As T.S. Eliot expressed in his “Little Gidding” section of Four Quartets, so do I feel right now:

The dove descending breaks the air
With flame of incandescent terror
Of which the tongues declare
The one discharge from sin and error.
The only hope, or else despair,
Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre —
To be redeemed from fire by fire.

I’m an American. So, naturally, many of my current thoughts are consumed with the upcoming election on Tuesday, November 3rd, 2020. Oh, 2020! You Twilight Zone. You culmination. You convergence. The year of years.

People on the right say everything will go to hell unless we re-elect Mr. Donald Trump. Mr. President himself. People on the left say everything will go to hell unless we elect Joe Biden. It almost seems the choice between a mental patient and a dementia patient.

Well, as Pete Spiliakos would say, the argument of “this is the election to end all elections,” the argument of “we are doomed or saved by this election,” that is not an argument about or against this election; it is an argument against elections period! If you really believed that, wouldn’t you just want your man (or woman) to seize power and keep it?

Are we, like my good friend David Malone has expressed, a country on the express lane to eternal fire regardless of who wins the 2020 presidential competition?

I certainly hope not.

When I tweeted about this two days ago, Titus Techera replied with an exhortation which I would like to paraphrase in the next paragraph, as I completely agree with the sentiment he expressed:

One election is not enough to save America. Even so, the people coming to a realization that we must curb our current craziness and claw our way back to respect for law, order, and democracy, that could save America. People learning to fear the thing FDR wisely, but perhaps too vaguely, called “fear itself” — that being the dangers and evil that come with and from hysteria — could save America. Leaders, the ones who actually want to lead, losing their contempt and neglect of the people could save America.

America is not lost yet. One election will not lose her either. However, if we are to keep her, the people as a whole, and her leaders, must learn to save her.