Living History

 Today was indeed history-making, and it leaves me sad that I will likely not be around long enough to remark on it once sufficient time has passed to make it history. Unlike the dreadful day in 1963, when I was 12, and the PA system at Our Mother of Sorrows school in Johnstown crackled with the word of President Kennedy's assassination. JFK had been my first political idol, and though I felt devastated, I also had a clear sense of history being made, which gave me a bit of calming distance from the horror. I stared at the images during the funeral cortege and service, wanting to memorize every detail, knowing it was a transcendent moment in my young life.

I felt the same distance today from the absolute joy I wanted to feel at the historic events in Washington. The end of Trumpism and the swearing-in of Kamala Harris, who covers so many "firsts" in our history all by herself, was overwhelmingly emotional, yet tinged with the certainty that dear old Joe has a mighty long row to hoe. And I want to live long enough to see if the country emerges stronger, healthier, and more unified from what will take years, perhaps decades to accomplish. IF it happens at all. My confidence in the basic good will of my fellow Americans has been deeply shaken, and for every step in the direction of equality for all Americans, I see a two-step backlash. That half the citizenry would gladly follow a proven grifter, a shameless corrupt and incompetent huckster, mystifies and frightens me. They have fallen wholesale for the notion that Democrats are (shudder!) socialists, which has been effectively conflated with communists, and they cling to the thread-like hope one day to become part of the one percent at whom all those tax breaks and business deductions are really directed.

Not only do I sense this historic distance from today's events, I also feel the geographic distance as an ex-pat living in one of the ten worst-governed countries, according to La Prensa. My income level insulates me from the worst the dictatorship has wreaked on daily life for most Nicaraguans, but I have eyes and ears. Notably, jingoism and rampant nationalism are not in evidence here to the degree I see in the U.S. Racism either. Crimes of need, sure. Femicide, in a culture of machismo, yes. But nobody wants to interfere in another country's business, nobody feels entitled to crow about exceptionalism of any kind. And like most Americans, people here want decent housing, food on the table, reliable utilities, education, and healthcare. The rest is gravy. And why should they not aspire to gravy? And decent governance. 

Well, Joe, work to do. Work to do.