The October squib
Well.
For the past few days we've been treated to a dump of most-likely-forged "evidence" against Joe Biden's son Hunter. The leaks have been so pathetic that both Twitter and Facebook clamped down on their dissemination as misinformation.
The latest travesty is a sitting Senator going on Fox News and averring that Hunter Biden's hard-drive contained child pornography.
This is what desperation looks like. Donald Trump and his feckless party are headed for a drubbing of historical proportions. The GOP had a choice when Trump was winning the primaries in 2016. It could have stood on the side of decency and truth, and shown itself as something other than a party interested only in power. Instead, after some noises, it threw its lot in completely with Trump. It sowed the wind. And it took a while, but the whirlwind is coming, and it's coming to wipe it away.
Will the GOP cease to exist on Nov. 3, 2020? No, of course not. It will linger on, as the contenders vie to claim the carcass. The most humorous thing is Nimrata Randhawa, aka "Nikki Haley", thinking that she will be able to claim the Trumpist mantle from the likes of Tom Cotton or Josh Hawley. If she thinks that they won't plaster photos of her Sikh parents all over the place and scupper her paltry chances, well, that just shows how not ready for prime time she is. The GOP is now a racist cult, and the only people of color allowed inside its dank precincts are those who know their place, and elevate white power. They can run for Congress, but nothing else. Party leadership is for their white betters.
Considering that this still-new century is likely to not be Euro- or American-centric, one would think it would behoove white people to learn how to live in a world vastly different from the one which they thought they'd be in. I think most will. But there will be those who will go down with the ship, sure in their superiority. They're the ones who will become increasingly unhinged, supported from abroad with greater and greater vehemence. The future doesn't belong to the Orbans and the Putins. It belongs to those who braved stormtroopers to protest racial injustice. The arc of history, and so on.
However, the death throes will be something to watch. And they may cause much chaos. Birth is not peaceful. Neither is rebirth. The 21st Century will be that of the formerly dispossessed. Those of us who lorded it over them would be well-advised to keep that in mind.
As we enter the end run of this time, it's best to remember that ancient Vulcan proverb: Only Nixon can go to China. Likewise, only an old white man like Joe Biden can soft land us to a new reality. This will not be a new American Century. It might be something greater: a true human civilization, one which will not be limited to one people, one country, one continent. It will be born in pain, as all birth is. But it had the promise of being glorious.
We are on the cusp of vitiating all the old hatreds, the old prejudices. As we face global calamities, we truly have no other choice. The future is there, for us to take it. We dare not fail.