FIRE IN THE BUILDING

Warning: there are no gratuitous dog photos today when we need them most

I walked into the gym yesterday, and my normally cheerful friend had a look on her face as if someone had died. “What’s wrong? What has happened”?’ I asked. She looked up at me her eyes full of shock. “I’ve been reading my social media posts.”

I knew immediately what she meant.

I am finding it increasingly difficult to go about regular life. Not because my life is any more difficult than anyone else’s, but because I am wracked by the question: What should I be doing? I have taken the stability and safety of my country for granted—not without gratitude—but with the assumption that it would continue in my lifetime, although probably with the gradual erosion that accompanies all great republics.

Whatever else happens, my sense of myself as an American has been shaken forever. We are being made pariahs on the world stage: Pariahs and laughing stocks: figures of ridicule and contempt. We are not guardians, or allies. We are not friends with bad taste and loud voices. We are not to be envied, but to be feared and fearful. We have nothing to be proud of. There is only shame.

Americans are being shot on the street by agents of our government. And the government is justifying it. The President, the Vice President, and their cabinet are encouraging it. Do we expect that this will be end of it?

Sometimes I am out on some errand and I look at the other people in their cars, in the stores, going to work, to school, keeping appointments, and I wonder: How are we all going around as if everything is normal? Everything is on the edge of absolute chaos. One more shooting and the streets will be full of protests. Then comes martial law. Then comes no more elections.

And suddenly, we are Venezuela.

Meanwhile, the instability we have created is an opportunity for China, for Russia, for every bad actor in the world, with consequences that will make World War II look like a picnic. The destruction of our health infrastructure is the opportunity for another pandemic, while we are incapable of rising to meet it. You know that line that people used to drop into routine political conversations “People will die?” Well, I’m not rolling my eyes anymore. Because people are actually dying. Right now.

I know you all come here for calm and reassurance. I have none left. All those casual Trump voters who waved away the danger; all the Democrats in charge who for four years dithered, not closing the loopholes; not pressing to bring cases promptly to trial, not making sure there was sturdy opposition; all my former Republican friends who were too spineless to defend the Constitution they used to love to pull out of their pockets as proof of their bona fides; everyone who said “It won’t be that bad, we’ll get through it, it will be good for the economy;” all the so-called Christians who turned away from fundamental decency in order to accomplish some end or other; May they all go straight to Hell.

Decades ago, I was shopping with my sister in a chic underground mall in downtown Pittsburgh. Suddenly the fire alarm started going off. People continued to browse, to make their purchases, acting as if nothing was wrong. My sister and I looked at one another. “Do you think it’s a false alarm?” we asked each other. My response was immediate. “Let’s get out of here.” As we went swiftly up the steps to the street, we could hear the fire engines screaming toward us. Even though it did turn out to be a false alarm, the emergency call went out, and the fire department responded, ready to fight.

We will not get through this crisis if we continue to behave as if there’s nothing wrong. This is not a false alarm. The fire alarm is ringing. There is smoke in the building. The flames are running up the stairwells.

And no one is running for the hoses.