On November 5, 2024, over seventy million Americans proved themselves to be morons. In spite of all they saw from 2016-2020, including an insurrection, they voted for an insane, malignant grifter to be the world’s most powerful person.  They chose to reinstall and impose upon our daily consciousness not only Orange Caligula-in-chief, but also his horrible, thieving family of gargoyles.  

My personal definition of the term “moron” isn’t meant in the early twentieth century sense which described a person whose intelligence fell in the IQ scale somewhere between imbecile and idiot.  Certainly, there is idiocy and imbecility aplenty but I consider it moronic to care so little about the values upon which our country is based.  No doubt there is much to criticize and be disappointed about on the progressive side of the political spectrum but, at least, that side is still trying to achieve American ideals.

After the 2016 election I tried hard to “understand” how it happened.  I tried (though generally failed) to excuse the result by telling myself some combination of the following: 1.  A few million votes were “protest” votes by people who didn’t actually think Caligula would win; 2. Some of his voters truly had been long ignored by the powers-that-be, so their vote was somehow not or, at least, not exclusively, based upon a toxic mix of ignorance and bigotry; and, 3. Hillary was not a dynamic campaigner and she neglected to visit such crucial states as Wisconsin and Michigan, so she and her campaign shared responsibility.

But these excuses no longer apply.  Despite limited time, Kamala campaigned energetically, if imperfectly, and left no stone unturned.  Her running mate, Tim Walz, also worked feverishly and dynamically, in contrast to the charisma-challenged non-entity known as Tim Kaine, who ran with Clinton.  (How many people could have produced his name quickly enough to win at Jeopardy)?

The aforementioned seventy-plus million have no excuses.  Most are low-information haters, happy to dump on people they somehow perceive as below them on the social ladder.  Some, however, are not ignorant and may not even be bigots, but vote purely based upon their perceived financial interests.  These are the millionaires and billionaires who crave their tax cuts above any and all other considerations.  Relatively speaking, they don’t care about equality based on race or gender, or the environment, or sane gun laws, or qualified and impartial judges, or America’s role in the world, or America’s tradition of, at least, TRYING to attain, in reality, the ideal: “All men are created equal.”  These are well-educated, sometimes super-well-educated graduates of Ivy-level schools who simply feel the addition of, or preservation of, several thousand additional dollars each year is worth whatever muck the nation and the world will be dragged through.

For years, I wondered how republicans could live with themselves.  I wondered, “Don’t these people have grandchildren?  Don’t they care about the future?”  Recently, however, I’ve read studies showing people really do NOT think much about the future, only the present and immediate decade or two ahead.  Not only republicans, but progressives, too, don’t care as much about future generations as I thought.  

But crises are coming at us now, in real time, not in some distant future.  Climate-change deniers as well as thinking people are being flooded now, not 30 years from now.  Insurance rates are skyrocketing now in places like Florida and North Carolina where the republican-dominated legislatures disallow consideration of future flooding or sea level rise in building codes.  Mass murders are occurring now.  Reproductive rights, even for blonde people in Texas, are in crisis now.  

My screed could continue for pages and pages but, it’s exhausting and fruitless to contemplate so much hate, so much ignorance, so much short-sightedness.  I refuse to beat around the bush anymore lest some feelings be hurt.  I despise the cult members and the creature they’ve let loose upon us once again.  When the world is unlivable in fifteen or twenty years, due to the climate, political and social chaos about to envelop us, if I’m still around to see it, “I told you so” may well be my final words.