if the snow will quell the lustful wood frogs in the wetland or dissuade the loons returning to the newly ice-free series of ponds along our road, the ponderous silence draws me in an entirely different, more troubling direction.
With an infusion of genuine fear, I realize that, while my surroundings are idyllic, almost perfect, there isn’t insulation enough to offer protection from the battles raging across the globe. Even as our Covid-19 death toll approaches one million souls, we don’t appear to comprehend our growing vulnerability to other pandemics such as rabid nationalism and the spread of ethnic hatred; wars of oppression, territory, genocide and religious fanaticism; and the growing threat of autocracies around the world, including here at home.
Worse yet, one of our major political parties is playing an increasingly dangerous game that we ignore at our peril.
Just as it was an incredible shock that Vladimir Putin’s Russia unleashed a savage attack on Ukraine, voters here will be dumbfounded in the too-near future, learning ballots they cast were deemed illegitimate by the state Legislature simply because they chose the “wrong” candidate.
But being purposefully ignorant is no excuse for shock. Putin’s resume includes military incursions into Georgia, killing thousands of civilians in Chechnya, bombing hospitals in Syria and two previous forays into eastern Ukraine. Why would it be remotely surprising that, with no intervention by the world at large, Putin continues being Putin?
Despite being out of step with the majority of the country, American radical conservatives have for years been laying the groundwork to get what they want by undermining democracy and establishing the mechanism for minority rule. The assumption among these players must be that American voters are fast becoming complete morons. Why else would they tolerate the party’s flirtation with autocracy and utterly absurd candidate endorsements?
At a recent Conservative Political Action Committee meeting in Orlando, speaker after speaker praised Hungary and its Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a far-right nationalist and fellow traveler who has initiated laws that hinder the human rights of the LGBTQ+ community and been antagonistic toward immigration. In an alarming step perhaps designed toward forming an alliance with Orban, who was supported for reelection by the Former President, CPAC has scheduled a May gathering in Budapest.
But a couple of POTUS Emeritus’ domestic appointments make his dalliance with Orban seem downright brilliant and further the case for true believers to take an emergency IQ test. Why would anyone think Herschel Walker, former football star with transparently glaring mental health issues and a history of lying about most everything, would be a viable Senate candidate? Termed a “serial fabricator” by MSNBC, Walker claims founding institutions that don’t exist; academic achievement, like graduating college in the top 1 percent (he didn’t graduate at all) and valedictorian of his high school; owning several businesses among the largest minority-owned in the country.
The Former Guy, who apparently cannot help being mesmerized by star power, is also backing Mehmet Oz for a Senate run in Pennsylvania, largely because he was on television, throwing the MAGA faithful into a tizzy and illustrating once again that the trivialization of American politics matters not at all: “Being on TV is like a poll, it means people like you,” he explained, “He said I was in extraordinary health, which made me like him even more.”
Oz, of course, is just as bizarre an endorsement as Walker, given his own disreputable hawking of snake oil, prompting accusations of “quack treatments” and an “egregious lack of integrity” by the medical community. But in the larger picture, Doc and the Jock are just two more examples of our democracy not being taken seriously and aren’t even close to the Former’s worst endorsements this year, which include sexual predators and perpetrators of domestic violence.
Late afternoon seems to have arrived pretty quickly and although the snow stopped hours ago, the power just flickered back to life. I still don’t know where the country is headed but I know, unless we smarten up, we won’t like it when we get there.
My laptop with some lingering juice, a dog-eared old notebook and No. 2 Dixon Ticonderoga saw me through the day. Awkward at first, my fingers took to the still deeply embedded Palmer Method in a matter of minutes and rolling out some graphite cursive felt pretty good for a change.
