Every day as I watch the latest national news, events which would have left me astounded and at the edge of disbelief as little as two years ago now seem normal, ordinary, and common place.  Perhaps it’s not as bad as being unsurprised by verified reports that an alien spacecraft has crashed in the Smoky Mountains, but it feels that way.  I have become so jaded by the rush of one totally unlikely event after another, after another, that I often have the remind myself, “Remember, this isn’t normal”.

If a political commentator had predicted five years ago even 10% of the unlikely events we have experienced in the last two years, he would have quickly lost all respect.  No writer, no matter how imaginative and talented, could have possibly created a work of fiction with a series of events so unlikely and unreal.  The phrase that best describes our situation is, “You can make this stuff up!”

Let’s pause and take stock of just a few of the events and revelations which have shaken our world to its very core:

• A candidate who was caught on tape bragging that he sexually molested women was elected President of the United States.
• That candidate was also accused by 13 women of sexual molestation and he still won.
• That candidate ridiculed gold star parents, the disability of a reporter and and his fellow candidates in graphic terms he still won.
• We have learned that an unfriendly foreign power may well have played a pivotal role in determining the election of the President of the United States.
• We have been shown evidence that the campaign staff and family members of a presidential candidate were willing to collude with that intelligence operatives unfriendly foreign power.
• We have come to realize that the President of the United States  not only exhibits all of the classic symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder, but that he also is a pathological liar.
• We have looked on the President of the United States has repeatedly show admiration for a leader of an antagonistic foreign power and other dictatorial strong men while dismaying and alienating our best allies.
• We have observed as the president regularly tries to destroy the judicial branch of our government and our free press, two of the four pillars of our democracy, as well as trying to discredit his own Justice Department.

Is it any wonder that we have grown numb and have begun to view previously unthinkable events and situations as not only plausible, but normal?  Can we blamed if we no longer bat an eye when the President is accused of having unprotected sex with a porn star right after the birth of his son, when his lawyer’s office is raided by the FBI, or when he starts tariff war with  our most important trading partners?

However, we cannot lose our sense of horror, disdain and disgust.  This is not normal and we cannot allow the behavior and deportment of this president to become the new norm for the future leaders of our country.  If there any good to come from this massive insult to our democracy, let it be this – that we will learn from this colossal mistake and labor diligently never repeat it.  We need to accept that there are those among us who are gullible enough to swallow enumerable lies, degenerate enough to enjoy massive disruptions of our society, and depraved enough to tolerate the shameful behavior in our leaders.  We must never again allow this segment of society outnumber us in the voting booths and again chose who governs us.

Cajun     4/29/2018