TOMORROW CREEPS IN ITS PETTY PACE

It's one o'clock in the afternoon on Monday, the 4th of November, the day before the national election. I am as troubled and sleepless as the next person, tossing around in my bed until the sheets are wrapped so tight around me I feel like a cheap cigar. I'll light up if Harris wins, and just lie there in bed on Wednesday if Trump succeeds and moan away my rage and disillusionment with American voters. The demon in all this is one Donald J. Trump, who has thrown his burger-eating bulk onto the American people these past four years, longer if you count his losses and one win in the years before. As Mary Trump, his niece, has said so often, this is a psychopathic narcissist obsessed with power and winning, goaded there by his malevolent father Fred. He is an abnormal outsider who can't tolerate the freedom voters have enjoyed for centuries, and who will buy the election with his billionaire cronies or bully it with his fanatics and cult leaders. Either way, he frightens off as many registered voters  as he can with talk of violence and civil war if he loses, and will stop at nothing to rig the results with the help of Mike Johnson, speaker of the House, and the Supreme Court, which has corrupted itself beyond redemption. It's the lowest point in American life since the Civil War broke out in 1861.

            So here I sit, in a chilly study, drapes drawn against the dismal autumn skies, with the trees stripped bare of leaves and color, and the landscape turning as gray as a German U-Boat I have had my second cup of coffee and am now trying to calm my nerves, though I know tomorrow will come and the results will likely remain uncertain for the next several days. A woman in my French village stopped me last summer and looked at me with a crooked smile, and asked me if Trump would be the next president. "No," I said, "It can't happen. He been indicted on 34 felony counts for his fraudulent business practices, and impeached twice in the Congress. I can't see how he could survive all this shame and humiliation and still be viable as a candidate." She looked unconvinced as she walked away. Why not? She's just old enough to remember the German occupation of WWII, the terrible betrayals of fellow citizens using the Vichy-run courts to seek revenge on neighbors and rivals. The food rations, the suicides, the purges of local governments, the starved and hopeless looks of children in the streets, the heroic, pathetic effort of the Resistance fighters to fight back. She has a point, and it has worked its way under my skin like a festering tick.

            I live in Vermont now, retired, an escapee from the precipitous descent of polity in Texas that has allowed ghouls like Greg Abbott to become governor and rule over the sprawling population with the iron fist of a dwarf Mussolini. On my way home from the market there are Trump signs in the fields, in front of houses, hanging from flag poles, stickered to bumpers, glowing red on MAGA hats. The so-called blue state of Vermont is hardly deep blue; it seethes with frustrated rage among farmers, the elderly, the old Republicans who haven't given up their domination of the state from forty years ago. They are the minority, thank god, but they are loud and persistent and will stare you down if you have to run an errand at one of their shops. No one seems ashamed to boast their allegiance to Trump's corrupt soul and his willingness to strip out climate change legislation, health care, union protections, Social Security, and all the rest of the careful acts that have tried to correct the inequities of one Congress after another following the orders of the plutocratic class.

            My insomnia is like a bad movie, with the faces of Ron DeSantis, Abbott, Rudy Giuliani, Steve Miller, Steve Bannon, and all the rest of the rogue's gallery of Trump's social circle floating across my eyes and vanishing into the dark ceiling of my bedroom. We're living through a new version of the fascism Lillian Hellman wrote about in her memoir, Scoundrel Time (1976). McCarthyism is back, and if Trump wins tomorrow, we can expect some new form of black listing to purge the universities of free thinkers, and to pore over the government payrolls to cherry-pick the lefties. State governments will likely follow the federal example and shrink their own institutions in the name of economizing to save tax payers the burden of having to pay for their protection. Did you ever think the worm-eaten RFK Jr. could rise to the level of a health official with power to shut down vaccinations, clinics, the FDA, the EPA, and anything else his ravaged mind could seize and dismantle? But that waits to be discovered come tomorrow if parts of our Democratic voting blocs choose to stay home because they disapprove of Harris' compliance with Biden's unconscionable cooperation with Netanyahu's attempt to erase the Palestinians from existence? I too am against the destruction of a once resilient Arab enclave forced to abide by the militant proxies paid for by Iran. But it's no use bickering over this tragedy when so much else will disintegrate if Trump wins.

            Another of my late-night fears looms before me when I think what could happen if the failing health of Trump should suddenly overwhelm him and leave us with the straw man, J.D. Vance. He is a know-nothing opportunist, a Matt Gaetz or a Brett Kavanaugh substitute, who will surely find power an alluring glass of whiskey he can imbibe until the distilleries run dry. Only then will we know what it's like to be a sailor on the Exxon Valdez careening to the Alaskan coast with a load of toxic, nature-killing crude oil. If you're as empty-headed as Vance, you might find nothing can stop you from pushing the red buttons of his nuclear suitcase. He might enjoy the rodeo-wild thrill he would feel when the bull throws him high in the air to the cheering of the crowds.

            I pause to hear the silence that grinds out emptiness all around the house, the solemn, tedious sound of nature without birds. The cold air muffles everything, as if it too holds its breath until tomorrow comes. It won't be the end of the world, but it will end some precious things we love and cherish and hold dear as Americans, and that would break any heart to lose. If you haven't voted because you haven't made up your mind which way to go, think about this: it takes the silence and indifference of the many to let a dictator come to power and destroy our character and beliefs as a nation. I'd vote again, if I could, but alas, I've turned in my ballot long ago, and have only my fingernails to chew on until I learn the truth of this election.